Hidden device distorts news at hotspots
Try clicking around on that site. Most of the links all just go to 'newstweek.com' and none of what are apparently meant to look like links on the frontpage actually go anywhere. The only page that actually functions is the 'article' page. The only links on the page go to:
Both of the photos of the supposed perpetrators link to the home pages of the same guys that are in the Copyright notice at the bottom of the page. So far as I can tell this is a total hoax.
Is there any outside information on this? At first glance it looks like a complete hoax.
The supposed story about it is hosted on the homepage of the device in question, and I see no other hits for it on Google.
Edit: It looks like ibejoeb has the right of it. It is a hoax in the in the stunt/prank/hype/performance art manner, rather than the malicious deception sort.
Definitely looks like a joke given the BusyBox banner.
However, the technology described is something that is completely technically possible -- ARP spoofing on an open wireless network and performing MITM content modification.
How the devil did this get injected into Hacker News! <checks plug>
If this wasn't a joke, this would be way wrong. This article is so focused on the computer aspect of getting away with this that they forget the physical world. There is such a thing as a camera and if your going to be going about installing this at enough locations to be meaningful, enough information will eventually come out to get you caught. Moreover, once a device like this began to scare people enough to enter the news, people would find it near the hotspot and its threat would be neutralized.
This is obviously some kind of awareness campaign, but it makes me wonder where the joke ends. Did anyone actually make the device (it certainly is possible) or is it just a hoax news article?
This made me laugh though:
"a Nokia N900 phone turned in at a police station in the area had a number of images of the device on board, along with these two photos, taken just minutes after one installation in a large Starbucks in the central suburb of Mitte, east Berlin. Note the black hat worn by what may be a colleague in the first photograph."
What a device! I think the network here may be affected because I've noticed ~NOTHING UNUSUAL WHATSOEVER~ when reading the news here.
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"In a rush to leave I reached under the chair to pull out my laptop plug and accidentally knocked this little box to the floor. I plugged it back in and apologised to the cafe owners. They said they'd never seen it before.."
Reads just like a bad movie script.
The hardware to do this exists. http://www.tonidoplug.com/
Edit: This example may lack wireless, but it's close. Anyone know of better examples?
I really love their reference to running arpspoof as "a sophisticated modification of the Address Resolution Protocol Table" as opposed to "brute force flooding of the Address Resolution Protocol Table".
Looking at the 'most popular' section, it's clear that it's a joke.
If it replaced/injected advertising--that would be believable.
This looks like some hype for the forthcoming "Black Hat News Network" advertised on the same page. The article looks like it was written by the site directly.
I'm a bit skeptical of the facts - but there's nothing really hard about this - this could easily be built and do exactly what it claims to do.
Assuming it's not an hoax - this wouldn't work if WiFi hotspots used WPA2 with same password as the SSID or something known to everyone.
What is this some kind of satire site?
Newstweek.com is obviously a parody site. Reddit material. Just ignore this, or better yet, flag it.
I love how this is all possible albeit not practical.
maybe its a how-to disguised as a news/fake article? others have commented that it seems technically possible whats being described.