Adventures in wardialing.....

[poltr1]

On a lark, I plugged in my wireless card to my "new" laptop (called "tardis mark III", the Dell Latitude CPx) at home, and saw that all but one of my neighbors have secured their wireless networks. I tried connecting to the unsecured network and was able to get in. Score! This afternoon, I asked one of my next-door neighbors if he had a wireless connection and gave the name of it. He said that was his. I explained that I was able to get into his network, and advised him to secure it by putting a password on it. Amazingly, he doesn't seem to mind me accessing it. I'm not savvy enough (or stupid or malicious enough) to try to get to his computer(s) through the wireless network, which was his concern. (And mine.)

So, what are the ramifications of this? I don't intend to make a habit of siphoning his bandwidth. I'll still make trips to the library, Panera Bread, and Boston Stoker for my heavy duty downloading.