dominicDS

A simple Raspberry Pi-based system that scans for networks in the local area and records their location.

The build

I installed Kismet, a network analysis and monitoring package, on a Raspberry Pi 3 with a GPS receiver and external Wifi antenna, powered by a 20,000 mAh USB battery (it also has a long-range Bluetooth antenna, but that's not relevant for this project).

I packaged it into a padded case for portability.

The trip

The scanner traveled a few hundred miles on I95 and recorded every network it saw. I ended up with a 6.3MB CSV file contiaining 57,604 total data points.

During the trip, the scanner identified: – 10,637 devices with unique MAC addresses – 5,563 unique SSIDs (wireless network names) – 2,956 devices broadcasting an empty SSID

Network name analysis

• 806 network names contained some form of 'Spectrum'
• 229 'Verizon''
• 101 'FiOS'
• 63 networks with 'xfinity' in their name
• 36 named 'myChevrolet'

Best names

Based on no metric other than my personal preference, these were the best wifi network names:

• Keep It On The Download
• Everyday I'm Buffering
• The LAN Before Time
• The WiFi That Never Was
• Router? I hardly know her!
• What is Dead May Never WIFI
• I believe Wi can Fi
• Wi Believe I Can Fi
• My name is WiFigo Montoya
• MUTT FACE
• GoodWillHuntingforWifi – 2G
• exactly what youre looking for
• I identify as smart
• I'm not a witch I'm your wifi
• is this the krusty krab

Most-repeated joke SSIDs

• Government network:
  • CIA surveillance team
  • DEA Surveillance
  • DefinitelyNotTheNSA
  • Def Not a FBI Surveillance Van.
  • FBI Mobile Van
  • FBIsurrveillancevan1
  • FBI Surveillance
  • FBI Surveillance Van
  • FBI_Surveillance_Van
  • FBI Van
  • FBI Van 33
  • NSA Hub
  • police surveillance van 2.5
• This excellent pun
  • Pretty Fly for a Wifi
  • Pretty Fly for a WiFi
  • PRETTY FLY FOR A WIFI
  • PrettyFlyForAWifi
  • prettyFlyForAWifi2_4
• Jedi mind trick
  • NotTheWiFiYouAreLookingFor
  • Not your moms internet
  • NotYourNetwork
  • not your network 2.4

Honorable mentions

• Dont Try Me
• Eat a dick
• eat me
• eatmyshorts
• FckThaPolice
• FUCK_BIDEN
• Fuck You
• Fuq around and find out
• I miss Tito Francona
• imkingofmycastle
• LAN down under
• networkname
• networknotfound
• ninetynineproblemsbutwifiaintone
• No LAN for the wicked
• PurWifi My Love
• Rebellious Amish Family
• Stop using free wifi
• Taliban Headquarters

Other Take-aways

• I guess lots of cars have their own Wifi hotspots these days (“myChevrolet”, “myGMC”, “Audi_MMI”, “My VW”, and others).
• Kismet is very cool, I can't wait to use it more. This project only used a tiny bit of its functionality, but as a passive network monitor tool, Kismet is incredibly powerful.
• My Raspberry Pi can run and collect data for more than 12 hours on a 20,000 mAh battery (should be no surprise).
• Google Earth Pro absolutely cannot handle importing my wiglecsv data with 57.6k entries (including tons of duplicates when the tracker sat in the same place for a long time). The entire program grinds to a halt if I'm too far zoomed out. QGIS, on the other hand, didn't really struggle with the data size, but it has a much less appealing default presentation.