What the hell is wrong with Canadians?

[digiital]

Gotta love when they write a article talk about the 'persons website' and 'forget' to mention the site! Sheesh, anyways. 1 min on google and I found that fellow from Montreals site:

http://www.wifire.ca

[dataworm]

Originally posted by ripshy
"Antennas, available through stores such as Radio Shack, can extend the range of a wireless laptop to as much as three kilometres". I dont know about you guys, but my local radio shack has never heard of 802.11*, and has never sold 2.4ghz antennas. They dont even sell N connectors anymore, and wont let me order them!!! Hehe, the WiFi-shootout kicked the shit out of 3 kilos.

Last time I asked for a antenna at Radio shack they told me that wireless lan was't stable/good and to go with wired...
I was hum hello is this Radio Shack?! I did't expected a radio shop to recommend me wire...

[Chris]

Just in case anyone was curious here is the email I sent the author of this story. As usual I do not expect a reply:

To whom it may concern:

I recently read your story "A network of drive-by spies" which I viewed
from
http://www.canada.com/technology/sto...4-8DB647B8A749

I was very concerned with parts of this article. I will not go into the
technical deficiencies of the article, as I will attribute that to your
interview having bad subjects. I will however go into some of the flat
out inaccuracies of the article they relate to the DefCon 11 presentation.


First, I believe that the DefCon presentation that you attributed to Pete
Shipley was in fact my presentation "The WorldWide WarDrive: The Myths,
The Misconceptions, The Truth, The Future." I believe this to be the case
because not only did Pete Shipley not present at DefCon this year, he
didn't even come to DefCon this year. Your statement "The extent of
unprotected wireless networks in North America was revealed last weekend
in a presentation by the original wardriver, Peter Shipley, at Defcon 11,
the annual hackers' convention held in Las Vegas.

Wardrivers from across the United States and Canada provided him with maps
of unprotected wireless networks in their communities." was completely
inaccurate. I say this because as I mentioned, Mr. Shipley wasn't at
DefCon 11, and also because no one provided me (Chris Hurley aka Roamer)
with maps. They uploaded Netstumbler logs (many of which had been
converted from kismet or air magnet). I then used these logs to generate
the statistics and the maps. A complete copy of my presentation from this
year which contains these statistics is available at:
http://www.worldwidewardrive.org/www...e_WarDrive.zip

Next, Brad Renderman is not a person. In this instance you combined his
real name (Brad #EDITED#) with his handle or screen name (Renderman). This
further reduces the credibility of your story.

Finally, while not exactly a "technical" inaccuracy, this quote "Instead
of maybe walking 20 feet to a wireless hot spot, they pay $79 from Radio
Shack for a wireless modem, which allows them to work from their desk," he
explains.

"The problem is that a bootleg wireless modem has no security and gives
hackers a clear point of entry into the whole network. A $79 modem can
defeat a $1-million firewall." is completely wrong. As a point of
reference, here is a price comparison of several firewalls on the market:
http://www.ibuyernet.com/sprodcat~ci...~Security.html This information
was found by using the search string "hardware firewall price comparison"
on Google. This list is of course not complete, but is merely provided as
an example of how quickly facts can be checked using the most publicly
available, easy means.

First of all, no modulation/demodulation takes place with a wireless NIC
card. That is what a MODEM (MOdulator DEModulator) does. A wireless
NIC card is actually a radio. Second, Radio Shack doesn't sell 802.11
equipment. Third, find me a company that paid one million dollars for a
firewall and I will show you a company that GROSSLY overpaid. Even the
top of the line hardware appliance firewalls on the market don't come
CLOSE to costing this much.


In closing, if you are interested in printing a credible story, you should
go to the source of the information you are reporting on, in this
instance, me. I would also recommend utilization of a fact checker to
ensure that your sources aren't just making information up.


Sincerely,

Chris Hurley (Roamer)
chris@defcon.org
roamer@worldwidewardrive.org

[ck3k]

Whoa, Chris talking to press without the usual curse word, or him calling them a bunch of "fuckerzz" I already commented on this article on the ns forum, But it is my idea that said reporter was gambling and not acually at defcon, or at Chris's speech.

[Chris]

Heh...yeah, I was feeling mellow...and you are right, there is no way he was at the presentation...I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't even at DefCon, or in Vegas.

[blackwave]

Originally posted by Chris
I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't even at DefCon, or in Vegas.

it's no mystery our pal brad renderman confessed to his crimes a few posts above in this thread... :)

[ripshy]

Originally posted by Chris
[B]Just in case anyone was curious here is the email I sent the author of this story. As usual I do not expect a reply:

Nice letter, I will be sending one in sometime today. Im on the hunt for his personal email address...doubt I will find it though.

[guano]

Originally posted by Chris
Just in case anyone was curious here is the email I sent the author of this story. As usual I do not expect a reply:
...

You should also send this to the editor, assistant editor, and post it in their forums.

As an side... While technically accurate, your reply may be too technical for their staff. I'd recommend:

- Removing the paragraph about net stumbler, et. al. (A "map" does not need to be an image -- it could be directions or data. In this case, you *were* provided with a "map".)

- Paragraph about Radio Shack: I know a few EE's who would argue that a radio is a type of modem since it coverts between impulses into radio modulations. It's not the computer definition, but it is the EE definition. (Similarly, people who argue that a "router" is not a "gateway" is confusing technical with representative definitions.)

- Paragraph about Radio Shack: I like your point that Radio Shack does not sell wireless networking equipment. But, replace 802.11 with "wireless networking" since most canadians are technically stoopid. (And most USA residents are just stoopid overall.) Be careful: My local Radio Shack sells APs and wireless NICs, but not antannas or connectors. I'd also ask if the author has some other adjenda for advertising Radio Shack.

Finally:
- Begin with a small summary of grievances: The article (1) discusses a presenter who neither presented nor was present, (2) does not credit the actual presenter nor reference the actual presentation, (3) references a source with a fictitious name, (4) grossly exagerates costs and impact, and (5) repeatedly uses technical terms incorrectly. The author of this article not only failed to check their facts, but embelished details and intentionally presented fictitious information.

And if you really want to get mad, say that the author should be demoted back to the mail room.

Having said that... I'm off to write my own grievance.

[Chris]

guano,

Thanks for the reply. I'll disagree with you on the modem issue, just because of the way the reporter was using the term. It wasn't an EE term, he was attempting (or his interview subjects were) to "dumb down" a wireless NIC to a term joe fuckwad could understand.

I will agree with your point on radio shack. I should have been more specific about the types of 802.11 equipment I meant.

Now for the big shocker....he actually responded to me. I will not post his response here as I didn't request permission to post his communications, but suffice it to say he passed the buck, blaming one of his interview subjects for pretty much ALL of the inaccuracies (count up 11 posts and play guess who haha). He offered to do another story if I would let him interview me.

I politely (ahem) declined. I have seen his style of "quoting" people and that's a can of worms I am not going to open.

On a side note, my experience has been that if you CC God and everyone when pointing out a reporters stupidity, they rarely get back to you. Since the reporter isn't likely to get fired over an email, and we both know that the word retraction was removed from reporters dictionaries looong ago, I would rather hear their explanations.

[renderman]

Originally posted by Chris
Now for the big shocker....he actually responded to me. I will not post his response here as I didn't request permission to post his communications, but suffice it to say he passed the buck, blaming one of his interview subjects for pretty much ALL of the inaccuracies (count up 11 posts and play guess who haha). He offered to do another story if I would let him interview me.

Why am I not surprised he blamed me. It's easy to blame the guy 3000 miles away.

I wonder if he would have assumed that Blackwave as a first or last name?

Not once did I mention Shipley was speaking this year. I mentioned that he spoke at DC9 and that piqued my interest in trying out wardriving. I also distrinctly remember saying that Shipley retired from it long ago.

Note to self: Record Interviews for later blackmail

[Effugas]

<b>First of all, no modulation/demodulation takes place with a wireless NIC
card. That is what a MODEM (MOdulator DEModulator) does.</b>

There's no concievable context in which a wireless NIC is not a modem. Given a slice of analog bandwidth, digital data is shoved through that slice using all sorts of symbolic encoding. I can track down the precise modulations for each data rate (it's different for 1, 2, 5.5, and 11), but WiFi cards are undeniably wireless modems.

--Dan

[Chris]

Ok, I am willing to concede the modem issue to an extent since there are technically modulation techniques used with 802.11x (CCK, DQPSK, DBPSK etc) but still feel that radio is a better term than modem. I guess it is a modem to the same degree that a cell phone is.

[dataworm]

Originally posted by renderman

It gets better; check this one out http://www.canada.com/montreal/montr...0-D2BA4CDB2DDC

I Just meet the guy that was interviewed for that article, he came to the wifi meetup(in montreal) with his news article in his hand, I was fucking laffing when i saw it... All I will say is that he left without paying his beer

[Effugas]

Chris--

I'll concede modem has evolved into a term used almost exclusively to refer to modulation and demodulation over POTS lines.

I wonder if "Unlicensed Packet Radio" is a better nom de hackeur...

--Dan

[ripshy]

Originally posted by Effugas
I wonder if "Unlicensed Packet Radio" is a better nom de hackeur...

I like that term, never thought of it either.