Some notes on WiFi theft
Some may remember that I chose my current apartment based on the wifi capital of the neighborhood. The area is richer than I would ever have expected, moving from 2 networks last May to a whopping 15 at current despite the sparseness of residences (mostly Victorians).
Of these 15 networks, 10 are strong enough to reliably reach with my antenna-equipped laptop, and only 2 of those are not encrypted. I made a huge faux pas last week when, under extreme duress due to network link droppage, I opened up my benefactor’s router control panel, released the host DHCP and rebooted the router. Note that I’ve done this before many times, and with no effect.
Someone in the household must have noticed because now, despite getting a signal and IP address, I am unable to push anything through the router. At first I assumed this behavior to be a timely bug, but as it persists, I’m starting to suspect some human intervention.
I want free wifi, no doubt about it. But given that people will be suspicious of my theft, I’m willing to lend a helping hand and contribute to the cause. Sans posting flyers all over my neighborhood, I can’t see any way of contacting my potential providers (especially since 14 of the 15 have default SSIDs). It’s just unfortunate that the technology is engineered in a way that prevents me from contributing.
To my old network provider: so long, and thanks for all the bandwidth.
