Comments

This paper was presented at the Fourth Collaborative Research Symposium on Security, E-learning, Internet and Networking (SEIN 2008), 5-9 November 2008, which was held at Glyndwr University, Wrexham, UK. It was published by the University of Plymouth, and the symposium proceedings are available at http://www.cscan.org

Abstract

Wireless networking technologies, under the umbrella of the IEEE 802.11 suite of standards and commonly referred to as Wi-Fi, is now commonplace technology in both the home and office. In this work, we present the results of studies into wireless networking uptake and security within two town communities in the UK. Our work concentrates on the geographical positioning of wireless access points (APs) and the security measures used to protect these liberating technologies from unwanted misuse, often referred to as war driving, we employ the title peace driving, for wireless networking surveying which aims to address security issues in wi-fi networks. The results from our study show significant uptake of wireless networking in both the residential and business areas surveyed. The number of access points present in some residential areas is large, and given the relatively small distances between access points there is undoubtedly traffic which is crossing private boundaries. These findings are corroborated across both the communities which were studied. We suggest that similar sized and constituent communities are representative of others in the UK and find similar trends between the two studied as part of this work.

Disciplines

Computer and Systems Architecture | Digital Communications and Networking | Hardware Systems | Systems and Communications

Recommended Citation

Cunningham, S. & Grout, V., "Peace Driving: Case Studies of Wi-Fi Usage", Proceedings of the Fourth Collaborative Research Symposium on Security, E-learning, Internet and Networking (SEIN 2008), 5-9 November 2008, Glyndwr University, Wrexham, UK, pp3-10.