Wardriving

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What Does Wardriving Mean?

Wardriving refers to the act of locating open Wi-Fi hot spots while driving in a car. The goal of wardriving is to document and map hotspots, and generally involves software specifically designed for wardriving.

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Wardriving is also known as access point mapping.

Techopedia Explains Wardriving

Many confuse wardriving with leeching or piggybacking. The difference is that somebody who leeches a connection is attempting to use an unsecure connection without permission. In many parts of the world, unauthorized use of a network in this fashion is illegal. Wardriving is different — the goal is to collect information about open wireless connection, often to develop a map of connectivity in a certain area.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.