Wifi watching

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Like train spotting, bird watching, I guess that wifi watching could become a thing, or so could be if you use this nice app for your Android phone. I avoid the term wardriving because it assumes you drive a vehicle and it has a dubious or evil aim (or may be that is only my interpretation).

I was touched by the work of these artists that visited and gave a talk at our campus a year ago. So I just went out for running an errand and grabbed nearly 900 different SSIDs around the block.

The Wifi Collector app will grab both access point information plus geographical location using the phone location services. Data can later be exported as a CSV file or KML file to be used with Google Earth as the image here shows.

While I did not uncover any political message or funny stuff on the SSIDs names on the surroundings, I guess it can be another way of catching and reviewing your walks (runs?) around the city.  I will use this app more than once just for a new way of perceiving the city that was not possible before.

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