Looks like you have some material for doing a piece on wireless security, or the lack of it in this case.

Naughty naughty. Maybe you could go and introduce yourself to your neighbour and thank him!

You can always download and use netstumbler to see who else is out there. I'm in a suburb and was surprise to find that I couldn't see any other wireless signals outside of my own. I restrict the Macaddresses that can access mine, which at lease precludes casual sponging.

http://www.netstumbler.com/downloads/

Jay, remember that happened to me a while back? We got new upstairs neighbors and several weeks later I noticed a computer named "Melissa1" on the network. That was when I figured out that the Verizon guy had not in fact secured the wireless, which we don't use.

It bothered me, but not much, as she probably just fired up her machine and searched for wireless in range and got mine first, so used it because it was there. If someone had knocked on the door and asked, I'd have probably said "sure, feel free."

Eveentually they got cable, a few months after moving in, and I assume internet with it. What was amusing was they made the cable guys wait around all day and never did show up within the designated timeframe, a nice switch on "we'll be there between 8:00 and 5:00 so you just be home all day." But then it was a couple weeks before the cable guys returned, as far as we could tell.

What kind of dimbulb neighbor do you have who doesn't secure his network? There's a nice little program out there called Network Magic which makes all aspects of network maintenance a snap. You should tell your friend about it because the odds are if he hasn't secured his network, he probably doesn't have a software firewall or anti-crud programs either.

My wireless access point is open to anyone who wants to use it - even my SSID is broadcasting as my home's street address.

Is that bad? Although I've thought about doing this if I ever get time...