Laptop Nomad

Daddy, there’s a man in the street with a laptop computer, sitting on the wall

This gave me goosebumps so I investigated. There was indeed someone outside the house, sitting on the wall, with a laptop. His bike was there too.

In a friendly way, I approached and asked ‘Are you stealing someone’s bandwidth?’. Clearly my tone wasn’t friendly enough, because his response (Russian accent?) was: ‘I cannot get this to work’. He snapped the laptop shut and was gone when I turned to look. He didn’t rush and I regret that I didn’t get the full story.

furthermore...

I rushed indoors and set to checking that the wireless network is password protected. I need to get an outsider laptop to be really sure that we are protected. We have nothing to hide you understand but we don't want to take any risks. And anyway, we pay for our broadband!

It seems that this guy bicycles around looking for wireless hotspots in the area and perches on a nearby wall. Maybe he is a new breed of nomadic web monkeys, destined to keep moving to fresh unprotected wireless pastures.

I believe gadgets are available that light up when a signal is found - like a kind of, broadband geiger counter.

Good luck to him, I say. But try outside those bigger houses. The ones with BMWs in the driveway.

Posted on 04 Jul around 8pm

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