2002 has seen an incredible boom in the use of wireless technology. It has also given birth to wireless hacking, an increasingly popular pastime for some of the more curious among us.

"War driving" and "war chalking" have become popular pastimes among hackers and wireless enthusiasts alike.

War driving is the practise of driving through city streets in an attempt to identify and map out wireless access point. War chalking involves scribbling a combination of symbols and numbers that indicates to other hackers the nature and security level of the wireless feed radiating from a building.

But why is wireless hacking so popular?

The short answer is anonymity. Vulnerable wireless networks make it possible for hackers to access the Internet without fear of being traced. They could sit down hacking away at a major bank without being traced to an Internet connection; the trail just leads back to the vulnerable access point.

In extreme circumstances it also provides attackers with a unique opportunity to access a network from the inside, behind corporate firewalls.

This means that building a wireless DMZ (Demilitarised Zone) is vital, plugging an access point right into the chewy centre of an otherwise secure network is a very silly thing to do.

Although wireless cards are shipped with a unique identifier that is broadcast with every data packet (a MAC address), these values can be easily modified and the connection made untraceable.

There are some simple measures that administrators of wireless systems can use to secure their access points, like changing default passwords and ensuring that security features are enabled, but it is amazing how many networks are left open to attack.

Sometimes administrators just plug the access point into the company switch and turn them on.

Installing wireless equipment is akin to throwing a piece of live network cable out of the office window and down to the street. Securing that direct link from the inside-out is very important.

Even the federal Government is starting to get somewhat twitchy over wireless networks, and more specifically, wireless service providers.

Last month the Attorney General's office sent a letter to wireless service providers insisting that they "...give the authorities such help as is reasonably necessary for the purposes of enforcing the criminal law... and safeguarding national security".

Heavy words.

Curiously, this letter also found its way to the Melbourne wireless group, who operate a peer-to-peer network among members. Melbourne Wireless are exempt from the relevant act (the Telecommunications Act) anyway, a fact that seemed to have been lost on the AG's office.

That aside, Melbourne Wireless are still "...looking at the issues internally, and at other wireless groups, throwing around the idea for a code of conduct," according to Darren Dreis, the group's vice president.

Groups like Melbourne Wireless have been involved in assisting the government in understanding the new technology for the purposes of drafting new legislation, and Dreis says that for the most part "they were genuinely interested in what we had to say".

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