On my way into work today, I got caught in the usual morning traffic gridlock by Bishop Maginn High School in Albany, NY. Since I was just sitting, I decided to pull out my smart phone and check something on the web quickly. My phone put up a list of all the wifi hot spots automatically. Imagine my surprise when I looked at the first one and saw this:
FBI surveillance van
Okay.
Now I'm thinking - the local FBI office is just a couple of blocks away. It's conceivable one of their vans could be nearby. But seriously? A surveillance van with a wireless network inside that tells anyone with a smart phone "Hey guys - we're FBI!" I can imagine some tech guy setting up the gear in it thinking "Now what can I name the network so it will be easy to figure out for anyone assigned to the van?" (The network was password protected at least.)
But seriously? I'm really hoping this is just a joke somebody is playing with their wifi network. Otherwise, we're already losing the Cyberwars.
I put in a call to the local FBI office - yeah that early 'good citizen' training is hard to shake - and the nice-sounding person who answered said that it's quite common for hotels to name wifi networks like that. It'd be one way to discourage people trying to get onto the network I suppose.
So, anyone else run into something like this?
11:21 AM PT: Update- Looks like the consensus is this is just a gag. It's funnier than usual because it's so close to a real FBI office.