GearBits

Creative SSID's [Bumped]

Geeks can find truly bizarre ways to show the world their creativity. One oft-overlooked outlet is the SSID -- the "name" assigned to a wireless network.

Manufacturers of wireless access points often pre-configure their devices with SSID's that are either annoyingly banal or merely an advertisement. D-Link AP's are a good example of the former as their default SSID is, surprisingly, "default". Linksys takes the latter approach and uses "linksys" as its default SSID.

While it's always a good idea to change passwords, logins, and other security-related settings from the manufacturer defaults, some wireless network owners are using this opportunity to express themselves and give us wardrivers a peek into their personality. Here are some noteworthy SSIDs I've seen over the years:

keepdriving! -- seen near a busy intersection
cvsretail -- either this is the CVS store or some neighbor with a weird sense of humor
keepout -- apparently someone was feeling a bit grumpy
kapu4u -- seen near a Hawaiian resort ("kapu" is Hawaiian for "forbidden")
cockbite -- supposedly the dad asked the 14-year-old son to set up the WLAN (that'll teach him)
wireless fortress -- had no WEP activated (thanks, MikeW!)

I'll keep adding to this list and re-posting. So, do you have any good SSID's you've seen around?