WiGLE

WiGLE (or Wireless Geographic Logging Engine) is a website for collecting information about the different wireless hotspots around the world. Users can register on the website and upload hotspot data like GPS coordinates, SSID, MAC address and the encryption type used on the hotspots discovered. In addition, cell tower data is uploaded and displayed.[1]

A map of Wi-Fi nodes in the world collected by the WiGLE project, 2019

By obtaining information about the encryption of the different hotspots, WiGLE tries to create an awareness of the need for security by running a wireless network.[2]

The first recorded hotspot on WiGLE was uploaded in September 2001. By June 2017, WiGLE counted over 349 million recorded WiFi networks in its database, whereof 345 million was recorded with GPS coordinates and over 4.8 billion unique recorded observations. In addition, the database now contains 7.80 million unique cell towers including 7.75 million with GPS coordinates.[3] By May 2019, WiGLE had a total of 551 million networks recorded.[4]

Mentions in Books

From Hacking for Dummies[5] to Introduction to Neography,[6] WiGLE is a well known resource and tool. As early as 2004, its database of 228,000 wireless networks was being used to advocate better security of Wifi.[7] Several books mentioned the WiGLE database in 2005,[8][9] including internationally,[10] and the association with vehicles was also becoming widely known.[11] Some associations of WiGLE have been positive, and some have been darker.[12][13][14] By 2004, the site was sufficiently well known that the announcement of a new book quoted the co-founder, saying “This is the ‘Kama Sutra’ of wardriving literature. If you can't wardrive after reading this, nature has selected you not to. This is the first complete guide on the subject we’ve ever seen (it mentions us). Don't quote me on that.” –Bob “bobzilla” Hagemann, WiGLE.net CoFounder" and a shortened quote appeared on the book's cover.[15][16]

Mentions in Academic Papers

In early days, circa 2003 the lack of mapping was criticized, and was said to force WiFi seekers to use more primitive methods. "The most primitive method disseminated is warchalking, where mappers inscribe a symbolic markup on the physical premises to indicate the presence of a wireless network in the area." Regarding WiGLE in particular, it was said, "The Netstumbler map site and the Wireless Geographic Logging Engine store more detailed wardrive trace data, yet do not offer any visualization format that is particularly useful or informative."[17] By 2004 others felt differently, however, and a WiFi news site said about "the fine folks at wigle.net who have 900,000 access points in their wardriving database," "While the maps aren't as pretty, they're quite good, and the URLs correspond to specific locations where WiFiMaps hides the URL-to-location mapping."[18] In late 2004, other authors stated, "that war driving is now ubiquitous: a good illustration of this is provided by the WiGLE.net online database of WAPS." They also said, "The motherload of WAP maps is available on the Wireless Geographic Logging Engine Web site (wigle.net). Circa late September 2004, WiGLE’s database and mapping technology included over 1.6 million WAPS. If you can’t find the WAP of interest there, you can probably live without it."[19] In 2005, using WiFi databases for geolocation was being discussed, and WiGLE, with approximately 2.4 million located access points in the database, was often mentioned.[20][21][22]

Licensing

Although the apps used to collect information are open sourced,[23] the database itself is accessed and distributed under a freeware proprietary license.[24] Commercial use of parts of the data may be bought.[25] The Android app to collect Wi-Fi hotspots and their geographic correspondent information is available under a 3-clause BSD license.[26]

See also

References
  1. WiGLE FAQ
  2. Wigle.net: The 411 on Wireless Access Points
  3. WiGLE Statistics
  4. WiGLE Statistics (archived)
  5. Beaver, Kevin (December 16, 2015). Hacking for Dummies (5th ed.). John Wiley & Sons. pp. 372, 389. Retrieved June 28, 2017.
  6. Turner, Andrew (Dec 18, 2006). Introduction to Neography. O'Reilly Media, Inc. p. 21. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
  7. Field, Dave; Brandt, Andrew (Oct 27, 2004). How to Do Everything with Windows XP Home Networking: Keeping Your PC Safe. McGraw Hill Professional. p. 140. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  8. Proceedings: The Twentieth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the Seventeenth Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference. American Association for Artificial Intelligence AAAI Press. 2005. p. 20. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  9. Hong, Jason I-An (2005). An Architecture for Privacy-sensitve Ubiquitous Computing. University of California, Berkeley. pp. 123–125. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  10. Gellersen, Hans W.; Schmidt, Albrecht (Jun 23, 2005). Pervasive Computing: Third International Conference. Springer. pp. 122, 139. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  11. Stolarz, Damien (2005). Car PC Hacks: Tips & Tools for Geeking Your Ride. O'Reilly Media, Inc. p. 293. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  12. McClure, Stuart; Scambray, Joel; Kurtz, George (May 10, 2005). Hacking Exposed (5th ed.). McGraw Hill Professional. pp. 664, 690. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  13. McPherson, Tara (2008). Digital youth, innovation, and the unexpected. MIT Press. pp. 85, 88, 95. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  14. Wang, Wally (2006). Steal this Computer Book 4.0: What They Won't Tell You about the Internet. No Starch Press.
  15. "Syngress Publishing Announces the Release of "WarDriving: Drive, Detect, Defend"". helpnetsecurity.com. Help Net Security. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  16. Hurley, Chris (Apr 2, 2004). WarDriving: Drive, Detect, Defend: A Guide to Wireless Security (1 ed.). Syngress. p. Cover. ISBN 1-931836-03-5. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  17. Lentz, Chris; Kotz, David (June 1, 2003). "802.11b Wireless Network Visualization and Radiowave Propagation Modeling" (PDF). Dartmouth College Computer Science Department Senior Thesis. Technical Report TR2003-451: 2, 3. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  18. Glenn, Fleishman. "WiFiMaps Encompasses the World of Wardriving, April 27, 2004". WNN WiFi Net News. Glenn Fleishman. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  19. Berghel, Hal; Uecker, Jacob (December 2004). "Wireless Infidelity II: Airjacking" (PDF). Communications of the ACM. 47 (12): 15, 19. doi:10.1145/1035134.1035149. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  20. Roto, Virpi; Laakso, Katri (2005). "Mobile Guides for Locating Network Hotspots" (PDF). Workshop on HCI in Mobile Guides: 2, 5.
  21. Letchner, Julia; Fox, Dieter; LaMarca, Anthony (2005). "Large-Scale Localization from Wireless Signal Strength" (PDF). AAAI. 05: 6. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  22. King, Thomas; Kopf, Stephan; Effelsberg, Wolfgang (June 2005). "A Location System based on Sensor Fusion: Research Areas and Software Architecture" (PDF). Proc. of the 2. GI/ITG KuVS Fachgespräch Ortsbezogene Anwendungen und Dienste: 3, 5. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  23. https://wigle.net/tools
  24. https://wigle.net/eula.html
  25. https://wigle.net/gps/gps/main/faq/
  26. https://github.com/wiglenet/wigle-wifi-wardriving/blob/master/LICENSE
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