Residential Wi-Fi Mapping Database Revealed 167
Talaria writes "An enormous database of home wifi routers and their locations has been revealed after the Internet Patrol did some digging following AOL's recent announcement of their new "Near Me" service, which allows AIM users to see which of their instant messenger buddies are geographically near them. The database, containing the unique IDs of more than 16 million wireless routers and their locations, has been compiled by AOL partner Skyhook Wireless, which claims to have mapped the majority of residences in the U.S. and Canada."
No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Skyhook trucks (Score:5, Insightful)
A camera to monitor your street, and a switch that cuts power to your router while discharging a HERF weapon concealed in a lawn gnome is a Slashdot solution.
wireless is good for homes too (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:mod parent up (Score:4, Insightful)
Or if you use a laptop and don't feel like being tethered to your desk.
I have an apartment, and my desktop, TiVo, and PS2 are all hooked up by wires (that run along one wall), but I still have wireless enabled: it's for laptop/Nintendo DS use.
I can, of course, also plug the laptop in directly via a wired connection, but then it'd be tethered to my desk. So instead I use wireless, and can use the laptop all over my apartment. Wireless is more for mobile device use than for simply avoiding having to run wires.
Not an accurate representation of what's going on (Score:5, Insightful)
First, and sort of a priori, Wi-Fi uses unlicensed spectrum. The use of that spectrum means that you accept (however unknowingly, your point!) that any use treads in the public space. There are ways to reduce the signal strength of many Wi-Fi gateways if you want to penetrate further.
Second, what they're gathering is just a number (the BSSID [wikipedia.org], which is the unique base station identifier for networks that are set to broadcast). They do not access the network. And they can't provide any kind of exact correlation. Nor is there a way to associate BSSIDs with individuals or addresses in their system or elsewhere. (It's also not all home networks; there are millions and millions of business networks also being recorded.)
Third, their data is their crown jewel. They have every interest in protecting it in the strongest possible ways. The information they release is a set of coordinates based on signals measured and sent via their system. So you can't really perform millions of arbitrary queries, but rather only queries mediated through their software. This limits exposure.
So you have no specific information based on public use of public spectrum and strong needs to protect the data against unwanted access...
Sounds fairly reasonable to me.
If they started pairing individual addresses with BSSIDs, and sold that to Wi-Fi makers and others who would then perform direct mailings to users to get them to switch brands or add security -- that would be creepy.
But it's a great way to find stolen gear (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like a great way to find stolen Access Points, WiFi cards, laptops with built-in WiFi, and other such gear. B-)
How many petty thieves are going to re-flash the gear to change the MAC address? (And if they do it will still show up as MAC addresses appearing multiply in the maps and/or addresses outside the allocated ranges.)
(Our company had some APs stolen a while back. The IT guys did a little wardriving but didn't find them. We've upgraded since so it probably won't matter to us. But it could be really useful for people who had stuff stolen more recently.)
Re:wireless is good for homes too (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, if I had to go through brick, that would be a different story. The radio just won't penetrate that. In order to improve my signal for example, the antennas on the kiln side are placed outside the wall, the router at the neighbor's has the antenna in a window, so the only thing separating them is glass, air, snow, fog, and rain -- none of which seem to make an appreciable difference. I would think that a few layers of brick though, would make the system fail.
Anyway, in the right circumstances, wireless is great and wired is a pain. And vice versa of course.
Re:That's illegal, see case referenced in comment. (Score:2, Insightful)
A little different from checking your e-mail and worth some jail time.