There’s a simple method to finding out how many geeks are in your vicinity: scan for wi-fi networks in range of your phone. If all that comes back are default names (SSIDs) such as ClearAccess4210 or BTHub3-ZF9R, then you’d better hope you don’t have a technical problem on your laptop — ‘cos there ain’t nobody nearby who can help.
If, however, your phone is now telling you that the Skynet Global Defence Network is within range then either Arnie is at your table or there is a Terminator geek in the next building who reckons himself (yes, let’s be honest, it’s probably a “himself”) a bit of a wit. Although you probably still won’t get any help with those technical problems.
It’s pretty simple to change your SSID by going into your wireless settings, although many are too boring (or too technologically inept) to bother. To make it as a real geek, it’s not enough to just rename your wi-fi — you need to make it funny.
Last week Kat Hannaford, the UK editor of online gadget magazine Gizmodo, tweeted about her laptop picking up a comedy wi-fi name and discovering that it belonged to her colleague. The writer had renamed his network “git off my lan”.
It turns out that he’s not the only one. OpenSignal is a Tech City-based company that is compiling database of global wi-fi access points with a mobile app that searches for nearby public wi-fi networks. It recently searched its database for a number of silly SSIDs and found that 246 people have named their networks “GET OFF MY LAN” or variations thereof.
Other popular names included those to deter wi-fi freeloaders such as “404NetworkUnavailable” and “Bad Error” and also more helpful ones such as “use this one mum”. Apparently 7,873 people think “Pretty fly for a wi-fi” is a clever and original SSID.
I asked OpenSignal to do a similar search on London wi-fi names, to see just how funny the geeks get in the big city. As it turns out, we also think our wi-fi is pretty fly. We account for 140 of those 7,873. We’re also pretty unfriendly, territorial and paranoid (what a surprise), with popular names being “Get your own wi-fi” and “Don’t steal my wi-fi”.
Also common are “We can hear you having sex” or “Stop shouting”, with one person naming their network “Your smoking stinks up our flat”. Letting your neighbours know you’re onto them by addressing them through your network name seems to be an appropriately British way of complaining without possibility of confrontation. Others just resort to “Your mum”.
But the geek humour prize goes to those who were inspired by the YouTube sensation Antoine Dodson, whose interview on a local news channel went viral and was turned into a Billboard Hot 100 hit — the Bed Intruder Song. The SSID: “Hide yo kids, hide yo wi-fi.”
