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Wireless Networking Idle

Accused Teen Bomber Finds FBI Surveillance Team's Wireless Network 267

roccomaglio writes "The suspect who is accused of planning to bomb his high school in Tampa updated his Facebook status with the following: 'The weirdest thing happened today...when my homie Nic Peezy was trying to connect to a wireless network the connections list came up and one of them was called: FBI_SURVEILLANCE_VAN,' The FBI might want to revisit their wireless network naming conventions."
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Accused Teen Bomber Finds FBI Surveillance Team's Wireless Network

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  • BS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2011 @02:59PM (#37122574) Journal

    I don't believe that one bit. First off, we can assume that the FBI has more than one surveillance van, in which they can't all have the same SSID. They would include some sort of vehicle ID, etc. Second, this kid was living in some delusional word trying to make himself out to be a lot more than he was. I think he was hinting to his friends on FB and trying to sound like a badass of some sort. He was obviously running his mouth about his plans, which is how he was caught - someone turned him in. Perhaps that was his way of reaching out for help before he actually acted. Regardless, just because he posted it on FB doesn't mean that his friend really saw that wireless SSID.

    • His friend might have seen it, too. Around here, people like thinking up funny names for their SSIDs. It wouldn't mean the FBI really made the hotspot.
    • by geekoid ( 135745 )

      ", in which they can't all have the same SSID"

      that not?

  • Correction: Teen posts some BS about finding a FBI wifi network.

    Really? Do we believe everything some jerkoff posts on Facebook now?

    The article itself is pretty amazing: it's mostly a report of the kids social media posts. WTF is that? Journalism?

  • I usually name my wifi "_SURVEILLANCE" just to mess with my neighbors

  • pure urban myth (Score:3, Informative)

    by Eponymous Hero ( 2090636 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2011 @03:03PM (#37122616)
    this joke made its way around my circles a few months ago. you're supposed to change the name of your home wireless network to "fbi surveillance van" (those exact words, too) to freak out people who are hanging around your house stealing bandwidth. this isn't the stupidest article that's been posted, but it's close.
  • My roommate and myself had that as our SSID for years.

  • Or maybe, al_qaeda_local_549

    .

  • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Wednesday August 17, 2011 @03:17PM (#37122766)

    Nothing to see here folks, just a white van with men in suits and ties inside.

  • something like LocalPD_NarcoticsSquad!

  • "I_got_pussy_for_installation" was one ssid I saw once(well, thrice). it wasn't exactly that string though, as it was in finnish. funny anyways.

    anyhow, if some neighbor of his(this guy) knew of the fbi raid or surveillance, they might have just put it up to spite. the ssid i saw might've been intentional by some tongue in cheek chick - or not.

  • My SSID is "SHOCKING PORN" and when my sister-in-law got wifi, I made sure she understood there was a password and we set the SSID to "Fuck Off, Freeloaders!"

    My general experience is that most of the time the immediate neighbors on both sides wifi bleeds in/out at about 1 "bar" of strength, so its not like anybody even sees the SSIDs unless they are in my house or outside.

  • The reason our law enforcement is as good as it is, the ones who can't get into the police academy become criminals.
  • Look, I title my WiFi networks weird things all the time, just because I know strangers will see it and be confused. Some are great wordplay, some are simply bizarre non-sequitors, some of them are downright disgusting, and some are deliberately misleading.

    My hunch is that this network is NOT that of an actual FBI surveillance van, but the product of a fun-loving person setting up their router.

    That said, it would be pretty simple to use wifi sniffing tools to pinpoint the source of the signal and actually,

    • by geekoid ( 135745 )

      Announcing your presence and watching the results can be very telling.
      FBI isn't stupid, and they do know their business*. They are educated. So it's best to assume something else is going on then to assume they are stupid; not that mistakes don't happen.

      It's lie someone doing a magic trick, and they pull the wrong card.haha what a moron..then 2 minutes later you are opening an egg with your card in it.

  • Even now, as I write this.

  • My cell phone is "Flowers By Irene" whenever I enable wifi tethering.

  • Think I'll plug it in and set it up to broadcast "CIA_DEA_FBI_SURVEILLANCE" but not connect it to anything. I wonder how long it will be before it shows up in a story here...
  • Check your wireless networks and you will likely find the TSA showing up on your computer. They don't show up all of the time but they obviously don't care that you know.
  • to rename my wifi network so I can freak out the neighbors.
  • Roughly 10 years ago, I was war-driving and one of the hotspots came up: 'CIA SAFE HOUSE'. The sad part was, I wasn't sure if it was a joke or if someone was actually that daft. It was a posh area of town, so I'm still undecided to this day.

  • And after reading this story, the FBI circulated a memo instructing that the SSID should be changed to TOTALLY_NOT_FBI_SURVEILLANCE from now on.

  • It's not that hard to turn SSID broadcast off.

    But I'm totally changing my sprint mobile SSID to that and leaving the roaming wlan on from now on...

  • A story of my own. I set my SSID to "flancrest enterprises" and a few days later I noticed one of my neighbors had changed theirs to "CompuGlobalHyperMegaNet". True story.

  • This has to be the dumbest fucking story I have ever read on this site. I can't tell if this article is serious or meant for a laugh. Sadly I think it is serious.

    As I write this, there is a nearby access point named "CIA Surveillance Van". You think that is the fucking CIA? Should submit a story about that?

    Jesus fucking christ. This is a new low for this site.

  • I suppose that FBI agents are so technically inept that they commonly carry wifi routers in their vans (which would be completely unnecessary) and name their networks this obviously? I've seen "FBI" networks at least a couple of times, when not wardriving, so I doubt I it is easy to just stumble upon such stupidly named but authentic networks. Why didn't the person who submitted this article, or the one who approved it, realize that the moron of interest is not really smart enough to uncover an FBI investig

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