While heading back from South Carolina, I got bored (again) so I fired up the laptop and decided to wardrive Charlotte while driving through it…
The netstumbler file is somewhere around here…I’ll post it when I find it 
Materials: Compaq Presario laptop (2135US), Belkin wireless card (F5D6020), Kodak Digital Camera (C743), assistance from Rebecca.
Home of a couple of large bike rallies each year, Myrtle Beach is not only huge, but full of things to do. I highly recommend Godfather’s pizza – it’s the best pizza in town by far! Just before we left, I had to whip out the laptop and partake in a bit of wardriving. This one is a two parter…
Part 1:
Part 2:
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina netstumbler files one, two, and three.
Materials: Compaq Presario laptop (2135US), Belkin wireless card (F5D6020), Kodak Digital Camera (C743), assistance from Rebecca.
Just a quick drive through Asheville, North Carolina yielded a few wireless APs…
I put that netstumbler file somewhere…I’ll post it if I locate it
Materials: Compaq Presario laptop (2135US), Belkin wireless card (F5D6020), Kodak Digital Camera (C743), assistance from Rebecca.
Wow, what a beautiful area Carolina Beach was – definitely worth visiting if you’re in the area. The beaches were clean, the houses were gorgeous, and there were tons of wireless APs.
Carolina Beach, North Carolina netstumbler file.
Materials: Compaq Presario laptop (2135US), Belkin wireless card (F5D6020), Kodak Digital Camera (C743), assistance from Rebecca.
Taking a quick drive through Wilmington, North Carolina, which is just before Carolina Beach. Still have South Carolina in my sights…
Here is the Wilmington, North Carolina main netstumbler file and the tail end of the drive.
Materials: Compaq Presario laptop (2135US), Belkin wireless card (F5D6020), Kodak Digital Camera (C743), assistance from Rebecca.
Castle Hayne seemed like a fairly decent size city, so I decided to take a break from highway driving and fired up the laptop for some wardriving.
Castle Hayne, North Carolina netstumbler file.
Materials: Compaq Presario laptop (2135US), Belkin wireless card (F5D6020), Kodak Digital Camera (C743), assistance from Rebecca.
Well what else is a person supposed to do in Washington, DC other than see all the sites? Wardrive it of course! For more info on the wireless APs found, check out the netstumbler file. There are three videos – part 1, 2, and 3 because YouTube apparently only allows videos to be 10 minutes each.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Washington, D.C. main netstumbler file. Here’s another netstumbler file for Ft. Myer, Virginia (just across the river from D.C.)
Materials: Compaq Presario laptop (2135US), Belkin wireless card (F5D6020), Kodak Digital Camera (C743), assistance from Rebecca.
After seeing enough of New York, I decided to head south and wardrive Scranton, Pennsylvania…and run a stop sign 
For more info on the wireless APs found, check out the netstumbler file.
Scranton, Pennsylvania main netstumbler file and the highway file taken as I was leaving Scranton.
Materials: Compaq Presario laptop (2135US), Belkin wireless card (F5D6020), Kodak Digital Camera (C743), assistance from Rebecca.
Continuing my road trip, I decided to wardrive Binghamton, New York. For more info on the wireless APs found, check out the netstumbler file.
Binghamton, New York netstumbler files – first pass and second pass.
Materials: Compaq Presario laptop (2135US), Belkin wireless card (F5D6020), Kodak Digital Camera (C743), assistance from Rebecca.
While taking a road trip down the east coast, I decided to whip out the laptop in a few places. The first stop was Niagara Falls, New York. For more info on the wireless APs found, check out the netstumbler file. More videos to come shortly…
Niagara Falls, New York netstumbler file.
Materials: Compaq Presario laptop (2135US), Belkin wireless card (F5D6020), Kodak Digital Camera (C743), assistance from Rebecca, and don’t even get me started on gas…
Used hard drives that haven’t been formatted are the absolute easiest way to obtain information about the previous owner. Even if the hard drive has been formatted or the operating system has been re-installed, this does not assure that the previous data has not been written over or is not retrievable.
A few places you can find used hard drives at low cost, or in some cases free, would be at a flea market, garage sale, or even Freecycle. Last summer I went to a few garage sales and a flea market in search of older computer parts. I purchased one computer from a local Elementary School teacher who didn’t bother to format the hard drive. She still had some of her work on the hard drive including student names, the grade she taught, the classroom number, and various other information in plain view. Bought the computer, monitor, keyboard/mouse at her garage sale for $10.
More recently, I came across a few computers being given away by a hospital as they had upgraded all of their workstations. I was pleasantly surprised to find that all of the hard drives have been removed from every workstation, but found a few software CDs still in the CD-ROMs. Sure the CDs could have ended up containing databases/spreadsheets/documents with patient info because the trays weren’t checked, but they did not. Also, you still have to commend an admin that has the sense to know that hard drives are sensitive to exploitation – especially in a medical environment.
Materials: A little bit of cash, a few used hard drives, and some free time.
A while back I had to go to Walgreens to pick up a prescription around noon. It was quite busy and there was a line-up, however, I decided to wait for my prescription and people-watch. As I was waiting, customers and the pharmacists were giving out information as if nobody were around them to hear it. I heard names, phone numbers, birth dates, social security numbers (for insurance company ID verification), and the names of drugs being picked up. I couldn’t help but to think that this is wide open to exploitation given the fact that almost everyone has a cell phone capable of text messaging and note taking.
Over the course of 30 minutes while I was waiting, I had overheard, and subsequently could have stored on my phone, the personal information stated above for 10 different customers. It would seem that Walgreens would find a way to “silence” information that could be overheard. When I had went in, the only personally identifiable information they asked for was my phone number and tied me to that number. This is also fairly insecure as anyone can look up a phone number as it is public information and impersonate someone else. I would suggest that perhaps a quick drivers license check would be a better idea for ID verification. It’s silent, easily accessible, and has all the information they would need right there on a credit card sized document.
Materials: Some spare time and a cell phone capable of saving/sending text.