A correspondent for WiFi Planet, a large website dedicated to wireless technology, recently contacted Airappz’s CEO to discuss the topic of wardriving. Mr. Bopp who through his work as a wireless security consultant has had direct experience with wardriving. He said the following:

Many people confuse wardriving with piggybacking—the act of logging on to an unauthorized network. This, says Bopp, should not be confused with true wardriving, which is merely the act of locating and documenting or mapping the networks.

There are a lot of negative connotations there because people mistake wardrivers with hackers, which they are not,” Bopp said. “A wardriver would never access the network. Wardrivers can detect networks without ever accessing them. All you need to do is pick up that signal and that’s enough for wardriving—that’s all the information a wardriver wants.

Bopp, who has done some wardriving, acknowledges that some wardrivers do cross the line.

But when they do, that’s no longer part of wardriving,” he said. “Wardriving in its essence has nothing to do with accessing unsecured Wi-Fi networks. It’s pure and simple an activity that will detect and map Wi-Fi networks, secured or unsecured. This can be done on foot, driving, or even cycling.

The full article can be read here.