At long last I was able to get Kismet running on my Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 (these instructions did the trick). For the uninitiated, the Zaurus is a little handheld computer that runs Linux, and Kismet is a “wifi sniffing” program that lets me walk around with my wifi-equipped Zaurus and lists all of the wireless networks it encounters along the way.
So tonight I did a simple walk around the block to see what I could find in the neighbourhood.
To my surprise, there was a lot to be found:
- 15 wireless access points
- 9 of 15 were using WEP, 6 were free and open
- Manufacturer breakdown:
- Linksys: 4
- D-Link: 4
- Netgear: 2
- Gemtek: 1
- Zyxel: 1
- Siemens: 1
- Global Sun: 1
- SMC: 1
That’s 15 networks detectable over about 2 acres of land. This is about as close to “open wireless access everywhere” as you can get, I think.
Comments
If these routers could only talk to each other! Now that would be a democratic internet, bypass the ISP’s by routing between neighbours. I guess an entire city could have it’s own public owned net if wireless routers could interconnect — but still each city would need a link out to the next nearest city, but isn’t it possible that little wireless networks could self organize?