Future Technologies

The Neighborhood Network Watch is always looking to incorporate new technologies into its everyday operations. Currently the group has begun to look at the usage of hardware that can function as a smarter “spotter” or wireless network detector. Most of these detectors generally can only detect the presence of a network yet they leave out crucial pieces of data that are vital to the network identification needs of the Neighborhood Network Watch. These include the SSID or name of the network and the type of encryption if any is used. One new technology recently released by Apple Inc. is the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Both include WiFi connectivity and have been fairly customizable in regards to third party applications, not officially but unofficially. The Neighborhood Network Watch has begun to run tests on using the iPod Touch as a potential spotter and actual collection platform.

iPod Touch/iPhone as Collection and Spotting Platform

• Ultra Portable Spotting and Collection Platform
• Comparable Battery Time to some Laptops
• Ubiquitous within the Technological Ecosystem
• Ease of Usage
• Ability to run a WiFi Stumbler Application for Network Identification
• Signal Strength Indication
• Encryption Scheme Used if Applicable
• UNIX BSD Subsystem
• Includes TCPDUMP Packet Sniffing Application
• VT100 Terminal to run applications like TCPDUMP for ultra portable and non-intrusive data collection
• Lower Cost than Laptop Computer
• Complete Laptop Replacement in Future