Figure 5-2: Check out the Help files after you install NetStumbler.
Configuring NetStumbler
Double-click the NetStumbler antenna icon on your desktop to launch the
utility. The first screen you see might be empty and gray. That's okay. The
amount of configuration you need to do depends on your situation. Familiarize
yourself with a few of the items available on the two toolbars.
A lot of the available options are geared toward users who engage in the geek
sport of wardriving. You might have seen this term -- which, according to
legend, was coined by Marius Milner -- referenced in various places on the
Internet. The term is derived from the 1983 movie, WarGames, in which David
Lightman, played by Matthew Broderick, breaks into a Department of Defense
computer by using a technique called wardialing. These days, wardrivers
cruise around town in their geekmobiles, packing laptops loaded with active
and passive scanning-detection software and some strange-looking antennas,
searching out open wireless networks -- otherwise known as nodes. Because
the legality of this activity is in doubt, and because you probably won't be
cruising through quiet neighborhoods in your truck or RV looking for open
home networks you can hack into, I don't dwell on those features of
NetStumbler.
Take a look at Tables 5-1 and 5-2 for a brief description of a few of the perti-
nent features.
Chapter 5: Spotting Hotspots
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