How far would you go for a few minutes of free Wi-Fi? A new survey released this week shows people are willing to go to some pretty great lengths to get online on-the-move.

The survey, conducted by Fiberlink, asked 300 computer users who have company-issued laptops what “interesting or out-of-the-ordinary” steps they’d taken to secure a wireless connection. Some highlights:

  • A guy climbed onto the roof to steal a signal (he says he saw a naked a chick while up there — seriously).
  • Another climbed to the top of a mountain, evidently a hot spot of some sort, and worked inside of a tent.
  • Someone else held his laptop out the window to tap into his neighbor’s connection long enough to send an e-mail.
  • Still another desperate user camped outside an airport for four full hours just to log on.
  • Someone hijacked a hospital’s connection, plugging into an open port, all for a few minutes of Web-enabled bliss.
  • Finally, another person took a cab ride in an Internet-enabled taxi just to get some time online.

Those are decent enough tales — but I, for one, had hoped for more. Where’s the guy sleeping with someone just to use her Wi-Fi network? How about breaking-and-entering, using the Internet, then leaving without stealing a thing? Or pretending to work in an office, maybe attending a couple meetings or fixing a copy machine, just to snag a few minutes on the network? Surely there’s someone out there with a shockingly scandalous story.

Freakin’ amateurs.

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