The release states that AirCheck allows law enforcement agencies to "more confidently enter the suspect’s location, if they determine a wireless network is secured, knowing that illegal content is being downloaded from within that residence," and that AirCheck can help pinpoint both the WLAN source and attached clients. Both of these claims are OK, to a point. And what’s beyond that point is pretty important when men and women with badges and guns act on the intelligence provided by low-cost wireless test equipment.
On the topic of simply locating a wireless network or clients: I have yet to find a tool that I’d have enough confidence in, based on signal alone, to simply walk up to a door and say "It’s in here" without a few passes on the suspected location and trips to the floor above and below. Doing it from a vehicle? Fat chance, beyond the coarsest of accuracy. In a busy apartment building or similar environment, this can be time-consuming. And if you’re not an experienced "fox hunter" (signals direction finder), there are plenty of ways to be thrown off course during the process.
As far as assuming that a "secure" network means that only the clients in the domicile where the network is located can be up to no good, this is simply reckless. Everyone from George Ou to Josh Wright has covered the ease with which wireless pre-shares can be cracked if you know what you’re doing. And before the door gets busted down, hopefully the cops doing the analysis are relying on more than just the AirCheck leading them to potentially faulty assumptions. The real perp could be two doors down or in the next building over with a high-gain antenna, having cracked the network security with tricks he learned on YouTube.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m tickled that police agencies are using the same tools that WLAN administrators are leveraging for different reasons. At the same time, the tool itself is only as good as the accompanying knowledge of the person using it. If Fluke Networks is going after law enforcement agencies as a new customer base, I hope it is also doing the responsible thing: It should be helping to train cops to know what they’re really looking at and what may not be obvious on the WLAN, and how to corroborate what seems to be in play--for everyone’s sake.
