[Pamela]

Well it all started out with me sitting on the floor petting my golden retriever.

Out of nowhere he starts violently sniffing. I'm like...hmm...I wonder what he smells?

So he stops and I'm still petting him. Well he starts up again with the violent sniffing....but this time I'm like what the hell are you sniffing Sergeant?! (that's his name)

So I get lower to the ground and start moving around trying to find whatever it is that he smells....then *WHACK*...right in the face. SKUNK!!

Well my night of getting a lot of work done followed by a lot of sleep was NOW over. The smell was so intense it felt like my nose hairs were being singed and tears were coming to my eyes.

Turns out the dog upstairs was eating dinner outside and came face to face with the skunk and that was the beginning of the end. He was skunked.

Well we decided to get the hell out of dodge because there was no way we could even breathe nevermind work or sleep, so we decided we'd go try out the wireless system at Starbucks with my 17" powerbook. (Never tried before).

Spent $8 on two crappy coffees, one of which I didn't drink it was so bad....and you guessed it....no wireless.

Well there was no going home and no good movies out at the theatres so I got this great idea!...to go and find wifi spots in the car with my powerbook in hand! I've been hearing so much about it lately so I decided to see how common it really was.

It took me a little while to get the hang of "seeing" what networks were out there, but once I figured it out we were on our way.

We headed down Broadway towards Simply Computing. Turns out there was four networks in their parking lot. 2 with passwords needed, 2 without!

So we continue onto burrard, then down to the condo towers onto Pacific...into Yaletown and then down Davie (some interesting network names there...if any of you know the area/demographic you know what I mean then finally down by Coal Harbour.

Well at any given time within residential areas there were at least 4 networks going on at once. About maybe half the time they were password protected.

The BEST spot was at the newer condo towers where they have wireless networks setup in the buildings.

So it turns out that this is actually quite popular and VERY accessible! As I walked out of my car (in a single family house area near the Dunbar area) with my laptop open in hand, there were 3 networks available outside of my house! (Mine and one other open one...the third was passworded)

But what I was REALLY interested in was rendezvousing with someone. That never happened. No one ever popped on even though I ran into quite a few airport networks

Call me a dork..call me a geek....but I was just a skunked out bored student finding something different to do with my husband on a friday night.

 

[MacNutt]

Semi-cool stuff Pamela! (and yes, you are officially a geek now)

I don't suppose that this was slightly inspired by the series about wi-fi stumbling that's been featured on our local newshour, was it?

 

[Pamela]

Although I have seen segments on this thing in the past I actually haven't seen anything on the news about it lately. Although there was a post here lately talking about it. That might have got me going.

 

[jtmac]

If you haven't heard about TO's latest child porno bust, check this out.

Man, caught in his car, with his pants down, downloading kiddie-porn, from a "stumbled" connection.

You never know who might be out there

 

[MacNutt]

This is deeply disturbing because, as far as the cops could tell, it was the person who owned the wi-fi network that was downloading the illegal stuff.

Imagine how THAT would look to your neighbors or friends...or your family?

Much more of this, and "warchalking" or "wardriving" will become a thing of the past. Creeps always screw it up for the rest of us.

 

[rollee]

you're right macnutt, that freak really did screw things up for us. wifi is so cool, i was so amazed when i found other networks. it was fun!
http://www.ehmac.ca/cgi_bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=005099
lets hope creeps like this are few and far in between. i love this brotherhood of wifi thing. cheers!

 

[Lawrence]

I'm hoping that the WiFi driving isn't all secured up by the
time I get my setup going, I'm looking forward to going
down to the local Beaches coffee shop and doing some WiFi
surfing while I'm sipping on my favourite cup of Noisette.

Dave

 

[MacNutt]

See my above comments about this. The creepy-crawlies among us will ALWAYS try to take unfair advantage of pretty much anything that is seriously cool.

And spoil all of the fun for the rest of us with their greed.

Note: the BCTV news article on "stumbling" pointed out that most people who have wi-fi never reset the default password for their system. The one that comes factory installed. These passwords are well known by the scum out there and that's how they get into even a semi-secure system.

What's the bet that most people will begin to reset their passwords as soon as they get home with their new system and then add all sorts of encryption to prevent anyone from tagging along on their nickle? I kind of think that this little moment of synergy we are having will soon be a thing of the past.

Again, too bad.

 

[MacNutt]

BTW Rollee....

Most of us here at ehmac don't give two hoots about how recently a person has joined up. Or about how many posts they have. I never even look. There is no pecking order or senority here.

But we often identify an individual by their avatar at first glance. You seem to have the same one as someone else here. There are no hard and fast rules and you are most welcome to use whatever you like to identify yourself....but it could become a bit confusing, if you catch my drift.

Just a thought.

 

[Ohenri]

Are ppl driving around with their laps open, looking for signals??

h!

 

[jrtech]

Obviously from the news clipping ppl are driving around with not only their laps open but their pants down too looking for signals

 

[MacNutt]

Probably. For the time being.

But...I suspect that this behavior will change, over the next few months.

Call me an optimist.

 

[rollee]

mcnt, i didn't know there's an understanding of using different avatars. i hope they make enough for all the two thousand of us and counting.
now no more confusion now.

[ November 29, 2003, 03:59 PM: Message edited by: rollee ]

 

[CubaMark]

Hey Rollee, and everyone else who isn't aware... you can chooe a custom avatar (see me, left!). Just post a small photo of you in a web-accessible directory, and then link to it from your profile. Easy!


M

 

[jrtech]

What are you telling me that macnutt's avatar is not his "pondering" picture.

 

[SINC]

CubaMark, I went to my profile and posted the url of a picture of myself in the spot provided. The url is to my .mac account folder, but it did not change the avatar.

Any idea why?

Cheers

 

[jfpoole]

Changing avatars is tricky; after you select your avatar image, you have to click on the "update profile" button at the bottom of the page.  That's usually where I have problems when changing my avatar.