Thoughts on War Driving

More fear-mongering here.

Your wireless network could be in danger!!!! EVIL THINGS WILL HAPPEN! Spammers could sit outside your house and... and... SEND SPAM.

Oh, please. Wardrivers are primarily just geeky guys who go around using other people's internet connections, for fun, and marking out for other people where they can get a handy connection to send a couple e-mails or download some songs. Unless you've got shared files on your network, the chances of anything on any of your computers being hacked into by these geeky guys (as if you'd have anything they wanted!) is practically nil.

For those who bother to get to bottom of CNN's stupid article, you get this admission:

Not one of the calls D-Link's technical support line has received over the years has been about loss of information through a wireless hack, spokesman Darek Connole says. "It's like seatbelts," he says. "Everybody knows you should put them on, but if you haven't heard of anyone who's been hurt, you won't do it."

"People are more scared as a concept than as a reality," says Moynihan. "I'm not saying people shouldn't secure their wireless networks, but they are probably more vulnerable when they are receiving e-mails."

Bah. War drivers are welcome outside my house any time - spammers who slow down said network will be charged a large fee.

Cause that's what it's *really* about, isn't it? "Protecting" *your* network, keeping it from everybody else cause you're paying for it and they're not. I'm a big proponent of free, state-funded internet, baby. My tax dollars at work. Can you imagine the stink Republicans would have with that one?

"Our tax dollars are going toward allowing people to look at porn!"

And read blogs. And stay informed of politics. And read Wikipedia.

Ha.