Wardriving is the act of going about, looking for wireless networks, and recording their location on a map. In and of itself, it is a harmless and perfectly legal activity, as it is a passive process. It does not actually involve connecting to any wireless networks.
By default, and by design, most wireless networks regularly broadcast their presence. This makes it easy for normal users to find and connect to these networks. It also means that anybody else is also able to find and connect to those networks. Some places, such as internet cafes and coffee shops frequently advertise their wireless networks, as who doesn't like free wifi?
There are many projects around the world which undertake to make an exhaustive map of the visible wireless networks. There are many reasons for such projects, one of them being to simply raise awareness of their proliferation.
For a long time I have had an interest in documenting the number of wireless networks in Bermuda. Simply driving down Harbour Road you can easily find a hundred wireless networks. Driving down Front Street, you can easily find several hundred. Up until now, publishing that information has been rather tedious. It required using special software, special hardware. A GPS device, a compatible wireless network card, and software to triangulate network locations based on signal strength. Further, to be useful, this information also needs to be overlaid over a map. This process is not difficult, it just required an investment into learning how to put it all together.
However, with the advancement of smartphones, the process is now far simpler. I would like to briefly mention one such application, available for Android phones. It is produced by Wigle.Net, and can be found on the Google App store. This application makes use of the phone's built in wireless card, and built in GPS device, and handles recording, triangulation, and reporting. In all, it's pretty cool stuff. Search for your wireless network, and see if it's there.
