Dutch teen duo arrested over alleged 'Wi-Fi sniffing' for Russia Police in the Netherlands arrested two 17-year-olds last week over claims that Russian intelligence recruited them to spy on the headquarters of European law enforcement agencies. According to Dutch media, on August 16 authorities observed one of the teenagers carrying a "Wi-Fi sniffer" near the headquarters of Europol and the …
Aka a PDA[1]. A laptop. A handheld retro game console with an R'Pi Zero 2 or similar inside it.
Better not walk past Europol buildings carrying any of these[2]. When they ask if you know what Wireshark is, just shake your head.
17 year old lads were probably pratting about with a box with too many antennae, "taking it cool" as they walked past in hoodies and caps pulled down. Meanwhile, anyone really interested in WiFi is sitting quietly, slowly eating Pringles from the second can as the empty lies discarded on the bench beside them (you can tell it is empty, the greedy sod, 'cos from this angle you see right into it).
Better go now, that sounds like a banging on the door.
PS if you a LAN that might carry sensitive info, use cables, not WiFi.
[1] it was quite eye-opening walking past a local business park with a Palm Pilot still running a WiFi snarfer (after I'd used it for entirely legit purposes, your honour). Wonder what I could find if I was actually *interested* in this sort of nefarious activity and spent a day or two really learning about it?
[2] yes, there are some neat hand-held SDR units available on Aliexpress (allegedly) that can snoop WiFi, but come off it, you don't need a full-spectrum radio just to listen to those few bands. Although, given the do-it-all-in-the-module approach to WiFi these days, SDR does give you back easier access to the bit pattern...
The thrust of my point was that "WiFi sniffer" in scare quotes is one of those stupid descriptions meant to, well, be scary. You yourself probably own multiple devices capable of doing the job.
Plus, as an aside (and this is no doubt what you were reacting to) anybody who really wanted to try to snarf important information from Europol - assuming that those Russians have at least a half an ounce if sense - would be getting teenagers in as scapegoats whilst doing something more productive elsewhere. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
Not seeing anything in what I wrote that in any way is contradicted by the BBC article ('cos, you know, I did read it).
Although, thanks for actually bothering to explain your dislike of my comment.
