On a clear day last fall, an attached smartphone-sized Raspberry Pi computer, was harnessed and carefully fitted onto a cat, by German digital media student Dennis Siegel. Cosmo, a fluffy Maine coon hit the streets with a small device designed to tap into and amplify local Wi-Fi networks. As Cosmo wandered through a nearby park, his wi-fi device “wardrive” launched a series of commands designed to locate open Wi-Fi networks and break the encryption algorithms of those that were badly secured. After getting into a network owned by an area resident or business, Cosmo’s wardrive amplified it, allowing anyone within up to 650 feet of the cat to freely use a Wi-Fi network they hadn’t been given permission to access.
