Freenets and open access points

Freenets and open access points
Most open access points are just that: individual access points that have
been purposely (or mistakenly) left open for others to use. Because this is
essentially an ad hoc network created by individuals — without any particular
organization behind them — these open hot spots can be hard to find.
(Note: This is different than an ad hoc network that doesn’t use an access
point, as we describe in Chapter 7.) In some areas, the owners of these hot
spots are part of an organized group, which makes these hot spots easier to
find. But in other locations, you’ll need to do some Web research and/or use
some special programs on your laptop or handheld computer to find an open
access point.
The more organized groups of open access points (often called freenets)
can be found in many larger cities. See a listing of the Web sites of some of
the most prominent of these freenets in Chapter 20. A few of the bigger and
better-organized ones include
NYCwireless (www.nycwireless.net): A freenet serving Manhattan,
Brooklyn, and other areas of the metro New York City region
Bay Area Wireless Users Group (www.bawug.org): A freenet in the San
Francisco Bay area
AustinWireless (www.austinwireless.net): Serving the Austin, Texas
region
Many freenets are affiliated with larger, nation- or even worldwide efforts.
Two of the most prominent are FreeNetworks.org (www.freenetworks.org)
and the Wireless Node Database Project (www.nodedb.com). These organizations
run Web sites and provide a means of communications for owners of
hot spots and potential users to get together.
These aren’t the only sources of information on open hot spots. The folks at
802.11 Planet (one of our favorite sources of industry news) run the Web site
802.11Hotspots.com (www.80211hotspots.com) that lets you search through
its huge worldwide database of hot spots. You can search by city, state, or
country. 802.11Hotspots.com includes both free and for-pay hot spots, so it’s
a pretty comprehensive list.
You’re going to have a lot more luck finding freenets and free public access
points in urban areas. The nature of 802.11 technologies is such that most offthe-
shelf access points are only going to reach a few hundred feet with any
kind of throughput. So when you get out of the city and into the suburbs and
rural areas, the chances are that an access point in someone’s house isn’t
going to reach any place that you’re going to be . . . unless that house is right
next door to a park or other public space. There’s just a density issue to overcome.
In a city, where there might be numerous access points on a single
block, you’re just going to have much better luck getting online.
Although these lists are pretty good, none of them are truly comprehensive
because many individuals out there who have open hot spots haven’t submitted
them. If you’re looking for a hot spot and haven’t found it through one of
these (or one of the many, many others online) Web sites, you might try using
one of the hot spot-finding programs that we discuss in the upcoming section
“Tools for Finding Hot Spots.”
Some of the hot spots that you find using these tools, or some of the online
Web pages that collect the reports of people using these tools, are indeed
open, albeit unintentionally. As we discuss in Chapter 10, a whole wireless
LAN subculture is out there — the wardrivers — who recreationally find open
access points that should be closed. (Check out www.wifimaps.com for
some results of their handiwork.) We’re not going to get involved in a discussion
of the morality or ethics of using these access points to get yourself
online. We would say, however, that some people think that locating and
using an open access point is a bad thing, akin to stealing. So if you’re going
to hop on someone’s access point and you don’t know for sure that you’re
meant to do that, you’re on your own.