Riding on Acela from Penn Station in New York to Boston, I left iStumbler running on my MacBook Pro and observed the various wifi networks it saw.

About a third of them seemed to be using default SSIDs like “NETGEAR”, “linksys” and variations on “Belkin”, as well as default Apple Airport SSIDs.

About a third of them seemed to be open, requiring no WEP or WPA identification. I can’t say whether they would have had any other access protection.

There were some great names that made me smile, like:

BigSisterPoppyPants
youcallthataknife
WillnGrace
jesuswept
ALBANIA
flippityfloppityfloo
What’s Up!!
cappy
linedancer507
Harrison Represent Yo
Guiness
Fruity
milfweed
rejectbarn
Spamalot
fuck you
Nutz
Kitten
dogcrap
LefthandChick
fads
ziggy
Fordyboy
startrek
Bigboy
whokilledkenny
zanexzone
Thor’s Hammer
bulldog
CrapHeap
DAWGHOUSE
Crack Alley
LookAtThe45PrettyColors!

I can’t give you an exact percentage, but it looked like the majority of the networks with default names like “linksys” were also open.

I’ve seen a lot of ‘hpsetup’ ad-hoc networks, which seem to be used by HP (duh!) printers and computers in peer mode.

I also saw quite a few “2WIRExxx” networks - looks like these are also default SSIDs for wireless routers provided by SBC (now AT&T).

A few people seemed to use their own names or their addresses for their network’s SSID. I can see naively doing this, but it’s not something I think is a wise idea, even if you’re not doing anything nefarious with your network connection.

[tags]wireless, airport, train, acela, amtrak, northeast, stumbler, ssid[/tags]

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