[wplug-plan] Meetting idea a debate stemming from the debate on line from the subject "On the subject of wardriving..."

[Richard Farina]

I am clearing the huge buffer on this so that my words get through.

I will not argue that it is legal to use other people's access points 
simply because they are insecure.  I believe that there may be a possible 
breach of law there.

I will argue that war driving is perfectly legal.  I have defined war 
driving in the past, and to keep misconceptions about my opinion down, I 
will define it again.

Wardriving is an activity consisting of driving around with a laptop or a 
PDA in one's vehicle, detecting Wi-Fi wireless networks. It is also known 
(as of 2002) as WiLDing (Wireless Lan Driving), originating in the USA with 
the Bay Area Wireless Users Group (BAWUG). It is similar to using a scanner 
for radio. Most wardrivers will use GPS devices to find the exact location 
of the network found and log it on a website. For better range, antennas 
are built or bought, and vary from omnidirectional to fully directional. 
Software for wardriving is freely available on the internet, notably, 
NetStumbler (http://www.netstumbler.com) for Windows, MacStumbler 
(http://www.macstumbler.com) for Macintosh, and Kismet 
(http://www.kismetwireless.net) for Linux.

I will fairly argue my feelings in a open debate.  If you wish to find 
someone will less legal research to argue that using someone else's WiFi is 
legal, then you will have to look somewhere else.  Using someone else's 
WiFi may or may not be against the law, and I don't want that to be the 
basis of the debate.  I would like to participate in a debate about 
WarDriving and possibly even the morality/legality of publishing the 
results in a public forum.

Thank you,

Rick Farina