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geolocation, which is what Google obviously wants them for

Bingo. A neat idea made almost moot with GPS chips in cell phones. If you know where the WiFi is, you can look up the location of the WiFi via Google -- without a GPS. I mentioned in a similar /. article about placelab.org which I think maps whichever radio they're able to get data from.

I experimented with this stuff back in 2002 when I created wifimaps.com, which is a wardriving map application, which harvests data from wardrivers. I'm not a math guy, so I used a weighted average for estimating the WIFi signal source. Mapserver is kinda neat too, which I used since Google Maps didn't exist yet.

There were a bunch of entries I tried to add to Wikipedia. I went to repost the links to one of my projects (WiFiMaps.com) in the wardriving section, only to be deleted within seconds by some spam nazi. I tried to add an article about my grandfather (one of Duke Ellington's road managers), only to be deleted. Spelling corrections, link adjustments, and other edits quietly deleted, and my account being flagged as spam -- I've had accounts longer than some of these admins. They freaking deleted the article on spam nazis multiple times!

I am unable to contribute to Wikipedia because of this. Great idea, great resource, but it is no longer the Encyclopedia that Anyone can edit. I maybe have time and energy to do spelling corrections, fix links -- stuff like that. I don't' have the time and energy to fight some admin for weeks to have a link go to a (more appropriate) article, or add something that should already be up there. I don't bother anymore.

Pittsburgh had a couple of attempts to build-out networks here in Pittsburgh. They failed, but that was pretty early on, and the equipment was kindof expensive. Being a WiFi guy here, I haven't been able to do very much on my own, but doing something like that is a big (financial) undertaking, and requires a bit of equipment. This guy has been installing Meraki devices in a couple of the neighborhoods, all by himself.

Now it seems to me, that a City like Pittsburgh could take the money normally spent on Verizon telecommunications services, and put that towards their own telecommunications infrastructure -- using WiFi, or anything else that is convenient, and actually have higher bandwidth, and less monthly outlay, and a superior service. I don't understand why people get freaked out over a City taking on something like this. Why would you rather pay Verizon hundreds of thousands of dollars per month, rather than spend that in a one-time equipment purchase? These networks can be used for anything, and there doesn't have to be only one.

I am not surprised by this. In fact, having been the guy that started WiFiMaps.com (In '02), I've been talking about this to others for quite a while now. Positioning yourself using wifi is probably the most useful application for wardriving data. Does it need to be accurate? No, not really. I've talked to scientists working on sub-meter acuracy, and it is very difficult. If you can find out on which part of which block, there are tons and tons and tons of location applets you can think of off the top of your head to make use of that. If there are people interested in a copy of our national (and some other countries) database of wifi locations, ours is GPL'd. What we don't have, is an all-in-one IM applet, which I guess Skyhook and AOL are now trying. Kudos. I sure wish I had some business skills. That can be the difference between the company's product as a topic on slashdot, and a dude at home posting on slashdot with no pants on.

http://www.wifimaps.com/ - add MAC addresses and street addresses, and you're golden...

You can do geolocation with WiFi, if you have a large enough database. We have one, and there are others. Here is a good example of this kind of action. There aren't many applications that deal with location, but as you can imagine, there is a point to location-based blogging, and apparently a need for it. I wasn't successful in building a killer location-based app, but I like to see the other valiant attempts by others.

Hay, I'm looking for a gig too, Apple and Google.

I bought one of those MSI-branded RT2500-based miniPCI cards for my Dell C640. It works quite well with Centos -- but only after compiling the driver myself, and I haven't been able to get it to work with a newer kernel quite yet. Otherwise, for stock Centos, this card worked great for me. I do wish I could figure out how to get the bluetooth working on it, but for $30 I was happy enough to drop the PCMCIA card.

Then again, I haven't been able to figure out encryption, and all that fancy stuff yet. Works instantly with Kismet, which is really the important part.

This is actually nice -- now the police officers are engaged in wardriving. Now I won't worry so much when I do it, and the police wonder what all that equipment in my car is.

I certainly hope they don't pay thousands of dollars for their wardriving rigs, and I also hope there is enough accounting to deal with abuses the police officers might feel the need to engage in.

Perhaps we can send messages to our wardriving cops via the open wireless networks, like "Happy Wardriving!"

1. Using Free Wi-Fi is illegal, and the guy should rot in jail the rest of his life (OMG, he's STEALING!)
2. AP Owners should take responsibility for their actions (secure the Wi-Fi, etc)

They mention warchalking, but not wifi mapping services. Also, they brought up the old wwwd, which ended in '04.

Actually, the latest this article could be, is 2004. First they mention the little-used warchalking, but no mention of any wifi mapping services. Then they mention the old , which seems to have shutdown mid '04. I suspect that this is '04 me-too news.

It's okay, though, I post old stuff on my site too.

Perhaps it is time to take back *our* Internet, and more importantly, *MY* Internet. While I am only a generic sysadmin, and not Vinton Cerf, I did help build the Internet in what it is today. I worked at ISPs, webshops, and software huts. I took care of Internet customers. I told everyone how useful the Internet was. I posted to Usenet, sent emails, published videos, toyed with mashups, and other things. I helped make the Internet work, even if only in a teensy tiny small way.

I want to continue to experiment with everything Internet. I want to post, and send email, and publish. A tiered Internet would not make that financially possible for me, if I have to have two or three colocations to publish my stuff. Or, by not being an approved corporation that is allowed to reach certain network endpoints, how do I reach my intended audience?

So I suggest that the Internet's users take back what is rightfully theirs, and ours, and more importantly to me, mine. We can build our own infrastructure, which some groups have already started doing. Go get some wireless gear. Learn about it. Go wardriving. Have fun at a Wi-Fi shootout. Know the geeks in the area. I think the best way to take back our Internet, is to own a larger piece of it. I think the only way this can happen, is if there are more of us interested in wireless networking -- enough of an interest to start taking this more seriously.

Boy do I wish I were a better salesman sometimes.

Perhaps it is time to take back *our* Internet, and more importantly, *MY* Internet. While I am only a generic sysadmin, and not Vinton Cerf, I did help build the Internet in what it is today. I worked at ISPs, webshops, and software huts. I took care of Internet customers. I told everyone how useful the Internet was. I posted to Usenet, sent emails, published videos, toyed with mashups, and other things. I helped make the Internet work, even if only in a teensy tiny small way.

I want to continue to experiment with everything Internet. I want to post, and send email, and publish. A tiered Internet would not make that financially possible for me, if I have to have two or three colocations to publish my stuff. Or, by not being an approved corporation that is allowed to reach certain network endpoints, how do I reach my intended audience?

So I suggest that the Internet's users take back what is rightfully theirs, and ours, and more importantly to me, mine. We can build our own infrastructure, which some groups have already started doing. Go get some wireless gear. Learn about it. Go wardriving. Have fun at a Wi-Fi shootout. Know the geeks in the area. I think the best way to take back our Internet, is to own a larger piece of it. I think the only way this can happen, is if there are more of us interested in wireless networking -- enough of an interest to start taking this more seriously.

Boy do I wish I were a better salesman sometimes.

There are a bunch of hotspot lists, including wireless anarchy. Hell, I even provide a hotspot list, but we get ours from people wardriving.

We've been talking about this for some time at (another shameless plug) WiFiMaps.com. I invite readers to visit over the summer, we're doing some updates, and this is on the list.

Google just opened up an office in Pittsburgh. I should wardrive the place when I find out where it is.

In the meantime, back to writing Google Maps mashups...

It actually makes sense to have a wearable storage facility. We do have plenty of gizmos in our pockets, our bags, and some of us have them on our heads. Why not use your existing headset to play MP3s from your wearable storage? Dump a recording of that phonecall to disk. Record video, log biometric data, log your GPS data, Wi-Fi signals, timestamps, security tokens -- all of that. Why does each device need it's own flash? You could netboot them all.

While you're at it, I think that any device signifigantly large enough to handle sharing any kind of volume over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, you might as well include USB-Master support, a couple of i2c interfaces for the thermistors and accelerometers, and probably support for extra batteries, and optionally a simple display format -- NTSC or simpler. I don't think it would signifigantly increase the package size to add those things, except for the connectors themselves. I'm assuming wearable as in wearable under-the-clothes and discrete wearable computing.

This is true. Even my mom is using Netstumbler when she visits places. Of course, I got her to also use my pet project to find places to get connected.

Wi-Fi is now a part of most of our daily lives. Some folks have their peeves, convictions, and styles, which give shape to a localized wireless space. In densely populated areas, if one of your neighbors has their AP encrypted, there will be at least 2 APs which are completely unconfigured, and two APs that are obviously configured for use by whomever (with an SSID of "free" or something).

The Internet wants to be everywhere, and the information wants to flow. The {spice|oil|net} must flow.

Why? I like to collect wardriving data. I like to take pictures of the wing, clouds, and airline food. I enjoy using my electronic devices on a plane. If they're not going to give me a comfortable seat for me to sit in, I might as well take pictures, blog, or scan for Wi-Fi.

I'm using a Garmin ETrex Legend, and it seems to work fine in the air at 400+ mph. This thing has seen some extremely heavy use over the last 4 years. I use rechargable batteries all the time, which is really the way to go. Extremely recommended as an all-purpose GPS.

You forget that they're supposedly trying to not be evil. Also, as a note about wardriving, Google seems to be less interested in that type of technique due to privacy concerns. However, if that changes, I am available for work in that arena =_)

Now you can wardrive AND provide internet access at the same time. I wonder if you can broadcast a better signal than people's own APs, and redirect them to your own loacal propaganda. I think I have a summer project now...

No, no, different Drew. I am Drew from Zhrodague. If this were a plug, I'd prolly do something like this.

Of course, I am quite biased, but Wardriving is cool!

And what do you do with wardriving data? Plot it on a map, of course. This is fun, but not that much fun. When you can use that kind of data for other interesting purposes -- like finding out where you are -- then things get interesting.

This is not a new technology, though I guess I should have pattented this in 2002 when I had a chance. Damn that unemployment line!

Check out http://www.WiFiMaps.com. We've got a connector for AvantGo, which will let you use that to download maps of your area, and APs in that area.

Well, of course! I work on WiFiMaps.com, and we've been talking about doing this for years. It's the only natural outcome of wardriving data, if you think about it. There are few people developing location-based applications at this time, but there are a bunch of them. Some of the stupider people are trying to make a buck out of it, but this is just another feature of this Ubiquitous Computing that some of us are working on.

We've decided to GPL our data, so anyone can develop Google Mashups, or their own applications. In the meantime, we'll continue to collect data, homogenize it, and push it out for everyone to play with. Reminds me that we should mention this to the Placelab folks again.

WiFiMaps.com

Parking lots will be overflowing with war drivers...

...and this is a problem how?

It isn't quite triangulation, tho. Triangulation uses other receiving antennas to figure out where the transmitter is. You don't want to really do this with Wi-Fi. Each AP model has its own charichteristics, antennas, power-levels, and radiating patterns. Receiving Wi-Fi cards are just as diverse, and moreso with additional antennas.

So, while you do have to factor in all the diverse hardware, and make a model of a 'generic' AP and scanner, deal with GPS drift and errors, and I am sure a few other things, it can still be done -- especially with a large scale database, like WiFiMaps.com.

You could also check out WiFiMaps.com. We've been doing this for a while, but what makes us different, is that our database is open to the public.

Drupal seems to be a far better CMS than PHPNuke was, I had created a whole bunch of websites using PHPNuke.

PHPNuke was great at the beginning, until kiddies started using the thing to send SPAM, post SPAM, and generally piss me off. Manual process to deal with that kind of crap.

Drupal seems to have a couple of modules that let you deal with SPAM, though I haven't investigated it enough yet.

I like how modular the code is, and I haven't needed to edit the Drupal code to make it do what I want, like I had to with PHPNuke.

We're working on changing WiFiMaps.com over to Drupal, and I've alrealdy converted Recruiter-Rater over, using a nuke2drupal conversion script -- quite painless!

`You can also see wireless coverage from wardriving data. Interesting application, maybe we should start with Yahoo's maps instead?

Also you can see maps of Wi-Fi from wardriving data

And that's what seperates wardriving from theft of services, or tresspass, or whatever you want to call it -- crossing the line.

I recommend wardriving, but I do not recommend using networks for which you have no authorization. I interviewed the FBI on this topic, and also went over safe wardriving procedures.

Of course, I could also go to jail for taking pictures of a hospital 3 blocks from my house, but that's another story that I haven't blogged about yet.

Looks like we need to take advantage of this to plot Wi-Fi Everywhere. Rock on, guys, see you at the next interview interval.

We should publish a list of the wackiest names. GO and check out your area from a wardriver's point of view at this public repository.

YOu can see what this area looks like from a wardriver's perspective, at WiFiMaps.com.

Anyone wardriving this area? I'll post a link to an image if someone uploads their wardriving discoveries.

Anyone gone wardriving in this area? I'm biased, but I'd say to upload it to a public wardriving repository, and see the data plotted against street-level maps.

With Verizon's lobbying power, do you think VOIP will be 'round long?

I figure, build a better mouse trap, get a better mouse. We'll ALWAYS have secure communications available, even if they're annoying. It would, of course, be appropriate for our government (FCC, TSA, DHS) to STAY THE FUCK OUT OF OUR TECHNOLOGY.

But, what the hell do I know, I'm just a terrorist.

You can always check WiFiMaps.com, or Pittsburgh's Wireless Community.

Keep in mind, that unless the city employees who administer the network do so for free, Linksys, Cisco, or whoever provides the hardware does so for free, and the upstream provider doesn't charge for bandwidth, this isn't "free" Wi-Fi, but instead subsidized, socialized Wi-Fi.

According to http://www.wifimaps.com/, there is only one wireless network within half a mile of my house, despite the fact that hundreds of people live in that area.

Why should the vast majority of the population subsidize the small percentage of people who are interested in this stuff? It's not like Internet connectivity is *that* expensive.

Besides, do you really want to get your Internet connectivity from your local government?

I asked someone for advice on how to deal with our triangulation, and he said "Spherical Trigonometry," and sent me a URL. I printed it out, and took one look at it. The hair on the back of my neck hasn't stopped standing on end since!

Of course, we're using GPS coords, in addition to signal strength.

Of course, I wardrive all the time. It's amazing just how many public hotspots there are at any given time, there's at least 5 on my block, and I'm in Pittsburgh! Of course, I live on the mail drag in my town.

Kismet is an excellent wardriving tool for Linux, which will even run on your PDA.

For those of us interested in maps of what wardrivers have found in your neighborhood, check out WiFiMaps.com.

You could also view maps of which neighbors are interfering with your access point, and negotiate in personover a beer while comparing the gadgets attached to your belts. Y'know, build some community with your locals, and become part of the oldest P2P system.

I've met a bunch of people in my neighborhood at the local hotspot coffee shop. Of course, I'm a dork like that. Start a MeetUp.

QUite useful, of course! We could distribute spatial-data, and Wi-Fi locations to PDAs and laptops in this way. There are metric tons of useful applications for BT and K.

YOu can search for SSIDs, MACs, and cities and states at WiFiMaps.com. Funniest ones I've seen:

hellostumbler - Framingham, MA
buyclamsonline.com - Pittsburgh, PA

I have thought about drawing outlets on our maps, but we haven't set that up yet. Would this be useful for our mobile users looking for access AND power?

Of course, this means more fodder for us wardrivers -- more antennas mean more UINs to map!

Highly true, and good point.

I work on a popular WiFi/GIS site, and it is difficult to get free data of any time related relevance. TIGER is not very accurate.

How soon is it that there are free repositories of updated spatial data, and when does that cross the privacy line? How do we make sure others don't cross that line?

From our end, we've made sure not to associate APs listed in our maps from being associated wtih street adresses, and we hide MAC addresses from being displayed. We're making an effort to protect people's privacy while also having a useful application.

It is a pain in the ass to stop, get out your laptop, open it, and scan for networks. But, there is a better way, in the form of WiFiMaps.com.