[am]

what are your thoughts on wardriving. Do you think its worthwhile or a complete waste of time. Also, if i get caught, how much trouble could i get into?

[mikesgroovin]

Well, my first question would be......what do you want to accomplish????
Do you just want to see if you can get it to work? Sure, i'll tell you it's worth it. But, thats just plain personal satisfaction.
What do you want to get out of it?

Wardriving itself is not illegal. It really depends on what you are doing. Consider this.....

I walk into a local "Ma & Pop" coffee shop. They offer free wireless internet access at their shop. I can walk into the shop, sit down with my laptop and access the internet for free with zero obligations. Yea, some may require me to purchase something.....but most don't..... this IS NOT ILLEGAL.
So, if I should drive a car in front of a Best Buy and use a laptop to run Kismet in order to bounce signals off of a local Wireless Gateway or Access Point is this illegal? No, it's not illegal......

The Access Point or Wireless Gateway is performing as it should and as the owner has designed it to perform. There are plenty of security measures an owner can take to make sure that their property cannot be accessed. Even if I sit in front of someone's house, on a public street and access someone's internet connection through their wireless AP.....this is NOT ILLEGAL either. Once again, the signal may reach outside of their private home and into the public community. Now, it may be a different story if you are on private property or if you are reported "suspicious". But, take the situation where you are on a public street accessing the internet through someone's open Wireless AP. All the police or local auth. can do is ask you to leave. Wardriving itselff is not illegal.

Ok, now some people take it a little far. It IS illegal to access another computer on the same Wi-Fi network as you or to access the Wireless AP itself. Accessing files or network shares IS ILLEGAL and can be placed into a civil lawsuit. (not criminal). But, even at that point......in my opinion, it's not even wardriving anymore.....it's "hacking". I doubt you will ever see jail time come out of this kind of case......but injunctive relief for thousands of dollars is a safe bet.

[macknight]

a polite wardriver would just hack their system enough to find out their address and post a friendly note on their door that their wireless security sucks...might have to post one of their porn pictures with the note to convince them you were really there...not that i've done this.

[mikesgroovin]

See, at that point......you are technically trespassing.......dumb move.....
Well......what would a polite wardriver do when he/she found a wireless ap signal in an apartment complex? Oh, oh! And the door was locked to the complex by one of those magnetic card swipes......what would a polite wardriver do then?
Point is my friend, why is their property your business.......sometimes people do this on purpose.....do you need to know why???? Nope....

In my building alone there are 7 AP signals avalable. All are free and are available.
I actually have a seperate colision domain setup for wireless go-ers. They can drive up.....access the net for free and NOT have a chance in **** of connecting to any of my computers on my LAN. Free Wireless is a good thing...

[macknight]

if you read in the clause of the internet service providers...sharing signal is prohibited...not that i care...and can be grounds for termination of service. As to why their personal property is my business??? ya right! I've been working on computers for awhile now...and i don't care to see anyones personal stuff...disturbing usually. if you think i was being insincere...you were mistaken...and you might be surprised to learn how grateful people can be when you fix their wireless security...like buy you $200 gift certificates to a nice restaurant after paying you for your time already, because they had all their banking acct. info wide open. you want free wireless for the world? more power to ya! couldn't agree more. and am i dumb??? hmmm...i can make my own transmitters and receivers cause i been takin stuff apart since i was a kid, and got certified and all that...oh..you meant to say I'm wreckless...well, there was that time had a high speed chase...and all those beer runs...hmmm...lighten up man! life's too short. My take is ...you hit the internet...you're vulnerable...deal with it.

[mikesgroovin]

the context was that the move was dumb......not you. Yea Yea....ISPs prohibit this activity....but once again....is that your business? Maybe adding the "victims" mailing address to your database or mailing list for "potential clients" is a better idea. I'm not thinking that you are insincere but the point was that:
1) it's not really your business why this particular AP is free.....it just is. If you want to act on it for your own personal satisfaction.....fine...but posting a "note" on their door is not the best way to go about it.
2) keep "wardriving" and "hacking" in seperate categories. If stupid mistakes and suspicious activity keep rising from wardriving activity, certain people may deem this as an illegal activity which would change the way we look at this topic. If you want to educate....fine....but please don't consider it "hacking" as it's nothing of the sort. And the last thing officials need is a good reason to coordinate the two topics "wardriving" and "hacking" and consider them the same.

Your personal experience with creating electronic equipment is irrelevent.......don't care....not excited about it.....doesn't matter to the average joe.

But.....look at the original question on this thread......did you answer it with your post or are you just blabbering on about your personal mild "hacking" experience...honestly???

[macknight]

ok..."mikesgroovin"...perhaps we should let "am" make that call since it was his post. My thoughts on wardriving...is it worthwhile? If it develops your skills with computers...it's worthwhile...and as for trouble...just stay away from peoples' financial stuff and don't hack Lowe's, http://www.securitypipeline.com/show...cleID=26806438 ( example of trouble you can get into)....use your best judgement...imagine someone was rooting around in your system...that should answer your question.

just to point out for you "mikesgroovin", transmitters and receivers being irrelevant to wireless technology??? come on dude. That's the guts of your system man. Anyway...peace...don't want us gettin too personal...like the educated opinions. Nothin but respect for ya...cause you have an opinion, and are able to voice it. Love the internet!!!

Originally posted by am
what are your thoughts on wardriving. Do you think its worthwhile or a complete waste of time. Also, if i get caught, how much trouble could i get into?

[mikesgroovin]

I think that perhaps our opinions weren't relayed to each other correctly within the context of our posts. I too respect your opinions and didn't mean any harm by my post. Sorry if it was taken in a different manner. I just take this topic too seriously perhaps. I didn't say that transmitters and receivers had nothing to do with wireless technology...it absolutely does. However in the context of your post, I took the comment that you create this type of equipment as a reply to the "am I dumb" comment. So, to that affect, the transmitter/receivers just seem irrelevant to me.....

Anyway....I wasn't calling you dumb...hope you didn't take it that way.

am.....
hope we, in some fashion, answered your question.

[s0me0ne]

I was big into war driving for a wile but it came down to what am I doing with my time. as fun as echo "your wireless isnt 31337 h4x0r safe please fix" > lpt1 is. It gets old quick. Then theres when all the simple stuff runs out why not just put bots on them and do more so shady stuff like warez or ddos, but then before you know it your a skiddiot. and thats not cool.

[am]

yea, for the most part, this is what i wanted to happen because i want to hear both points of view. Thanks guys for helping me out