18 Years of Wireless Connections
I have an accidental record of every Wi-Fi network I’ve ever connected to, and it’s kind of a trip
I’ve had the same wpa_supplicant.conf file since 2007-2008, and now it’s an accidental travelogue.
If you’re unfamiliar with wpa_supplicant, it’s a tool for connecting to Wireless networks on Linux. You edit a text file to set which network you want to connect to. It looks like this:
network={
scan_ssid=1
priority=1
ssid="Main St. Subway"
key_mgmt=NONE
}
network={
scan_ssid=1
priority=1
ssid="LaQunita"
key_mgmt=NONE
}
# And so on...I edit the file whenever I need to connect to a new network. I don’t delete old connections. I just keep adding on, so the file has 18 years of history. It takes you all over the country.
Coffee shops in New Orleans (ssid = “PJ’s Coffee”).
Hotels between San Diego and New Orleans because I used to drive back and forth a couple of times a year. (ssid = “hhonors”, etc)
When I was visiting graduate schools (ssid = “MARGARITAINN” for Northwestern, and ssid = “UWNet” for Wisconsin, where I ended up going).
The Wi-Fi for the public internet at the apartment where I stayed during my first year of grad school. I didn’t pay for the internet the first year. I just skimmed at Madison coffee shops and the Wi-Fi by the apartment complex’s offices. For unknown reasons, they updated the name of the Wi-Fi network three times in only a year: [ComplexName]FreeWiFi, [Complex Name] Free Wi-Fi, [Complex Name] Free WIFI.
A billion coffee shops for graduate school (ssid = “barriques_free_wireless,” “Michelangelo’s Free Wi-Fi B/G,” “Cargo Internet,” “Steep N Brew,” “Evp Coffee East Wash. Ave.”, “Johnson Public House,” etc.)
All the random hotels I’ve stayed in for job interviews.
Airports
The Starbucks by the White House
McDonald’s Free Wi-Fi
Etc.
Every place I’ve been — even for a week or so — is logged here. It’s kind of neat. Not to be too old man about it, but you don’t get this kind of longevity with an app.
Configuration files and simple, separable programs are less transitory than configuring something in a tightly integrated GUI. I don’t know where those configurations are saved, and they’re probably some binary file that’ll be incompatible with software ten years from now. When I switch computers, those settings disappear, but text files get copied to the new laptop. They’re always readable.
I suppose the wpa_supplicant program may go away at some point, but I hope not. It’s lasted this long.
Until then, I don’t need the Wi-Fi password for Johnson Public House circa 2014, but I have it.
Thanks for reading!
Zach
Connect at: https://linkedin.com/in/zlflynn
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