Here is the appropriate contribution from the crypt to today's international cat day: Gene Bransfield will present a collar for cats at DefCon this weekend that finds and records unsafe WiFi users while the animals roam around:
This weekend at the DefCon hacker conference in Las Vegas, Bransfield will debut the […] “WarKitteh” collar, a device he built for less than $ 100 that turns any outdoor cat into a Wifi-sniffing hacker accomplice.
Despite the title of his DefCon talk - "How To Weaponize Your Pets" - Transfield admits WarKitteh doesn't represent a substantial security threat. Rather, it's the sort of goofy hack designed to entertain the con's hacker audience. Still, he was surprised by just how many networks tracked by his data-collecting cat used WEP, a form of wireless encryption known for more than ten years to be easily broken. “My intent was not to show people where to get free Wi-Fi. I put some technology on a cat and let it roam around because the idea amused me, ”says Bransfield.
(via Wired)