An ad-hoc war driving session

[Why yes, I can see you] [1] [2] The weekly D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) game was cancelled, yet again (something about a baseball game or something … ), so I was without plans tonight. Gregory found himself free, along with Mark [3] and Kelly [4] and it was suggested (by Gregory) that we could do that war driving thang [5] (since Gregory had yet to do a real war drive). I met Gregory and Mark at Gregory's office (I think that's Mark waving at me [6]) and from there, we drove to a local BBQ place for dinner where we scared the waitress and no one ordered anything to do with BBQ.

[Gregory and his laptop] [7] [8] [Mark and his laptop] [9] [10]

After dinner, we met with Kelly, setup the car for power, and started out. Our plan was to drive from Mark's house in north Boca Raton, head west and south, drive though Margate and Coral Springs. On the way south, we stopped at Kelly's house to pick up a much needed cable and by the time we hit his home, some twelve miles away, we had already picked up nearly 60 networks!

[Mark wiring Lake Lumina for power] [11] [12] [Screen shot about a mile from Mark's house] [13] [14] [Gregory scanning just outside Kelly's house] [15] [16] [Me in the driver's seat] [17] [18] [Mark, looking over what we've found so far at Kelly's house] [19] [20]

After picking up the missing cable, we then proceeded through Coconut Creek, Margate, Coral Springs, Tamarac and North Lauderdale. By the time we circled back and stopped for gas in Margate, we had found over 200 networks—an order of magnitude more than the last time we war drived.

[Gregory's laptop and cell phone connection to the Internet] [21] [22] [Various GPS receivers] [23] [24] [Mark, Kelly, Gregory] [25] [26] [My laptop, used by Mark] [27] [28] [Kelly checking the Internet while we fill up the car] [29] [30]

By the time we finished for the night, my computer had logged 244 wireless networks, of which only 36% of which had WEP (WAP Encryption Protocol) enabled. It's incredible to think of the growth of wireless networks in just eight months [31].

[1] /boston/2003/10/10/t.wd01.jpg

[2] /boston/2003/10/10/wd01.jpg

[3] http://grumpy.conman.org/

[4] http://www.asperwood.net/greymatter/grey.html

[5] /boston/2003/02/25.1

[6] /boston/2003/10/10/wd01.jpg

[7] /boston/2003/10/10/t.wd07.jpg

[8] /boston/2003/10/10/wd07.jpg

[9] /boston/2003/10/10/t.wd08.jpg

[10] /boston/2003/10/10/wd08.jpg

[11] /boston/2003/10/10/t.wd13.jpg

[12] /boston/2003/10/10/wd13.jpg