French hackers unveil the HADOPI router: cracks nearby WiFi and makes your traffic traceable to your neighbors — UPDATED

is a hoax as far as
I know.

it’s just to explain that it’s very feasible, but there is no running
code, just a message saying “hey, this was just a joke alright” when you
click on “order”.”

French hackers claim to have sabotaged Internet forensics by creating a firmware for routers that cracks nearby WiFi networks and routes your traffic through them at random, creating false trails leading to your neighbors instead of you. They’re calling it the HADOPI Router, in honor of Nicolas Sarkozy’s crazy Internet law of the same name.

HADOPI originally required ISPs to disconnect users after three unsubstantiated claims of copyright infringement (Princeton’s Ed Felten compared this to giving publishers the power to take away all the printed matter in your household if you were accused of committing three acts of illegal photocopying or cut-and-paste). The law was initially defeated in the French parliament, then it passed on reintroduction, only to be struck down by France’s high court on the grounds that it violated human rights.

Undaunted, Sarkozy has reintroduced the bill, on a fast track, with a provision that creates a five-minute judicial review prior to account termination, fines and imprisonment for those accused of illegal file-sharing. The French HADOPI Router hackers created their technology to highlight the unreliability of network forensics under the best of circumstances, and to create a veneer of plausible deniability for any accused: “Your honor, I must have been the victim of a neighbor with a HADOPI router.”

A hacker known only as ‘N’ says he has developed some software known as ‘Hadopi Router’, a term first penned by bloggers who devised the concept. ‘N’, who is said to have previously worked manufacturing routers, says he and a few friends wrote ‘Hadopi Router’ in order to prove that the evidence gathered by the Hadopi agency is unreliable.

“It locates Wi-Fi networks in the neighborhood, then begins to crack all their passwords,” says ‘N’. “Once we have the keys, we can create a virtual access point,” which in basic terms means using the Internet connection without the account holder’s knowledge.

‘N’ says that if an ‘owned’ router has its password changed, the system automatically switches to another Wi-Fi signal in the neighborhood and starts to attack the new password.

Additionally, ‘N’ claims that with Hadopi Router it is possible to monitor activity on the cracked networks but one of his accomplices called ‘V’ says they have no bad intentions.

Hackers Undermine Piracy Evidence With Hadopi Router