Wardriving and GPS Tracking

It’s not a new idea by any means, but I decided to try to wardrive and GPS track my findings with the equipment I had at my disposal.
Namely a laptop that can run Aircrack and a Nokia N95 with built in GPS.
The laptop took me a long time to set up, Months fiddling with a closed source Intel driver setup, and eventually a method of compiling a custom kernal with the promiscuous drivers installed. I wanted to use my n95 as an external Bluetooth device so I could use a sophisticated tracking suite and run it all off Linux. But alas, the very drivers that allow me to use promiscuous Wi-Fi, hinder my Bluetooth chip, which is integrated into my Wi-Fi card. So a little research later, I found a free java based (GPSED) software that can track positions and store the data on the memory card. Unfortunately, the format it saved the files to was almost proprietary. Luckily I can convert the .gpsed files to the more common GPX files with www.gpsvisualizer.com. Meanwhile, kismet stores sniffing data in csv format, so that was perfect. The CSV contaions lots of juicy data such as the time when an SSID is first discovered, the name, mac, security type and tons more info.

I did a small trial run with the laptop and the phone running in parallel and got enough data to write a quick C# app. The app takes the data from both and tries to match up the closest times for the discovery of Wi-Fi and the plotted GPS points. Its quite accurate, even without filtering (linear interpolation etc.). It takes these coordinates and plots them on Google maps using the JavaScript API, Each point is named after the Wi-Fi SSID. However it would be very simple to allow the user to preview the full information by clicking on the SSID.
I did a 20 mile drive and got some data, but the chart looked wrong. Turns out my phone was in GMT+1 while my laptop was in GMT+0. So I added a Time correction option to compensate (For quick reference; my one hour offset was 3600 Seconds). All I did before my trip, was to stop and activate the N95 Tracker and the Wi-Fi sniffer, and make sure that I came to a full stop when I Deactivated both of them.

Finally I decided to do a real test with the program (which you can see in the video below). I took the laptop and phone across country for a near 2 hour drive. From Enniskillen to Newry. My GPX file (Tracking Data) ended up being 661KB, and my CSV file (SSID Data) was 94KB.



The programs name is Koitus, why? Because I was told to call it that. The sloppy source code is available as a Visual Studio 2008 Solution if you email me requesting it. The data was gathered legally and I am by no means responsible for the misuse of the information in this blog post. Let me remind you, it is illegal to even connect to many wardriven access points.

" Don't look. Don't touch. Don't play through.

In other words, 1) don't examine the contents of a network; 2) don't add, delete, or change anything on the network, and 3) don't even use the network's Internet connection for Web surfing, email, chat, FTP, or anything else."
~ Jeff Duntemann's Drive-By Wi-Fi Guide