Unsecure WiFi widespread in Riga

The Latvian-language weblog www.hackers.lv reports on a wardrive through the center of Riga that revealed around 200 WiFi networks, many of them open and unsecure. The drive was conducted on the afternoon of Sunday, May 1. The bloggers note that there are probably many more office WLANs that are shut down after office hours. Some appear to be in private residences. The blog links to a uploaded file generated by the wardrivers' software that gives the names and various technical parameters of the WLANs they encountered (those who don't read Latvian can click on the amusingly named green/on my browser/ links that say shiten – meaning "here", nothing else). Several seem to be named Lattelekom, others after companies or people (perhaps systemadmins' nicknames). The "hacker" blog also links to a map showing the route of the wardrive. I suspect that this blogger's wireless link, with the name default, (there are several on the list with this imaginative name) may have appeared, since the Sunday afternoon drive passed my place on Caka Street. Now I wonder how they managed to detect the signal on the street when I sometimes have trouble connecting from my G4 Powerbook in the living room to the wireless router in a cubby-hole behind the kitchen.