2008 Woodie Awards
The it Girl:
Wireless thieves, unite
Lisa Brass
Issue date: 2/21/08 Section: Features
Let me explain the situation to you. You're stuck at your aunt's house for a week in the suburbs and/or city and she's terrifically boring. The normal remedy for boredom would, naturally, be the Internet, but you guessed correctly: she doesn't have it. Forget cable-she doesn't even have an old-school phone modem. Unacceptable. How will you continue to exist if you can't access Facebook or check your email?
You boot up your laptop, bemoaning your fate, only to have a small, innocent box pop up in the lower righthand corner of your screen. "Wireless Network detected!" it proclaims. Worth checking out, right? You double-click the box to learn more and scan the list of available networks in growing amazement. Not only are there quite a few neighbors who have wireless-most of them have left their networks absolutely and completely wide open. What's a geek to do other than jump onboard?
True, it's not perfectly legal to use someone else's wireless connection without their permission, but it's not perfectly illegal either. Most geeks will tell you that it's not considered acceptable to hop on to a stranger's wireless… yet you'll find that most of those geeks do exactly that. Why? Quite simply, you creeping online for a few minutes to check your mail isn't going to bump their bill at all. If you end up downloading something, however, that's a bit of a different story. There's a good chance they'll notice how the Internet is crawling along at the speed of snail and become suspicious, perhaps even a making the effort to add a password.
Need to find an access point? Think of your laptop as a giant cell phone. What do you do when you don't get a clear signal? Move closer to the windows, avoid metal objects, and rotate your laptop in different directions. It's amazing how many access points show up just by tilting your machine one way or another.
There are a few different wireless network types you're going to discover. The first that you should know of is the default network. This is the one that your neighbors haven't touched other than to plug it in and eventually get themselves online. It's probably named something like the ever-infamous "linksys" or even simply "default." Other names to check for are "NETGEAR," "wireless," and "WLAN." Connect, surf, and enjoy. The second is the corporation Wi-Fi. Give up, because it's most likely password protected and will probably have its traffic monitored on a regular basis. Clues to the fact that the network is indeed run by a corporation is the all-caps name such as "BROWNCORP." The third type of network is the geek-friendly kind. There are people out there like you and me who have their own wireless network and aren't afraid to share. Names like "hackercool" and "surfme" are good indicators that there are some generous geeks out there who want to provide you with free Wi-Fi. Take them up on their offer and be a gracious guest, please, so that they don't regret their decision.
You boot up your laptop, bemoaning your fate, only to have a small, innocent box pop up in the lower righthand corner of your screen. "Wireless Network detected!" it proclaims. Worth checking out, right? You double-click the box to learn more and scan the list of available networks in growing amazement. Not only are there quite a few neighbors who have wireless-most of them have left their networks absolutely and completely wide open. What's a geek to do other than jump onboard?
True, it's not perfectly legal to use someone else's wireless connection without their permission, but it's not perfectly illegal either. Most geeks will tell you that it's not considered acceptable to hop on to a stranger's wireless… yet you'll find that most of those geeks do exactly that. Why? Quite simply, you creeping online for a few minutes to check your mail isn't going to bump their bill at all. If you end up downloading something, however, that's a bit of a different story. There's a good chance they'll notice how the Internet is crawling along at the speed of snail and become suspicious, perhaps even a making the effort to add a password.
Need to find an access point? Think of your laptop as a giant cell phone. What do you do when you don't get a clear signal? Move closer to the windows, avoid metal objects, and rotate your laptop in different directions. It's amazing how many access points show up just by tilting your machine one way or another.
There are a few different wireless network types you're going to discover. The first that you should know of is the default network. This is the one that your neighbors haven't touched other than to plug it in and eventually get themselves online. It's probably named something like the ever-infamous "linksys" or even simply "default." Other names to check for are "NETGEAR," "wireless," and "WLAN." Connect, surf, and enjoy. The second is the corporation Wi-Fi. Give up, because it's most likely password protected and will probably have its traffic monitored on a regular basis. Clues to the fact that the network is indeed run by a corporation is the all-caps name such as "BROWNCORP." The third type of network is the geek-friendly kind. There are people out there like you and me who have their own wireless network and aren't afraid to share. Names like "hackercool" and "surfme" are good indicators that there are some generous geeks out there who want to provide you with free Wi-Fi. Take them up on their offer and be a gracious guest, please, so that they don't regret their decision.
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