DEF CON 32 - Warflying in a Cessna - Matt Thomassen, Sean McKeever
Source: YouTube · DEFCONConference · published Oct 16, 2024 · 24:30
The video demonstrates a safe, legal, and educational experiment in "war flying" — using an airplane to detect Wi-Fi access points from the air — highlighting the technical feasibility, privacy concerns, and data collection efficiency of this method 1:34.
Key Takeaways:
• War flying enables detection of Wi-Fi access points from high altitude with line-of-sight advantages, capturing up to 10,280 unique BSS IDs in a single flight 1:59.
• Data collection degrades with altitude and speed: maximum detection range is ~10 km, though most signals are within 4–5 km 20:16.
• Flying yields more data per minute (130–197 max/min) than ground-based war driving (157 max/min), though war driving covers ground faster 21:48.
• Airplane materials (e.g., aluminum) interfere with Wi-Fi reception; external antennas improve performance but introduce safety and visibility risks 10:35.
• An IoT device (0000 z97) registered to Hitachi Energy USA suggests potential industrial use, indicating interest in smart infrastructure detection 17:10.
War flying is a viable, albeit attention-grabbing, method for Wi-Fi scanning with significant data potential, though it requires strict adherence to aviation safety and privacy ethics.
Sources:
- 1:34 Overview of war flying concept and goals.
- 1:59 Data collection results from multiple flights and tools (Wiggle, LinSSID).
- 20:16 Signal range and degradation analysis at different altitudes.
- [21:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anrgU7L
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First 800 characters of the transcript
[Music] good morning happy Sunday at Defcon thank you for coming to our talk because we can we're flying in assessa I'm uh Sean mckever I'm a senior security researcher and uh I do other stuff from Metro Detroit sometimes I race cars Matt Thomasson also Metro Detroit uh my day job is insecurity and has pretty much nothing whatsoever to do with war flying I am also a commercial multi-engine pilot um instrument rating and licensed airframe and power plant mechanic and all of the opinions are expressed here are our own statement yeah and probably have nothing to do with our respective employers I didn't even tell them I was coming all right so the story it's November 2019 and I was a wash in the sea of matths Matt um this was our Cube area I had a mat and a mat and a mat coffee and then a not…