What is a Hot Spot ?

A specific geographic location in which an access point provides public wireless broadband network services to mobile visitors through a WLAN. Hotspots are often located in heavily populated places such as airports, train stations, libraries, marinas, conventions centers and hotels. Hotspots typically have a short range of access.

How can I find available Hot Spots ?

Though Wi-Fi is designed to work over short distances, folks who live or work adjacent to a Wi-Fi network (or who simply sit in a car near one) may be able to "borrow" access and use the wireless network.

Some Internet users scope out unprotected wireless networks (an activity known as wardriving) just for sport. A few Web sites publish maps that show the locations of open networks, with data provided by users who drive around and collect the information, using GPS-enabled laptops and software such as NetStumbler or Kismet. A search on WiGLE can yield anything from a handful to hundreds of listings of unprotected Wi-Fi networks, depending on the geographic location you search.

There is also a commercial product available to those with some extra money to burn. Using a pricey tool for network administrators called AirMagnet and a Pocket PC handheld, I saw her network identifier, or SSID, the brand of gateway she was using, the channel it was broadcasting on, and the fact that it was unencrypted.