Is your wi-fi safe from wardriving?

Recently, I found myself with a layover between mediation clients whom I was serving at their sites. I had about an hour and a whole lot of office admin work piling up, so I bought myself a cup of coffee, parked my car in downtown Keene, NH, and opened up my laptop. I was happily making use of this downtime when my computer made that little sound it makes when a new email has been delivered. Uh oh, I thought, I’m on someone else’s unprotected wireless network. I had forgotten to disable my computer’s internal network card.

My computer automatically searches for available networks when I power up unless I tell it not to. I looked at all the office buildings around me. Who’s network am I on, I wondered, and why haven’t they protected it in the midddle of downtown Keene? My very next thought was, I’ve got to get off of it now. I was simultaneously thinking about a recent news item on wardriving and moving my fingers to turn off my wireless device when a police car pulled up in front of me. I positively froze. I’m sure my mouth must have been hanging open in surprise. All I could think was, Whoa, they’re getting good here in Keene. And how am I going to explain that it was an innocent accident?

It was a meter maid and she couldn’t have cared less about me. I sat in my car and laughed hysterically. The woman who pulled up in the parking space next to mine looked at me as though she was considering a call to the local hospital.

If you have a wireless (or wi-fi) network in your home or office and you don’t know what wardriving is, I urge you to educate yourself now. Then take a look at these sites for advice about how to protect your network and the computers on it from someone pulling up on a street near you and helping themselves to your hard drive contents:

Complete Guide to Wi-fi Security
Boost Your Wi-fi Security