From: InfoSec News (alertsinfosecnews.org)
Date: Mon Jun 11 2007 - 02:01:18 CDT

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http://www.techworld.nl/idgns/3360/open-university-hk-takes-warflying-to-new-heights.html

By John C.Tanner
Computerworld Hong Kong
7 juni 2007

Academic researchers from Hong Kong and California took Wi-Fi
war-driving -- and war-flying -- to new levels on Monday by test-driving
a new technique for surveying wireless broadband security and
connectivity.

Intended as a trial run for an annual Wi-Fi survey project in July led
by Dr Philip Tsang of the Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK), Monday's
experiment saw two teams -- one from OUHK and another from Stanford
University -- collaborate to not only detect Wi-Fi access points in
Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, but also to divine extra data about the
APs themselves.

The war-drive also tested the connectivity speeds of HSDPA signals
around the city in cooperation with SmarTone-Vodafone.

At the heart of the experiment was new software developed by Christopher
White of Stanford University and CEO of White's Consulting, OUHK CT212F
student Casper Lau and OUHK tutor Jack Mak.

The software enables mobile computers in a roving van and helicopter to
detect Wi-Fi Aps as well as to determine geographic data via GPS and to
distinguish between corporate, residential, educational or commercial
hot spots.

The software is also designed to account for Hong Kong's urban canyon
topography via algorithms that give the app "more of a 3D perspective to
counter the effects like shadowing that you get with lots of tall
buildings around," said Stanford team leader Professor Bebo White.

Results of the test run won't be available until later in the week,
although Christopher White said the software test was a success.

One early result of note is that the street-level wardrive detected over
11,000 hot spots -- compared to just under 4,700 detected in OUHK's last
war-flying survey in October 2006.

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