Hitchin' a ride
I just got free high speed internet! Well, not legally or anything. 
I was just sitting here tonight setting up Airport on my new iBook and came across something I wasn't expecting.
(oh yeah, I guess I need to make a post in that other thread, eh?)
Anyway, I had my Airport network setup before, so I knew what it was named. The first name that came up tonight though complete different. What? Couldn't be... I've NEVER seen another network available before. Anyway, I live in an industrial area (in a residence above my business - for one more month, anyway), so there are only other businesses around, and we're spaced out quite a bit here. Surely the iBook doesn't get THAT good of reception...
Of course I was wrong. The network name is part of a business name that's a good 150 yards away. (I think in yards - their office is a nice, easy 8 iron away from my office
)
I'm getting about half the reception that I get from my own network, but it's enough to surf the net just as fast.
Funny, I never saw anything with the PowerBook, but it's there as plain as day with this iBook. I guess the reception really IS that much better.
I just saw a third network show up too - I clicked rescan and it didn't come up again, guess I'll have to move around a bit and pick it up again. Time to get that firewall going I guess... well, I do have a 19 digit password, so that should stop the casual broadband thief (like I was doing earlier)
Funny these guys didn't have a password at all.
Anyone know how I can peek into these guy's hard drives??
[ 06-19-2002: Message edited by: murbot ]</p>
I was just sitting here tonight setting up Airport on my new iBook and came across something I wasn't expecting.
(oh yeah, I guess I need to make a post in that other thread, eh?)
Anyway, I had my Airport network setup before, so I knew what it was named. The first name that came up tonight though complete different. What? Couldn't be... I've NEVER seen another network available before. Anyway, I live in an industrial area (in a residence above my business - for one more month, anyway), so there are only other businesses around, and we're spaced out quite a bit here. Surely the iBook doesn't get THAT good of reception...
Of course I was wrong. The network name is part of a business name that's a good 150 yards away. (I think in yards - their office is a nice, easy 8 iron away from my office
)I'm getting about half the reception that I get from my own network, but it's enough to surf the net just as fast.
Funny, I never saw anything with the PowerBook, but it's there as plain as day with this iBook. I guess the reception really IS that much better.
I just saw a third network show up too - I clicked rescan and it didn't come up again, guess I'll have to move around a bit and pick it up again. Time to get that firewall going I guess... well, I do have a 19 digit password, so that should stop the casual broadband thief (like I was doing earlier)
Funny these guys didn't have a password at all.Anyone know how I can peek into these guy's hard drives??
[ 06-19-2002: Message edited by: murbot ]</p>
Comments
To get a stronger signal, try making one of these: <a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/~rob/pringles/"; target="_blank">Pringle Can Antenna</a>
Thanks for that link to the pringle antenna - that's pretty cool!
BTW, how hard would it be for someone to access my computer if I didn't have any kind of password set up in the base station - is it a major hacker job, or easy stuff? I seem to remember someone on the PowerList saying that he found an open network like this from his office one day, so he opened an innocent file, copied it, and emailed it to them with a note like "just a heads up, you should get a password on your wireless network..."
How the heck did he get that file... Hmm.
<strong>I just got free high speed internet! Well, not legally or anything.
This is definitely something that is happening more and more, especially in urban areas. Certain folks are scrambling to secure this stuff, while keeping usability, speed and everything else. In the Cali bay area, some neighborhoods have set up "NANs" (neighborhood area networks) where a bunch of people buy access, get WAPs and go to town. Purty cool!