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Show HN: the government sent me a traffic sniffer

15 points by jloughry ↗ HN
Is anyone else on HN participating in this FCC research project to measure broadband performance? [1] I signed up for more information when the project was announced, some time ago, but a few days ago the device arrived. Technically, it is quite an interesting little box.

It's a generic consumer device, shaped like a wireless router, with an antenna and five RJ-45 jacks. But it works more like a bridge, plugging in between my existing ADSL modem/wireless-router and any wired devices that used to be plugged directly into the existing ADSL. No changes needed to be made to any of the wireless devices in the house---the antenna on the new device sniffs any wireless networks in the vicinity.

It came with a printed copy of the GPL.

There was no configuration required except to plug it in. Within a few hours, I received an email announcing that it had successfully phoned home and offering a login to the web site where I could view graphs showing the results of measurements on my broadband connection.

I've not examined the software in the device yet to figure out what all it's actually doing, but I can't help wondering [2].

[1] http://www.samknows.com/fcc_and_samknows

[2] Two years ago there was a brief discussion on HN about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2837451

4 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 18.4 ms ] thread
jloughry
Self-criticism for the link-baity title, but I was impressed that it didn't require re-associating all my Wi-Fi devices.
bnejad
Why would it? They are already authenticated with your router and still connecting to it, not a new device.
jloughry
...already authenticated with your router and still connecting to it, not a new device.

But the monitoring box connects downstream from the wireless router, though:

                 ___              ___
                 \|/              \|/
                  |                |
  ISP --> my Wi-Fi router --> mystery box --> wired devices
                                                   ___
                                                   \|/
                                                    |
                                           wireless devices
The mystery box acts as a Layer 2 bridge for wired devices, but it must sniff wireless devices from the air. The FAQ that came with it strongly suggests that it sniffs all the wireless networks it can see, not just mine.

Edit: to improve the ASCII art diagram

kogir
According to your first link:

  The specially developed 'White Box' does not monitor the
  home network or web traffic, but solely focuses on the
  relevant ISP’s network.
That would imply that it doesn't even act as a bridge, but rather is just another device on your local network.