American Police Scanner Developed For MAC Addresses

An agent of an American police force has a scanner developed that can scan the police MAC addresses, to trace as stolen Wi-Fi equipment. L8NT, as the scanner is called, is especially meant for greater things, such as finding a phone at a burglary has been captured.

"If your cell phone is stolen in a pub ... That's not necessarily something that L8NT is for. But if your house is broken into and your mobile phone is stolen, then I am as police chief in the technology interested" so let David Schwindt across from The Gazette know. Schwindt developed the MAC scanner. The software is a kind of USB antenna that is connected to the laptop in police cars. The scanner has a database of MAC addresses of stolen equipment. Then comes from the police car to a distance of 100 meters to MAC addresses in the neighborhood are searched.

The MAC address is a unique identification number assigned to the network adapter. Devices transmit this address via wifi off continuously. In case the unit is off, the scanner will not pick up the address. In addition, consumers should know what is the MAC address of their equipment and pass it in case of theft or burglary to the police. The L8NT scanner will next month be demonstrated during a police conference in Chicago. Below already a YouTube video explaining the operation of the scanner.

IEEE And IETF Test Privacy MAC Address

To prevent consumers via the MAC address of their smartphone or other mobile devices have followed the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) held several successful experiments, so both organizations this week let know . The IEEE and IETF are two organizations involved in the development of standards.

During the experiment in November was tested with random MAC addresses. Participants had to run a script that made ​​they got a random MAC address if they were connected to the network. A MAC address serves as a unique identifier on the local network and is assigned by manufacturers to network. Because of the unique feature of the MAC address, that is continuously broadcast by mobile devices, for example, stores use it to track people.

Privacy Implications

Because of the privacy implications decided the IEEE and IETF last year the IEEE 802 Executive Committee Privacy Study Group to focus on. This group looks at the impact of Wi-Fi technology and is working on recommendations and standards."From the beginning IEEE 802 and IETF have shared conviction to address the privacy risks for non-technical users, who live in a world of continuous connectivity is present," said Juan Carlos Zuniga, president of the group. According to him, the experiments show that there are viable ways to protect users from Wi-related privacy risks.

"The IETF community sees widespread monitoring as an attack on the privacy of Internet users," Joel Jaeggli IETF adds. He argues that the IETF and IEEE 802 itself will work to protect users from passive observation. "Successful tests with MAC address privacy implementations help solve a major problem with the visibility of Layer 2 identifiers on a shared local network," Jaeggli further notes. The results can be used to establish new standards. Whether this will happen and when exactly allow both organizations do not know. Last year Apple came with a measure to provide users with a random MAC address when scanning Wi-Fi networks.