Weblog Archive

WiFi Fun

net stumbler dot com. I had the chance to play around with netstumbler and an interesting thought came to me. What if you were able to IM those around you who were wifi enabled, without actually requiring internet access? In other words, what if my wifi card was able to detect all other wifi users around me and I was able to exploit this to instant message them without having to go through an access point. This could add a level of fun to wardriving -- say I'm wardriving (or warwalking, warstumbling, what have you) along and I find a fellow wardriver somewhere in my vicinity and would like to message him or her without necessarily needing to know anything about him/her besides the fact that he's using the same software that I am for wardriving. As long as the fellow wardriver enables and allows wifi IMs to be displayed, he could get the message. Think about it, this could have some serious uses for commuters. Before my commute, I could just turn on my wardriving system with IM enabled and let's say I hit unexpected traffic. I'll quick send an automatic IM (continuous) letting people know where I am and how long I've been there and how bad traffic looks. And for those people who have a wardriving system, they'll receive the message as they're heading to the congestion and could take a detour in the nick of time. I know some cities here in the US are testing out similar congestion control systems using cellphones instead of wifi. I wish this was a feature that netstumbler implemented.