mattborn

I want to drive around my neighborhood with my laptop and see if there are any wireless networks I can connect to. Is there a program that will make this easier, and let me know when I am in range?

Antagony

http://wardriver.org

I did not provide this link. And for future reference, the activity you refer to is called "wardriving". That may aid you in some Googling.

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rubicon

Commercial networks are beginning to pop up. T-Mobile has a paid service of about 2300 sites and McDonald's is supposed to be offering it in certain cities when you buy a meal. I think some Starbucks have it too.

Driving around town and attaching to someone's wireless network isn't illegal - it's a side-effect of how that technology works. Using it for illegitimate purposes is a problem.

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Fearless_Hyena

Here are some pretty cool wardriving maps:

http://www.nakedwireless.ca/winudcol.htm Notice how many networks *aren't* WEP enabled -- you'd think it would be the other way around....
http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/wireless.html

It's real amazing how many people and companies have implemented 802.11b without securing their network!

Mad_Gecko

Check some bars in the U.K.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/69/30750.html

They got broadband online... I never have to go to work again.

? Arises though, why do you wanna know? It's not enquiring minds, surely?

h4x0r?

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ass5577

www.netstumbler.com works fine

charliex

most wireless cards have a utility that shows you the available networks, at least my belkin and prism does. I setup a friends wireless at her home in hollywood and when we switched it on it displayed 4 available networks all non encrypted.

i'm on a tmobile wireless hotspot connection right now.

txd

Win32
Netstumbler

BSD:
BSD-Airtools

Linux (and BSD):
Kismet

OS X:
Kismac

yotta

The problem with netstumbler is that it's active... People can detect you. Kismet is compleatly passive I use it on my PDA.

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