Oklahoma town provides real-time streaming from cop cars, free WiFi to residents

Traffic wardens over in the UK have been wielding handheld camcorders for well over a year now, but Ponca City, Oklahoma is making waves here in America with a slightly more sophisticated alternative. In conjunction with Honeywell, the town is implementing a broadband mesh network comprised of over 490 wireless nodes and gateways from Tropos Networks, and aside from providing free WiFi to some 30 square miles of residents, it's also hoping to use the abundant connectivity to help public safety. For instance, the city has installed wireless video cameras in police vehicles so "dispatchers and supervisors can monitor activities during traffic stops, and quickly deploy additional officers and resources if necessary." 'Course, that's just the official word -- everyone and their mother knows this is just the beginning of "C.O.P.S.: Live in Oklahoma."

[Via Slashdot, image courtesy of CanMag]

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 23rd 2008 4:07PM]

"Don't tase me bro'!"

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 23rd 2008 4:35PM]

Yeah but how fast is it? I've got 80 gigs of porn to download!

[taoprophet420 Posted Nov 23rd 2008 5:05PM]

Its 2.2mb

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 23rd 2008 4:46PM]

it will become the world's biggest drinking game

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 23rd 2008 5:20PM]

Live from Dunkin Donuts! It will be perfect.
Free publicity anyone?

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 23rd 2008 5:24PM]

New York City residents would benefit a lot from free wi-fi

[rdza Posted Nov 23rd 2008 9:19PM]

Ok, now we need to turn these terrible steps toward a police state back on these a--holes - hijack this system to monitor the location of every cop car and publish to a real-time web service ala one of the collaborative speed trap database ones so as to know where the gestapo is at all times and allow us all to preemptively recognize and avoid these fascists.

[Taylor Tay Posted Nov 24th 2008 1:02AM]

mick:

Maybe read the rest of it.

'everyone and their mother knows this is just the beginning of "C.O.P.S.: Live in Oklahoma."'

This is what is called a joke. A joke is when a person says something that is contrary to the truth for the purpose of humor.

[Boyo Posted Nov 24th 2008 2:31AM]

I'm scared, first Ashton Kutcher being the only one making sense on Real Time with Bill Maher when Bill gets it WAY wrong about the number of senator in each state. Bill It's the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES!

And now, this.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 24th 2008 7:33AM]

why y'all have to pick a picture with a white cop and black "suspect"???

why not another white person or a woman........aint but like 100 black people in Oklahoma and maybe 2 in that particular town.......

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 24th 2008 7:58AM]

Even though there is a form of encryption between the sender and the receiver, it doesn't mean it can't be picked up by malicious or curious users. The users system (eg, police cam) stops sending out a network identifier once it has connected. This means that windows and other OS's will not register it as a "network". That doesn't mean that packet sniffers won't pick it up though. Any transmission of data can't be made "invisible", but you can make it so the average user doesn't see it. The police band of the wireless connection way not transmit an SSID at all, but they connect to it blindly anyways. Something very common and easily bypassed.

It's very easy to simply record those transmitted packets and analyze them later. Depending on the level of encryption and the point when the packets begin to be "sniffed" you could in theory hack the system and monitor the live footage of every cop car in the county. A well placed router near the police station could pick up on every new connection made and since there is no password, the encryption wouldn't begin until after the connection is made. If you can monitor the handshake protocols and the initial cypher key before it begins rotating, then there is essentially nothing to hack. Free in dash monitoring for the above average public Joe.

That's not even taking into account someone who's really serious about doing this and actually cracks one of the routers. Either physically or through cyber methods.

Of course, that's the theory.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 24th 2008 10:29AM]

I'd be all about this.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 24th 2008 10:38AM]

i jus love the way the (token) black guy is comin out with his hands up...just wonderful...how bout we install wifi video streaming in a few planes so we can get live coverage of a high jacking...stereotypical ass picture...

[Sone Posted Nov 24th 2008 1:31PM]

Ahhh...the silent message! I'm not feeling this pic engadget. Words are very powerful and images, symbolic. Cop = good guys, Criminal = black guys???? What the fuck?! At least there's a more powerful image, Obama, the president!