Equipping the WiFi tool belt

by Ted Wallingford Oct 15th 2007

A recent trip to a coffee house had us thinking--why isn't WiFi everywhere yet? Well, at loss for the answer to that one (though opinions explaining WiFi's utter lack of ubiquity differ widely), we decided to ask another one--how can the wireless road warrior equip himself for navigating the mostly-uncharted seas of WiFi?

The first tool for your wireless toolbelt is NetStumbler, a Windows app for discovering and probing WiFi access points. There's also a Windows CE/Mobile version of NetStumbler that you can fire up on your Windows Mobile cell phone, if you're really packing light. Mac users will want to try out JiWire, available in compact widget version for OS X, shown here. If none of those options do you any good, visit WiFinder, a site that's sort of a MapQuest for WiFi hotspots. Though our initial test didn't reveal a number of local spots we're sure are actually there, we did uncover a few we never noticed before. WiFinder even knows where a few spots are in the Vatican.

Now if it's hardware that really turns you on, take a look inside your cell phone. Dual-mode cell phones like our Nokia N95 can detect and browse WiFi hotspots, too.

Of course, if the hotspots you detect are WEP-encrypted to prevent unauthorized access, you'll have a hard time getting to the Net. Not much you can do about that without getting yourself in trouble. But if you like living on the edge, have a peek at AirCrack NG. Just don't do anything illegal--you don't want to end up like this poor dude from Michigan who was arrested for stealing WiFi (from an open access point).

Tags: aircrack, hotspot, jiwire, wifi, wireless

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jordan Running said 4:11PM on 10-15-2007

The unfortunately thing about NetStumbler is that it doesn't work reliably with Vista. If it doesn't work on your Vista PC, I recommend Vistumbler:

http://www.techidiots.net/project-pages/vistumbler

It doesn't have all the features of NetStumbler, but it does have GPS support (with KML export) and seems to work well enough.

FrodoLad said 11:21AM on 10-16-2007

If running Windows, why wouldn't you just use the built in wireless network viewer? Just wondering....

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