Hunt Down Wi Fi Leeches With MoocherHunter

By on Oct 15, 2008 · 8 Comments 

wifi-leech.jpg

Last week we showed you how to screw with people who were stealing your Wi Fi signal by flipping their browsers and blurring their images. Today we show you how to hunt those Wi Fi moochers. The problem with leaving your Wi Fi unprotected is that malicious people can use it to download illegal files that can be tracked back to you. The best thing to do is lock down your Wi Fi to ensure that no one does something that you might be blamed for, but if you choose to leave it open and have a problem with a user or two taking advantage of it you can track them down and pay them a visit.

First thing you are gonna want to do is download MoocherHunter. MoocherHunter tracks the data that is being streamed from your unprotected Wi Fi right to their front door. The program is pretty straighforward to use and is part of a much larger wireless auditing toolkit called OSWA-Assistant which is chalked full of useful tools to make sure your Wi Fi is well protected.

Use this information wisely, don’t go out and do something stupid with it. Remember, this is to be used for personal research, not as an excuse to knock at someone’s door and start a fight.

Frank's the editor in chief of tech.nocr.at. He can be found surfing the internet and playing with gadgets. Follow him on twitter @franklinhares

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  • http://www.zenonworks.nl/ ZenonR

    Great tutorial if you ever owned an unprotected wireless network, but people who own a wireless network that’s unprotected, you’re fucking stupid and deserve getting mooched off.

    I do it all the time when I’m waiting for the bus, checking my e-mail on my PSP or laptop.

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  • nothanks

    Picture this: somebody wants a piece of your cake. The box it came in had a note saying “help yourself” which you did not remove. You’re not around, but they see this and assume it’s ok and have a slice. Have they done anything wrong? No, obviously not.

    That’s essentially whats happening here: somebody comes along and tries to use your wifi. Their computer asks your router to allow it access to your wifi. Your router responds, on your behalf, that they have permission to connect.

    Have they done anything wrong? If you have left it set up to allow connections by default, then you are allowing connections!

    Wifi hackers are another matter, obviously…

    If you leave it unprotected they you are (literally) granting permission (by proxy)for others to use it… clearly you should not be held responsible for their downloads or actions, but innocent users can’t be acused of stealing when you’ve granted permission.

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    • YouWishItWasThatEasy

      You sir, are an idiot. If it’s not yours, it’s not yours. If someone leaves their bike unlocked on the street, that doesn’t mean you can just go ride it and return it later. It’s simply stealing, and you know it. An “Invite” is called your sense of right and wrong. Its stupid to leave it “available”, yes, but that doesn’t mean they get what they deserve for being naive or ignorant. There really should be something called “Wi-Fi Joy-riding”.

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  • anton

    I’d have to agree with the previous comments. And in addition, What are you going to do when you show up at the Smiths doorstep, and start yelling at the first guy who opens the door. What are you going to tell them? Stealing my Wifi is illegal? No it’s not. Sorry my 8 year old son’s laptop automatically connected to the nearest open network because someone was too much of a shithead to secure it.

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  • Caleb

    unfortunately people suck, so have to secure everything, i’d totally leave my wifi open if people wouldn’t abuse it. but you can never tell who’s going to download retarded things that aren’t legal. or just be a total ass and kill all your bandwidth.

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  • http://HunterShoptaw.com Hunter

    @Caleb
    You can restrict what goes on in your network.
    Look there are two avenues here.
    1) Restrict your net. Then you only have to worry about hackers.

    2) Open your net. You are responsible for what goes on there, but any responsible person should be researching how to administer their net anyway.

    On a side note – there are 10 unsecured wireless networks available in my area. NONE have passworded their routers. that’s out of the 25 I can see from my house. Personally, if I’ve half a mind to track them down and school them on internet security.

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  • Phone Guy

    I work for the biggest phone company in the USA and I can tell you that technically leeching is not yet illegal only because there has yet to be a precedence set in a court damages where were assessed and where a judgement was awarded. At this point in time, the only ones who can really cry foul are the phone/internet companies who are of course losing potential revenue and the poor hapless victim that you are leeching off of, since they are no doubt noticing a drain on their bandwidth which merely affects their internet experience. What my company is doing to combat the practice is quite simple, we are proactively offering our own router/modem when providing the service and we deliberately have it locked down so that the only way one can leech off of the signal is if they have been provided the WEP key for that device. You will see efforts from all internet providers very soon to start to instill bandwidth caps. (This is the practice of allowing a specific volume of Kb and after the cap is reached, an extra charge occurs). Once bandwidth caps are common practice, leeching will cause some subscribers to be charged for the excess bandwidth consumed and they will be able to argue that they have suffered monetary damage, the cases will end up in court. Once damages are awarded, an important precedence will be set that shows harm was caused, and then laws will finally be put in place to cause this sort of practice to be deemed illegal. Afterall, leeching is technically a theft of services.

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