In an attempt to either educate the populace about open WiFi connections or maybe just to fuel conspiracy theories, the Austin Police Department announced, then promptly killed, a plan to sniff out open connections and warn the owners about the possible dangers.

Dubbed WarDrive, this plan was set up by the Austin Digital Analysis Response Team, or DART.

This is sort of the digital equivalent of walking into your home to find an officer on the couch, petting your dog, saying "Now now, don't you realize how dangerous it is to leave your door unlocked?" Sure he might not have taken anything, but it's creepy.

After a blogger Mark Bowden, a blogger at Grits For Breakfast, drew attention to this matter, APD Chief Art Acevedo sent hims an e-mail stating,

"This WarDrive idea was not approved by APD Executive Staff and in fact has been disapproved. We will be releasing a statement later today. Although the involved unit’s intent was noble (educating the public about the risks to your personal information), a PSA or other educational effort would be much more effective. To place you further at ease, the idea was killed before actual implementation."

Having an open WiFi connection can lead to hacking, and it's only gotten easier over the years for someone to get an all-access pass to your data over an open connection. While it's not unheard of for digital thieves to drive around looking for open connections, it's much easier for them to simply sit at a coffee shop or restaurant with open WiFi.

Having an open connection isn't ideal, but many people prefer it over making their guests type in a password just to do a Google search on their iPad.

The Austin branch of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the lobbying group for Internet's rights, stated on their website, "However, these (risks cited by the APD) are much the same risks that Internet users undertake when using ANY shared wireless access point, such as those provided by cafés, public parks, or the Austin Public Library."

One blog post at Grits For Breakfast says, "This is less about protection of the public and more about using law enforcement as corporate welfare to enforce terms-of-service agreements with wireless Internet providers."

Well, for now anyway this has been postponed. Do you think the APD had some other agenda here? Or just wanted to let people know about their open connections?

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