Larry wrote:

Everyone should also download Network Stumbler from:
http://www.stumbler.net/
Download and install like any other freeware/beggarware.

Run Net Stumbler on your laptop with its wifi radio on and it will LOG
and IDENTIFY every wifi broadcast it encounters. If you plug a GPS into
the laptop, one of those little USB GPS receivers works great, Net
Stumbler will log the lat/long of each wifi hotspot it encounters with
each entry. If GPS info is available, it also interfaces with Google
Maps like a chart plotter to plot all the entries in its database it
found, so you can print out a map and keep it for favorite hotspots. I
don't use this function, much. I just run Net Stumbler and pick out the
"target" hotspot in realtime for access.

Net Stumbler works much better than what XP comes with to find those
elusive open systems to use. Of course, it doesn't log onto each one of
them, so you may still encounter and password webpage logon to an open
hotspot and have to go begging/paying/spamming for access to it.

My favorite hotspots across any area are "Linksys" and "default", a
wireless router noone ever bothered to look at the setup webpage of...(c;

At Riverbend on the Ashley River you'll find the open hotspot SSID W4CSC
hooked to serious bandwidth from 50' up a tree with service up and down
the river for about a mile. Help yourself. Everyone who has bandwidth
needs to SHARE that bandwidth access with all the others....like mine.
Thanks.

Those that think if you connect to my open system as "stealing" in some
way, shouldn't. It's not illegal or immoral. One guy even beat a rap
the cops brought tracking his downloading habits. Snoopercop didn't like
the porn webpages accessed from his system. I'm sure it was him that did
the access, but because his wifi was wide open, his attorney pointed out
to the court it could have been anyone in a wide radius around his
apartment complex. As all Snoopercop had was his IP of his router...case
dismissed...(c; Mark one for personal freedoms.

thanks for the info Larry about net stumbler.

Brian