Wireless networks
You may have heard of something called "wardriving". If you haven't, it's not as ominous as it sounds and I gave it a whirl Friday after work. What it entails is running a laptop computer in network scanning mode and logging the results. I also connected my GPS to the computer so that it would log the location of each network.
A couple of things surprised me: Over the route that I took, from my parking space to pick up the boys, to pick up Bridget, then home, I logged 405 wireless access points. What a huge waste of resources! Strategically placed, you could cover the same amount of ground with similar speed and efficiency with less that 100 hotspots. Probably less than 75. Not much one can do when most people don't even know their neighbours any more.
The biggest shock was that more than half of them (206) had encryption disabled! So, anyone with a laptop could sit outside their house (or office, in some cases) and use their internet connection! One of them is in an office where I know somebody. I called her and told her about it. She told the boss and the sub-tenant's response was that he doesn't want any encryption and anything on his computer is already on the internet anyway. Not with a properly configured Linksys router, yah knob!
Even worse, from a network admin standpoint, 42 of them still have the default unit ID. I would guess that a majority of them also still have the default admin password. Sheesh. If I didn't already have a day job, I'd be looking into something to do with this as a consulting gig.
I'm hooked on this, though. I went online and ordered a better wireless card and an external antenna. We'll see what I pick up once those arrive. :-)
A couple of things surprised me: Over the route that I took, from my parking space to pick up the boys, to pick up Bridget, then home, I logged 405 wireless access points. What a huge waste of resources! Strategically placed, you could cover the same amount of ground with similar speed and efficiency with less that 100 hotspots. Probably less than 75. Not much one can do when most people don't even know their neighbours any more.
The biggest shock was that more than half of them (206) had encryption disabled! So, anyone with a laptop could sit outside their house (or office, in some cases) and use their internet connection! One of them is in an office where I know somebody. I called her and told her about it. She told the boss and the sub-tenant's response was that he doesn't want any encryption and anything on his computer is already on the internet anyway. Not with a properly configured Linksys router, yah knob!
Even worse, from a network admin standpoint, 42 of them still have the default unit ID. I would guess that a majority of them also still have the default admin password. Sheesh. If I didn't already have a day job, I'd be looking into something to do with this as a consulting gig.
I'm hooked on this, though. I went online and ordered a better wireless card and an external antenna. We'll see what I pick up once those arrive. :-)
posted by Gordo at 9/04/2005 10:14:00 p.m.
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