Hey, You, Get Offa My Net!.
My colleague Lisa Napoli gets the old bootski from her kyped (not
Skyped) Wi-Fi feed (reg. req.): I met Lisa on my last trip to L.A., and
wouldn't be surprised if there are hundreds of competing Wi-Fi networks
in her downtown aerie. She's encountered what's certainly going to be
an increasing problem for apartment and dense urban dwellers–that's
dense like urban density, not…well, you know what I mean. What
happens when 500 networks in a building are called “linksys,”
“default,” or “netgear”? Robert Moskowitz, a security expert, has
argued for unique network names out of the box for new Wi-Fi gear, and
Apple is one of the only consumer companies I'm aware of that chose
that course. Apple gear has an SSID of Apple Network 012345 where
“012345” is replaced with the last six digits of the base station Wi-Fi
adapter's unique network hardware identifier. Buffalo uses a similar
way of distinguishing their WI-Fi gateways before configuration…. [Wi-Fi Networking News]