Hack Boston: Monitoring Wireless Security Awareness in an Urban Setting

This paper describes "Hack Boston," a project carried out by members of the IEEE student chapter at Northeastern University (NU) in Boston, MA. Our purpose was to identify the presence of wireless networks in order to determine qualitatively and quantitatively how secure these networks are, thus monitoring the security awareness of the wireless community around NU. Our study goes beyond common "war driving/war walking". We present statistical results over a range of metrics that go from the number of wireless signals in the scanned areas to the specific encryption method they use (if any). Experiments have been performed in 2004 and 2005, which indicate an increased awareness of the need for securing in-home wireless Internet connections. Our results are analyzed and compared with national statistics. We finally describe the activities that the NU IEEE student chapter is proposing for educating the community about the proper, secure use of wireless technologies