Yesterday I was walking back from the Metro after work. It’s a mile walk. Just because I was curious, I took out my new Android mini-tablet (more on that in a future post) and ran one of several wi-fi scanning programs I have. These aren’t hacking apps. They’re just standard apps that scan for available wi-fi networks, such as local hot-spots you’d find in a Starbucks or elsewhere. As I walked I just watched the screen, which refreshed every five seconds.
Throughout my mile-long walk through the neighborhood, I was never in a spot with less than four wi-fi signals. That’s a lot of wi-fi spilling into the streets. My first thoughts were about how many people used personal information in the name of their network, including people’s names. Just walking by I could tell that Mary and Anthony were the names of a couple of my neighbors.
Most of the wi-fi throughout the neighborhood was secured networks that you would need a password to get on to. But what surprised me was at least 10 different wi-fi signals were totally open, unprotected from anybody like me stealing their bandwidth. One person (Anthony, mentioned above) had two very strong network signals. One that was secure named “Anthony-secure” and another totally unprotected signal named “Anthony-guests”. What the heck is the point of having a secure wi-fi signal if you have another insecure signal on the same network? That’s like having a lock on your back door but having the front door wide open.
