Yesterday night I visited an hacker club. I was downloading some pdf from their private network when suddenly the whole WiFi went down with the local Cisco router blinking the red-alert line like a deranged dog on speed.
When you see a Cisco router blinking that way ... well, it's a Kind of WTF is happening? Are we on the set of the Matrix movie? Is the line taped and agents will come here to arrest us all - I don't know why - maybe because someone has been found who is secretly storing in his/her computer some confidential datasheet about some weird electronic document?!?
I was going to seriously worry ... then I looked at the guy in the corner. It was the kind of dude dressed with a hood of the tracksuit on the head, which I don't know why it should make someone more "hacker-ish", but the first thing that makes you understand the kind of person you are looking at ... shoes and the wristband watch.
Nobody would wear stiff toe shoes, they are uncomfortable for running, that is, if you get caught you have to run as fast as possible, not in those shoes! And when your wristwatch looks like clumsy smartwatch that is vastly larger than your wrist, you are certainly not someone who is able to hide his/her hacking-tools.
Moral of the story a dick who is only making fun of us.
Indeed, a closer second look revealed the dude was wearing an ESP8266 WiFi
Deauther Watch (Amazon link)
So, a tools that makes no purpose except making fun of other people's WiFi networks.
Which brings some questions in my head: Why people do buy this kind of crap? And, why people use this kind of crap to disturb?
Thanks God, the Deauther only works at 2.4Ghz, it cannot attack any 5Ghz network, but it can shutdown even a B.A.T.M.A.N. mesh-network, 2.4Ghz but used for domotic not for common WiFi.
The 2.4GHz WiFi kept staying down with the poor router continuing to safely bling red-alarm, I switched to 5Ghz and got served by a neigh-board's network. The signal power was not good, but out of curiosity, I vivisected the
GitHub of the Deauther Wristband watch and found a few notes about
This software allows you to easily perform a variety of actions to test 802.11 wireless networks by using an inexpensive ESP8266 WiFi SoC (System On A Chip).
The main feature, the deauthentication attack, is used to disconnect devices from their WiFi network. No one seems to care about this huge vulnerability in the official 802.11 WiFi standard, so I took action and enabled everyone who has less than 10 USD to spare to recreate this project.
Which -!YeAh!- sounds like the stupid usb-killer that was advertised as "
made for testing the over voltage protection of your usb ports" and can destroy your laptop if someone plugs it into your usb-port, and, worse still, enables everyone who has less than 10 USD to spare to recreate the project

I don't want to over react, just in my head, it's like when we talk about guns. Guns can be used to have fun at the shooting range, or to show the world that you are a complete moron but able to shoot your feet.
I mean,
the tool is not the problem, what people do with tools is the problem, but why do they have to sell that crap on Amazon and easy accessible online store? To buy a gun you have to show your identity document, and have a firearm license, you cannot buy a Gun from Amazon.
So, I think to buy a device that can disrupt your WiFi or destroy your USB-ports or/and motherboard you should have a similar document.
Otherwise ... morons like that dude can easily buy such a crap on Amazon and easily disturb your business.
Can't they?

Hey, oh? No one died, no one was arrested, and no computer was destroyed or burned. Just, his trick wasted 30 minutes of time, then I was late and I couldn't finish downloading my pdfs. I shot him a dirty look and went out for a drink.