You Are a Rogue Device

If you're walking around downtown Seattle, look up: You'll see off-white boxes, each one about a foot tall with vertical antennae, attached to utility poles. If you're walking around downtown while looking at a smartphone, you will probably see at least one—and more likely two or three—Wi-Fi networks named after intersections: "4th&Seneca," "4th&Union," "4th&University," and so on. That is how you can see the Seattle Police Department's new wireless mesh network, bought from a California-based company called Aruba Networks, whose clients include the Department of Defense, school districts in Canada, oil-mining interests in China, and telecommunications companies in Saudi Arabia.

The question is: How well can this mesh network see you?

How accurately can it geo-locate and track the movements of your phone, laptop, or any other wireless device by its MAC address (its "media access control address"—nothing to do with Macintosh—which is analogous to a device's thumbprint)? Can the network send that information to a database, allowing the SPD to reconstruct who was where at any given time, on any given day, without a warrant? Can the network see you now?...

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/you-are-a-rogue-device/Content?oid=18143845

Wi-Vi: See through Walls with Wi-Fi signals

Immaterials: Light painting WiFi

This project explores the invisible terrain of WiFi networks in urban spaces by light painting signal strength in long-exposure photographs.

A four-metre long measuring rod with 80 points of light reveals cross-sections through WiFi networks using a photographic technique called light-painting.

via vimeo.com

Hidden device distorts news at hotspots

"Many of us are familiar with this scene: starting the day with a muggachino while we catch up with news using the local wireless hotspot on our portable computer or smartphone.
This ritual practice, popular across cities throughout the western world, has recently come under threat however, from small, innocuous-looking devices 'infecting' cafes throughout Europe.."I was checking an article I'd published the night before and noticed some bizarre irregularities. At first I thought they were typos but looking further I saw whole mis-citations of our Chancellor, Angela Merkel!

Embarrassed I called my office and they said it all looked fine. 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.."
http://newstweek.com/2011-01-07-device-distorts-news-on-wireless-neworks