Playing with fire
I opened my email program this morning to read the messages I downloaded yesterday and imagine my surprise when it started downloading new mail. Uh-oh. Sure enough, someone in the neighborhood has installed Earthlink wireless and my laptop automatically sought out, found and connected to this stranger's network. Eeek, this meant I just sent unencrypted passwords flying out on an unknown network. Still, I couldn't resist the temptation to post Rob's blog entry from last night and post one myself. Hopefully, there's not some jerk (or jerkette) out there sniffing my connection and grabbing passwords.

After reading the comments on Rob's SBC post, I'm going to thank Blue Witch for her spellcasting because I'm convinced that is what made this connection suddenly appear in our neighborhood! This evening I'm going to go talk to our newest neighbor and see if she is the source of our new-found access and if so, would she mind us tagging along for a few weeks while we work out a new plan for ourselves (which doesn't involve SBC.) I just don't feel right using someone else's network without their permission. It could be argued that an open network implies permission, but I suspect it's the result of an uneducated user rather than a generous neighbor.