Chris Johnston

The Friday just before the Canadian Thanksgiving I decided to take a walk up Yonge street from Dundas Street to Bloor Street. During this walk I left my notebook turned on in my back running NetStumbler to see how many wireless networks I could detect. Needless to say, I was amazed at the results.

I must add that this little experiment also included a portion of Yonge street from Steeles Avenue down to York Mills avenue (done in a car), along with Avenue Road from York Mills down to Lawrence and Bathurst from Lawrence to where I live.

The Results of this little experiment were amazing. In total, there were 243 wireless networks that my Linksys card was able to detect and out of those 243, more than half were unprotected. This means that there were about 120 wireless networks up for grabs in just that little part of Toronto.

In fact, I went into a Macdonald’s just above College street to get a shake and check the computer I was able to detect several active connections from within the restaurant. I don’t remember if they were secured or not, but chances are that if there was more then one of them that at least one was available.

My question is this: what does this say about the state of wireless networking and wireless security in the city of Toronto and in any city in general? Personally, I think wireless technology, although an amazing thing and a great leap forward for computer, needs to be made more complicated to try and deter those who do not know what they are doing from setting up there own home/business wireless networks. The technology is too accessible, too easy, and too insecure all at the same time. That is not a good mix.