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Wireless Networking Hardware

LA Cops get Wi-Fi Drive By Access 168

Posted by CmdrTaco from the how-long-before-the-warchalking-starts dept.
An anonymous reader writes " A PC World.com article: "the Los Angeles Police Department plans to install 27 wireless local area networks (WLANs) at police stations throughout the city in the next three months, according to Roger Ham, deputy chief for communications at the LAPD. Ham says he plans to equip police cars with handheld computers from Symbol Technologies. The handheld devices will be equipped with 802.11b WLAN cards that communicate in the unlicensed 2.4-GHz band with access points installed in police stations at a raw data rate of 11 megabits per second-far faster than the 19.2-kilobits-per-second throughput in the department's 800-MHz wide area network (WAN) installed by Motorola two years ago and covering the city. Will Strauss, an analyst at Forward Concepts, called Ham's plan "a cheap way to get bandwidth" that would allow LAPD units to periodically pick up high-bandwidth data as they pass by police stations equipped with WLAN systems."
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LA Cops get Wi-Fi Drive By Access More

LA Cops get Wi-Fi Drive By Access

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  • Poor choice of words (Score:5, Funny)

    by positive ( 12069 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:04AM (#5578128)
    Gah, don't put LA and Drive By in the same sentence!

  • LA and Drive By (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:05AM (#5578135)
    LA and Drive By Two things that go together better than Michael Jackson and little boys.

  • DUCK! (Score:5, Funny)

    by AlaskanUnderachiever ( 561294 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:06AM (#5578138) Homepage
    I can't be the only one that instantly associated LAPD and Driveby am I?

  • Must be fun... (Score:4, Funny)

    by ChaoticChaos ( 603248 ) <l3sr-v4cf@NOspaM.spamex.com> on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:06AM (#5578139)
    ...to drive a police car and surf for pr0n at the same time. ;-)
    • Yes, it must. Not every grown man, unlike you, feels the need to masturbate to a digital picture on his computer screen. Do you really think that the sysadmins in such a network would allow that kind of filth or even general Internet traffic to their network?

      Please think about it ...
    • LAKELAND - One Lakeland police officer was disciplined and another resigned after allegations they exchanged computer messages derogatory to the chief and dispatchers. Former Sgt. Monty Mathis and Officer William Knobloch, both of the traffic division, were caught exchanging messages that referred to the police chief and several dispatchers as clueless and to an accident victim with a severe brain injury as a turnip, police officials said Thursday.

      (from Tampa Tribune cached on google [216.239.33.100])

    • Re:Must be fun... [OT] (Score:3, Interesting)

      by thynk ( 653762 )
      I drove from CO to KS and back yesterday. The main thought on my mind was - what if even car on the road had a WAP configured to talk to every other car on the road, and to look for WAN access to the net - creating a HUGE mobile network. I'd be a LOT less upset by a traffic snarl if I could read /. AND the kids would of been a lot less roudy if they could surf cartoon network on the trip. Heck, could be a neat way to meet that hot blond in the BMW next to you.

      I seem to remember hearing this idea before

      • Re:Must be fun... [OT] (Score:2, Informative)

        by bobKali ( 240342 )
        Robert X. Cringley suggested that a while back. Seems like a good idea...but I'm just a little apprehensive about cars with more distractions in them. I'm already seeing an increasing number of cars with LCD TV screens on dashboards. I've even seen a few (ok, 2) people driving around watching pornos on them (I assUme they weren't driving stickshifts - but I didn't try to get a look in to verify that.)

        I can just see those "Hang up and drive" bumper stickers being replaced with "Quit surfing and drive" st
      • ...to drive a police car and surf for pr0n at the same time. ;-)

      They could classify this as "research for a sting operation", and just forget to sting...
    • And the first thing that will happen is that their system will get hacked. Nothing better than sending out spams with the LAPD's IP on it!

  • Please... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by koh ( 124962 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:06AM (#5578140) Journal
    Ham says he plans to equip police cars with handheld computers from Symbol Technologies.

    Please ensure the handhelds are soldered to the car. If they're lost or stolen our state-of-the-art cops will have trouble saving face.

    • Re:Please... (Score:3, Funny)

      by d3kk ( 644538 )
      What good would that do? [rockstargames.com]
    • The system could be setup to only allow specific MAC addresses to connect, so a lost/stolen handheld could easily be denied access. Although it's not foolproof, it will fool the average joe.

      Hell, the system can be setup up to alert the cops at the station when he tries to use his stolen unit as well.

    • They could always use Xcellenet (a management utility, works with Palm and WinCE based devices), which allows you set up the device to be wiped cleaner than an egg if they ever reconnect to the network once they have been marked stolen.

  • probably require s (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stonebeat.org ( 562495 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:08AM (#5578148) Homepage
    VPN tunnel, and 2-factor authentication (RSA secureID), to get connected. otherwise it would be very unsecure.

    • Re:probably require s (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pi_rules ( 123171 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @01:41PM (#5578700)
      I'm seeing way too many of these posts. It's a non-issue folks. If you read the article (I skimmed it) you'll see they see it being used for:

      • Sending mug-shots over the air.
      • Sending maps.
      • Sending Amber Alert pictures.


      They need it for -- pictures. None of which are sensitive information. Mug shots can be obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Amber Alert pictures are intended to be public, and last I knew maps of your local town weren't a closely guarded government secret.

      Besides, do you really want police having information that's too secret for you? I sure don't.
      • it's operational information - if the crims know that the cops are looking for larry, they can tell larry to stay low.

        if all the cops get a map marked with "this where we're gonna raid", then, well, that's not stuff you want out in the general community.
        • Well, given that I'm sitting here with a radio scanner dropping in on the local police department's communications I can hardly think that WiFi is really going to be a huge reason for them to finally get secure.

          Radio shack scanner to hit current air waves: $100 USD, maybe less.

          802.11b capable laptop: $1000 USD, perhaps less, but nowhere near 100 dollars.

          They didn't get with the program when it was cheap to eaves drop... and at long range. Why the snot would they start eavesdropping on the police only a

  • 802.11b now ... but 802.11g in the future (Score:5, Interesting)

    by madro ( 221107 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:09AM (#5578152)
    Ham said that he views WLANs as a stopgap measure and that police departments around the country need additional WAN spectrum ... large police departments would eventually need to buy wideband WAN service from commercial cellular carriers

    I think this guy's got the right idea, deploying wireless stuff around police stations ... but the article focuses on 802.11b when 802.11g is supposed to offer a substantial boost in performance -- can't they just upgrade their equipment when 11g gets stable instead of having to use up other parts of the spectrum?
    • ...can't they just upgrade their equipment when 11g gets stable instead of having to use up other parts of the spectrum?

      From what I've read, 802.11g becomes significantly less reliable than the b variety at the same ranges. In other words, range here might be a more critical concern than throughput. Just a guess...

    • They could upgrade the Access Points, yes. For the LAPD however, if I was running the show, I'd be waiting till 802.11g is a proven technology, and that Symbol could produce decent equipment around the 802.11g standard.

      Other things of note:
      Symbol Technologies have not released an 802.11g capable device (Hand Held or Access Point) yet. The Symbol devices are very rugged, and they need a very long battery life if they are to be used in the field for any length of duration. Changing anything, including the

  • Groan (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:10AM (#5578158)
    So does this make them Ham Radios?

  • Security of their network? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rickthewizkid ( 536429 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:11AM (#5578159)
    I wonder... 802.11 has large security holes... It's only a matter of time before someone snorts the WEP key and gains access to the system.

    It _would_ make it a lot easier to -say- make your speeding tickets "disappear" etc...

    RickTheWizKid
    ..."you can NOT leave the magic!"

    • Re:Security of their network? (Score:5, Informative)

      by spanky1 ( 635767 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:21AM (#5578192)
      Some 802.11 implementations are very secure. Cisco, for example, doesn't use a static WEP key like home 802.11 equipment. The only wireless equipment I would trust with sensitive data is made by Cisco. For home use though I buy the cheap stuff and use 128-bit WEP with MAC filtering.
      • I have been wondering that since Cisco is going to aquire Linksys, if the new linksys stuff will use the LEAP auth also...
      • As it stands it would take me less than two days to crack your network with moderate use.

        MAC auth is so easy to fake I wouldn't even bother.
        • Have you sniffed on a Cisco access point? How many packets had weak encryption? I sent loads of data through a access point in our lab. Airsnort did not get enough packets to decrypt the web key, even if it sniffed the entire night.
          • I have and I think that cisco is pretty secure if it's using LEAP. If it's not, it's just as insecure.

            WEP all uses 24bit IV keys and that's the problem.

            Use kismet and don't channel hop. Use the network for a few hours and do some math.

            Figure out when your wep key will be able to be cracked and besure to change it before it's time.

            It's possible.

            Also there is also the fact that someone can attempt to crack the 24bit IV with brute force on their workstation but this is less common. Infact I know of only o
    • Since they mention they are using the Symbol units, I feel I should mention something about the Symbol Access Points (and their units).

      Firstly, Symbol now support a system they call Keyguard(tm) that basically adds TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol). This uses the inital wep key that is programmed into the units as an initalisation vector (or as set by some other authentication method, like Kerberos), and only as a data transport for key management when there is no other key. The keys are automatically
    • anyone with any experience in Wireless nows that WEP is an insecure method of communication that is brute force breakable.

      It is therefore easier to assume that all WEP protected comms are effectively plain text.

      It is from this position that one should build the network.

      Personally I would be using Inferno [vitanuova.com]

      from http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno/papers/bltj.html [vitanuova.com]

      Security in Inferno

      Inferno provides security of communication, resource control, and system integrity.

      Each external communication channel may
  • Either they would have to have high power transmitters or put the AP's close to the road. Another option would be to use a nice yagi....

  • increased efficiency (Score:5, Funny)

    by whovian ( 107062 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:14AM (#5578167)
    "Hey Stan, it says here there is a new donut shop up ahead on Wilshire. We can even order over online! You game? I'll buy."
    • They will be more than doubling their donut ordering efficency, soon they will be able to control robitic units through the WLAN, making more time for "investigating" that "big crime scene" over at Winchell's. (usually refering to the lack of chocolate glazed)

  • WiFi Security Issues (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hillct ( 230132 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:18AM (#5578186) Homepage Journal
    Wasn't it the Department of Homeland Security that was concerned about the security of wireless networks that extend far beyond the property of the network owner? The article says nothing about how the LAPD plans to secure this network. WEP just doesn't cut it, as we learned years ago when a variety of people broke WEP keys using timing and other techniques. I suppose they're going to follow everyone else's lead and place a firewall between wireless and wired networks, providing VPN access. I astonished me this was not even mentioned in passing in the article.

    --CTH
    • I think they just didn't want to put too much lingo into the article. Plus they got Roger Ham taking care of their wireless project, sounds like they are set. Is it just me, or does Roger Ham sound like it belongs to a man who is deputy chief of wireless communications?

    • I suppose they're going to follow everyone else's lead and place a firewall between wireless and wired networks, providing VPN access.

      VPN access to what? The article says nothing about the internet.

      • The idea I was refering to is to maintain a firewall between the wireless network and the rest of the LAPD's internal network so even if someone unauthorized person were to drive by and obrain access to their wireless network through some means, they still wouldn't have access ot the rest of the LAPD's network. It's really a vary simple idea and comonly implemented, regardless of whether network in question is connected to the internet.

        • The idea I was refering to is to maintain a firewall between the wireless network and the rest of the LAPD's internal network so even if someone unauthorized person were to drive by and obrain access to their wireless network through some means, they still wouldn't have access ot the rest of the LAPD's network.

          I see. I'd recommend even more than that. The wireless network shouldn't be connected to LAPD's internal network at all.

  • uh oh (Score:2, Interesting)

    by chillax137 ( 612431 )
    so now other cops will know right away that i have already receieved my warning.
    • This is a good thing, that way you wont be pulled over again 2 blocks away by the cop that doesnt know that you were already pulled over...

      of course that could make harassing you alot easier also.

  • This isn't efficient! (Score:5, Funny)

    by I'm just joshin ( 633449 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:23AM (#5578200)
    They need to put them in donut shops to reach the greatest number of cops.

  • IM for the pigs (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Ape With No Name ( 213531 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:27AM (#5578206) Homepage
    Yo. @ Randy's catching a cruller. Where ya?
    Wilshire. Gettin ready to go roll some whores for the night's take
    Kewl. Be there in a minute.
    sweet. well save sum pimp ass to kick
    dam
    ?
    just got pwdrd shug on my shirt
    LOL better clean it up b4 sarge sees ya.
  • LA will be a giant hot spot

  • 802.11a secure? (Score:3, Funny)

    by MoeMoe ( 659154 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:33AM (#5578223)
    I know there are security issues in using Wi-Fi but on a serious note, the police department would be transmitting sensetive stuff which I'm sure could be intercepted and somehow read eventually with the right key... I wonder if they are atleast thinking of a way to make it more secure... They could encrypt data sent from the central station and decrypt from the car, they could use a handshake process for authentication or they could just let things be sent and received raw and wonder why no one is seen doing anything wrong all of the sudden.

  • Radio is what made cops get stronger (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CrazyJim0 ( 324487 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:34AM (#5578227)
    Now they'll have what, video of a suspect if they do a drive by?

    Sounds good in theory, but in practice a few years down the road, people can hack an open system like that.

    • Sounds good in theory, but in practice a few years down the road, people can hack an open system like that.

      Better close it, cause we all know how well that security through obscurity works.

      There's nothing wrong with an "open system," as long as you layer adequete security protections on top of it.

  • "file transfer corrupted by high speed pursuit"

    "rights violation while trying to access RodneyKing.doc"

    And surely they'd be better off putting the access points in Dunkin' Donut franchises? Then they'd get 100% coverage more-or-less all the time as the cops seldom leave the vicinity of a DD!

    -psy

  • NJSP has had similar tech for years (Score:4, Informative)

    by LinuxHam ( 52232 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:41AM (#5578241) Homepage Journal
    I consulted on a deal to help NJSP patch the Win98 laptops installed in their cruisers. Apparently they too have a 19.2k link statewide, but have a higher bandwidth microwave link available when the cars are very close to the station houses. We built routines to pull down packages by ftp over the microwave link when they turned on the car and booted the laptop.

  • Googling for felons (Score:4, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @11:44AM (#5578248) Homepage
    Now cops can search Google ultra-quickly for their criminals...

    "Hey Frank! That the guy?"
    "Hang on Burt, lemme do an Images search..."
    • Google has to be faster than their system... maybe then I wont be at the side of the road for almost an hour for just a speeding ticket.

      you would think that the could make some macros or something for their common tickets...

      but then someone might just write a virus for them then.
  • 19.2 kbps is pretty slow. I had Ricochet before that, and it sometimes hit 256 kbps, never below 64. I wonder if there's something more, or if this is typical government stupidity.

    • Re:Slow WAN (Score:3, Funny)

      by SN74S181 ( 581549 )
      There was a time when most of us envied the rich dudes who had the 2400 baud modems.
      • Yes, and I was one of them. But times change, and at the time that WAN was installed, 19.2kbps was unbearably slow.
      • You know you're a geek if your home network has two or more computers whose only connections are ethernet and power.
        No, you know you're a geek if your home network has SIX or more computers whose only connections are ethernet, power, sound, central video, printer, coolant, compressed air, LN2, LOX, LH2, vacuum, ketchup, cheesecake, caffeine, secondary display, 10W-30 oil, beer, etc...

  • War-driving the cops (Score:4, Funny)

    by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @12:14PM (#5578331)
    Now when you get pulled over in LA, you can use your war-driving setup to check the police records on the cops before they get of their car. You will be able to greet them by name and know if they are the type to give you the rodney king treatment for doing so.
    • Even better, you could man-in-the-middle to replace the 10 outstanding warrants, suspended liscense, and stolen car flag for a clean record, valid liscense, and no stolen card record as they're running your plates/ liscense.
    • or you could just Submit the car here, and hope for the /. effect

      Slashdot
      News for nerds. Sticking it to the man.

  • Wouldn't jamming ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fygment ( 444210 ) on Sunday March 23, 2003 @12:14PM (#5578336)
    ... be a problem? Judicious use of jamming technology in areas of importance (to the criminals e.g. gang turf) and suddenly all the functions ported to online are unusable. This may be a niche market here for the less scrupulous.
    • This is possible, but remember, each car will still be equiped with the 800Mhz 19.2k Motorola systems. If for some reason, WiFi was jammed, they could just switch back to the old system. I wonder if the WiFi system will be integrated in such a way where this will be an automatic function? Even with 27 stations throughout the city, the gaps between the WiFi signals will be great, and it would be a pain to have to manually switch it on and off when you think you might have a signal.
    • Ah yes. The highly sophisticated gang banger that can't hold his gun with two hands and keep it in an upright position while he "puts a cap in some mo-fo's ass" is going to be jamming 802.11b equipment so his homey's can run rampant.

      What kind of shit do you people smoke around here? Seriously. I'll give you my address so you can send some over, becuase I'm obvioulsy a little to realistic at times.

      Okay, we'll assume some gang banger with the techno know-how to jam EVERY possible signal they have at thei

  • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • ..will there be drive by DOS attacks?

  • Short-range patrol car detector (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23, 2003 @01:08PM (#5578545)
    Assuming the newly-equipped cars occasionally send out probe frames looking for those APs, then forget radar detectors! Just run Kismet and if one of these guys pops up, you know there's a patrol car around.

    This is going to show up more and more. A Sears repair van paid a visit to my area recently, and two new ad-hoc nodes showed up on channel 6. When he left, they did too. If I ever happen to go past that van again, it'll be quite obvious, since the MAC addresses will be the same. The same technique applies here with the police cars.

  • Some cities already do this... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LWolenczak ( 10527 ) <julia@evilcow.org> on Sunday March 23, 2003 @01:49PM (#5578734) Homepage Journal
    In some of the cities I've been in with my laptop in the Southeast US, I've seen police departments running (secured, and sadly, insecure) 802.11b. Infact, seeing the cop's network probe packets before my radar detector has gone off has saved me from most likely getting several tickets. I've picked up the cops 802.11b before they gunned me/other cars.

    So, can we get kismet to speak "Slow Down, Probe Detected" when it picks up a probe packet?

  • Wait a minute... wireless internet is notoriously insecure (i know this because my neighbors do online banking)... I don't want my information to be available to any bum that happens to have a laptop... What security measures do they plan to implement, does anyone know? Hey, maybe this'll save paper and thus the rainforests... more natural resources to spread around, yipee!
  • Why not every Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Donuts location in L.A.?
  • Cops find access to mobile broadband data useful, begin building out APs to more hotspots throughout City. Citizens note how much of the bandwidth goes unused and could be made useful by citizens whose tax $ put it there. City learns how to provide secure infrastructure traffic (cops, fire dept., public works, etc.) while making excess bandwidth available to citizens. Before too many years, City is pretty well provisioned with free (tax-funded) wireless.

    This makes too much sense - it'll never happen.
  • I don't know what's funnier...the fact that his last name is Ham and he's the deputy of communications (Ham Radio) or the fact that his last name is Ham and he's a cop. (Pig!)

  • I 0wn the p0l1c3!!!

    Well there goes my karma :)
  • drive-by!

    makes me wonder whether you guys are all in it for the shits and giggles.

  • I dont believe im the only one thinking this will be a holy grail for hackers.
  • They could totally play CS over this network. Imagine being busted and forced to watch two dumbass cops pretend to be Terrorists sneaking their explosive into de_dust.bsp! The cops would prolly buy AWPs and camp all over that shit - the gimps.

    What would the ramifications be? Could you get off on a technicality - police brutality via electronic gaming device?
  • Let's take a few nuggets from the article and ponder.....

    (1) "Ham said he eventually wants to develop an interface between the WLAN radio in the Symbol handheld and the Motorola radio in the police car."

    Wants to develop? And he made a purchase decision PRIOR to getting this straight?

    There are rugged devices on the market today that fully support integrated WAN (CDMA/1xRTT, GPRS), WLAN, and BT in one device. Motorola private radio networks (Astro) usually have serial DB9 output. Again, there are ot
  • This is nothing new, LA is behind the times. Post Falls, Idaho has been doing this and more for quite a while now.

    http://www.mitretek.org/publications/ccjt/vol6-1 7. html

  • Organized crime must be chomping at the bit for this to happen. Hackers are employed and are a hot commodity on both sides of the law (see: Las Vegas' recent trouble with Mob 0wn3d phone lines).
    Expect this to create a number of "Security Professional" openings, some on monster.com, some on IRC.....

  • Here are a few suggested ways for you to use your new uplinks:

    http://www.dunkindonuts.com/find_a_store/framese t. jsp

    http://clients.mapquest.com/krispy/mqinterconnec t? link=find

    http://www.laokay.com/Donuts.htm
  • Because everyone knows that cops spend most of their time at either Starbuck's or Dunkin Donuts.
  • What about everyone else? The people who have theirown WAPs setup? If the police WAPs cause interferance with them, are they going to be forced by the police to remove them?
  • This is an amazing kludge! They might as well have runners with CD-R's of the data, jogging up to the car as it passes by the station. Ugh. Cellular data is too slow, and wireless LANs are just too short-range. These folks would do better with a real wireless WAN system.

    That's exactly the niche where Ricochet fit: High speed data, anywhere in a metropolitan area. While stationary, Ricochet speeds routinely exceeded 128kbps, and while moving at up to 60mph, the acquisition of new nodes pushed the throughput
  • Exactly how does this improve anything? 802.11 is short range technology, and they're using radio to do data to the cars right now.

    So let's lay out the scenarios in which this could possibly be useful:

    1. An old lady gets mugged directly in front of the police station. The LA cops outside who watch it and laugh can send an IM to the cops inside, so that they can laugh also.

    2. LA cops can download the "Mr. T" skin for quake and play "pretend it's compton" with each other without having to go inside.

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