Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Midnight Wi-Fi Madness

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2003 04:46:27 -0400

Midnight Wi-Fi Madness
Contributed by mmasnick on Fri, Aug 1 2003

Found via Glenn Fleishman, and reposted at Nigel Ballard's own site, is the WSJ
story of how he found a
wardriver sitting in a car in front of his driveway surfing his WiFi one night
around 11pm. Ballard admits that it
was a bit surprising, but he had no problem with it, so long as the guy stayed off
his property. The rest of the
article also talks about others who go out of their way to find and use free
hotspots - something many of us
have done at one point or another. They quote a hotel manager who kids the
"loiterers" who sit in his lobby and
surf. Someone in the article likens it to a "wireless safari". They even quote Sky
Dayton, Boingo's CEO, telling
a story about sitting on a freezing cold park bench outside a closed Starbucks
after midnight in Washington
DC, using the Starbucks WiFi, while homeless people wandered around, and people in
a bar across the street
got into a fight. That's funny... I thought T-Mobile's hotspots (including all the
Starbucks hotspots) weren't a part
of Boingo's system...

===================================================================================

The Wall Street Journal July 31st 2003

NIGEL BALLARD was hauling the trash out one night several months ago when he
spotted a digital loiterer in front of his house.

A man was sitting in a car blocking Mr. Ballard's driveway, the soft glow of a
laptop illuminating the vehicle's interior. The driver was checking his e-mail.
Mr. Ballard had set up a wireless antenna to share his high-speed Internet
connection with neighbors, but he hadn't expected to see strangers dallying after
dark.

"I was a little perturbed . . . it was 11 o'clock at night," says Mr. Ballard, a
member of a Portland, Ore., group that promotes free wireless Internet access.
Still, he says, he didn't really mind as long as the stranger stayed off his
property.
Wireless Internet access known by the term Wi-Fi, for wireless fidelity is quickly
winning converts among people seeking high-speed Internet connections when away
from their home or office.  Despite a big surge in interest, though, Wi-Fi doesn't
yet have anything approaching the broad coverage area of cellphone service, partly
because standard Wi-Fi antennas spray their signal a mere 300 feet or so in any
direction.

Increasingly, eager fans go out of their way to find a wireless connection, known
as a "hot spot." Some commercial establishments offer free Wi-Fi service as a way
to attract customers, including some Schlotzsky's Inc. delicatessens and Omni
Hotels. Others, such as McDonald's Corp.  outlets, Starbucks Corp. coffee shops
and Borders Inc. bookstores, charge for using their signal on a per-hour or
per-month basis. Still other Wi-Fi fans seek out free "community" networks, and
others look for the signals of home users who forget to set up the
password-protection feature intended to lock out strangers.
Research firm Gartner Inc. estimates that by year's end there will be 29,000 Wi-Fi
hot spots in North America, ranging from tiny retail establishments to truck stops
to entire city neighborhoods.

The spread of these hot spots is a big lure for paying customers and freeloaders
alike. The Hampton Inn in Auburn Hills, Mich., installed Wi-Fi throughout the
hotel in January as a free amenity for customers. Soon, Tom Keller, the hotel's
general manager, began seeing local sales people, who weren't staying at the
hotel, lurking in the lobby or sitting in cars as they checked their e-mail or
surfed the Web. Mr. Keller says he gives the loiterers a hard time, but doesn't
consider them a problem. "I'll kid around and say, `Hey, you want to get a room?'"
he says. "They look kind of sheepish."

Schlotzsky's says people start using the free Wi-Fi it offers at 10 of its Austin,
Texas, delicatessens an hour or more before the stores open for business in some
cases as early as 5 a.m. Even though the early-risers aren't buying any food, the
company says it doesn't mind the mooching since wireless has helped boost business
during open hours.

Victor Chayet will go out of his way, literally, to find a hot spot. On a business
trip to Charlotte, N.C., the communications executive with software maker J.D.
Edwards & Co. couldn't get a room at a Wyndham hotel that offers wireless Internet
access. Mr. Chayet reluctantly checked into another hotel without Wi-Fi, but then
he ended up driving back to the Wyndham several times to check his e-mail in the
lobby. The reason: on a slow connection, his e-mail can take two hours to
download, vs. five minutes in most hot spots.

Mr. Chayet has pulled into hotel parking lots where he knew he could get Wi-Fi.
When he was having trouble with a weak signal, he once raised his laptop up over
his head, as though in supplication to some wireless deity. He has even chosen
wireless over sleep, catching a red-eye flight to San Francisco rather than
getting a good night's rest in Chicago. He knew he could get Wi-Fi at his hotel in
California while his Chicago hotel didn't offer it.

Patrick Lea has made similar detours. The mortgage broker, who freelances as a
cameraman for the Weather Channel, was on vacation in Orange Beach, Ala., last
summer when a tropical storm started brewing. Mr. Lea got the shots he needed,
then drove an hour and a half to Pensacola, Fla., so he could transmit the video
clips quickly from a hot spot. Over a phone-line connection it would have taken
hours.

Looking for a hot spot is "a wireless safari," Mr. Chayet says. "Just like you
know where to go fishing -- you have this knowledge that there are these places
that are hot spots."

Indeed, finding hot spots is a sport for some fans. Software programs let laptop
users scan for signals in the vicinity, including community networks open to
anyone, commercial ones that charge a fee and home setups installed by consumers.
Web sites like Wifinder.com let users search for public hot spots by ZIP code or
city.

Some people engage in a pastime called "wardriving" that involves cruising around
in cars looking for unprotected corporate wireless networks. These techies say
they want to alert companies to security breaches in their networks, not
necessarily to piggyback on their signals. In some cities, wireless enthusiasts
have scrawled symbols on sidewalks or buildings that mark the presence of a Wi-Fi
network, a practice known as "warchalking."

Even users who are totally aboveboard in using a public hot spot find there can be
unexpected consequences. Dan Bean, a marketing and promotions consultant in
Seattle, pays for a wireless account through T-Mobile USA, a Deutsche Telekom AG
unit that operates hot spots in Starbucks, Borders bookstores and other venues.
Most days, Mr. Bean opens up his laptop at a cafe in downtown Seattle. The
Internet access is nice but the extra lattes are hard on his nerves and his waist
line.
"I probably gained six or seven pounds," Mr. Bean says. "If I gain any more
weight, I'm gonna be in the Macy's parade next year."

Long after the espresso machines have been shut off, some cafes are still pumping
out a wireless signal. Last winter, Sky Dayton, peeved that his Washington, D.C.,
hotel offered only pokey dial-up access, went looking for Wi-Fi in the dark. "Hot
spot" doesn't quite describe the sidewalk bench where Mr. Dayton the chief
executive of Wi-Fi start-up Boingo Wireless Inc. huddled in frigid temperatures
outside a Starbucks after midnight. As he checked his e-mail on a $3,000 laptop,
homeless people talked to themselves and a fight broke out in a bar across the
street. "It was freezing," he says. "I was thinking, `I hope this doesn't make me
a target.'"

 http://www.joejava.com/wsjjuly2003.htm

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