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Create interesting and useful maps of local and international Wi-Fi hotspot coverage. Ever wonder how you can track the wireless networks in your neighborhood, or near your officeor how you can find free wireless connectivity when you're away from your home and office? I wondered the same thing, and so with the help of Eric Blevins, we created http://www.WiFiMaps.com for exactly this purpose. WiFiMaps.com is a web-based, interactive map of wireless networks, with detailed street-level maps. If you're looking for open Wi-Fi nodes nearby, you can use the web site to browse geographical areas, perform various types of searches, and compare location or user statistics. The wireless node data is kept up to date by users who upload their wardriving data. Figure 2-11 shows a map of some of the Wi-Fi hotspots found in California, made with data contributed to WiFiMaps.com.
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Mapping wireless networks can reveal patterns that are not always obvious. In the Wi-Fi map of California (Figure 2-11), we see the expected concentration of networks mirroring the populated parts of the state, but we also see the string of networks down the main highways. Wardriving works because wireless networks broadcast beacon packets to identify themselves. Listening for these beacons does not require connecting to a network, and is (probably) legal. A number of people and businesses intentionally leave their networks open for use, and it is legal to connect to these networks. For instance, down the street from me is a network called "Beehive," which corresponds to the coffee shop of the same name that has a giant sign reading "Free Wireless Internet." A network named "Go Away" is most likely private. In between these extremes lies a vast gray area, where determining which networks are intended to be open is a policy question beyond the scope of this hack.
WiFiMaps.com parses most of the native wardriving log formats. NetStumbler will export to WiScan format, a text-based format, or its own binary .ns1 format. Regardless of which format you save your scans in, you'll want to upload them to WiFiMaps.com.
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can determine the number of networks and individual points you have found, and you can browse the maps to see your results. You can see from the image shown in Figure 2-12 that warchalking symbols are used to indicate the existence of security; the )( symbol shows an open network, while the ( ) stands for a closed network. The colors are also used to indicate security: red for closed, blue for open. Experiment with zooming in and out, and panning through your area.
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The best part about WiFiMaps.com is that it's completely built on open source tools. The map-rendering uses MapServer [Hack #91], and the data is stored in a PostGIS database [Hack #87] . Both of these tools are covered in detail later in the book.
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