From BLACK HAWK DOWN:

Durant: Super Six One, go to UHF secure. I've got some bad news.
Cliff Wolcott: Limo is a word, Durant. I don't want to hear about it.
Durant: It is not a word. It's not in the dictionary.
Cliff Wolcott: Limo is a word in common usage. That is the key phrase in scrabble, my friend.
Durant: No! If it's not in the dictionary, it doesn't count.
Cliff Wolcott: It doesn't have to be in the dictionary!
Durant: It does have to be in the dictionary! Listen, when we get back to base, it's coming off the board.
Cliff Wolcott: You touch my limo and I'll spank you, Night Stalker. You hear me?
Durant: Yeah. Promises.

Well, I just picked up a new hobby. Wardriving. It's basically driving around with a laptop and a wireless LAN Card and "sniffing" for Wireless Networks. I dig it cause it brings me back to the days when my friend, Rob, and I would jump in his 1988 Supra outfitted with a "box-kite" quad antenna (an antenna about 4 feet long mounted about 4 feet above the car on a mast) searching for a hidden transmitter. Good ol' geeky stuff. The difference being here, is that the equipent is smaller and easier to run without a bunch of people pointing and wondering WTF you're doing and if you're doing something illegal.

Anyhoo, I started last week with my laptop and a small wireless LAN card that is basically just for connecting to a WLAN within about 100feet of an Access point (a wireless lan "basestation"). On my drive into work, I just barely picked up one Access Point. Disappointed, I talked with Rob about the ol' radio stuff again. Then he reminded me that the secret to getting a better signal is with a higher gain antenna. I couldn't believe I didn't remember that most basic fact of radio geekery.

Now, the original goal of delving into this hobby was to spend as little as possible. I have 2 different Wireless setups at home already and running out and spending a shit ton of money on this wasn't something I had in mind. So I jumped on the internet and saw what the other folk were doing. Those folks are nuts. They had some hardcore expensive shit ($300 24db gain Dish antennas and the like). I decided I'd better just take a look at what I got. I could modify these cards that I have, and potentially ruin them all, or just buy something that I can mount in a better place. So I bought this sweet USB Linksys WLAN Adapter. It came with a 6 foot cable so I could set the laptop on the passenger seat or passenger's lap and set the "module" with the electronics and antenna on the dash.

So I fired it up on the way home from work. I was stoked. It picked up about 20 AP's in the first 2 miles and over 100 by the time I got home. I ran this cool program that logged just about every piece of information you can glean from the airwaves. I was surprised as hell to see how many networks were sitting out there, most of them unprotected. Ah well, we'll see how many more I can find on my way into work tomorrow. It will be fun.