“Warballooning” Mission Reveals 1/3 of Wireless Networks Unprotected

      by Wyatt Walter

Rick Hill, scientist at Tenacity Solutions, almost didn’t get to launch his balloon at the Defcon conference. Management at the Riviera Hotel in downtown Las Vegas told Hill at the last minute that they would not allow him to launch his balloon at the conference. The reason for the cancellation was not clear, but some have suggested that it was due to the fact that he called it a “warballoon”. Given the name, it’s understandable that there was some hesitation to allow it to be launched from the hotel parking lot. The term “warballoon” comes from “wardriving” which is where a group or person will drive around an area and scan for wireless networks. Warballooning then, is exactly what you would’ve imagined: scanning for wireless networks in the area using a balloon. Hill and his group then launched it in a nearby empty parking lot which happened to be far enough away from the airport to avoid FAA regulations. The balloon was lofted about 150 feet into the air and used special antennas to scan about a 7 1/2 mile radius around the balloon. Hill said they found approximately 370 wireless networks with around 1/3 of them left wide-open with no encryption. This number seems pretty skewed since he was scanning areas probably left wide open intentionally such as motels and restaurants.

Filed under News, Tech Trends : Comments (0) : Aug 10th, 2008

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