True. My neighbor asked me to set up her wireless network and when I turned everything on I found three unprotected networks nearby that had top signal strengths. Two of them were her next door neighbors.
I told them about what I found and about three months later as I went to fix a small problem with her system I found that none of them had secured their networks!
I run my home with Cat5 and run only wired hardware. I am paranoid but at least I am somewhat safe.
When I first setup my wireless network (never had worked with wireless at all at the time) I went through the steps with my desktop comp that is on the hardwired part of the network and programmed the wireless router. Then I fired up my brand new laptop and engaged the wireless system (using the fkeys) and was about to start setting up the wireless network connection when I noticed that it had already connected.
Curious as to how it did I surfed to Yahoo to make sure it had connected and got yahoo's page. I knew I had not entered any codes yet. So I started Checking. I had logged onto a neighbor's wireless across the street (who BTW is our School System's Superintendent < boggle >) because the "automatically connect to available networks" option was enabled.
I logged off and disabled the autoconnect until I got my security stuff entered, and fixed the priorities so it wouldn't log onto unsecured stuff without my asking it to.
Last year our school gives all the 7th and 8th grade students laptops with wireless they can use during the school year and even take home with them. She brings it home and shows me. I told her to being it to me later and I will enable it to hookup to our network. She tells me later no need she is using the schools wireless network (which is more than half a mile away). I check it ou and yep she is hooked into the Super's wireless. He still has not enabled any security and that was three years ago when I first found it.