Steve Ragan reports:
Evan Robertson, age 10, took a science fair project and turned it into a valuable lesson in privacy earlier this month at rootz Asylum, a kids-only gathering at DEF CON where children can learn about security in a safe, encouraging environment.
Evan wanted to do something different for his school project. He just wasn’t into volcanoes.
“I was thinking about a really cool project, I didn’t want to do normal stuff,” he explained in an interview with Salted Hash.
Instead, he asked his dad for ideas. Several options were discussed, but eventually (at Evan’s insistence) the two decided to see if people cared about their privacy and security when connecting to public Wi-Fi.
Evan’s project required a Raspberry Pi, and the base kit ($75) included almost everything needed to prove his hypothesis. He created a hotspot that would offer free internet access to anyone using the SSID of FREE PUBLIC WIFI, provided the user agrees to a horrendous Terms of Service (TOS).
For example:
“…You agree to allow your connecting device to be accessed and/or modified in any way by us, including but not limited to harvesting of personal information and authentication data, reading and responding to your emails, monitoring of your input and/or output, and “bricking” of your device…”
Read more on Salted Hash.
This is a great blog post on news story. I love stories when children teach more or less adults, even hackers.