First came wardriving, then warchalking for Wi-Fi access points. Now, as "Tech Live" reports tonight, there's warflying.

The first account of Wi-Fi fans taking to the air to map out wireless Internet nodes involves an Australian group called the WAFreeNet, which uses a Grumman Tiger four-seater in the Perth skies.

The first apparent case in the United States of warflying was achieved by Tracy Reed, a system administrator for MP3.com. Besides being a Wi-Fi enthusiast, he's also an amateur pilot.

"It kind of seemed to be the logical extension of driving around in a car looking for Wi-Fi networks," said Reed. "I figured that up in an airplane, we'd have a much bigger line of sight to the access points and a lot less ground clutter so we'd probably be able to pick up a lot more [nodes]."

Mapping points from the air

The process is simple, utilizing a laptop equipped with a Wi-Fi card, global positioning software, and NetStumbler software.

Oh yeah, you need a plane, too. In Reed's case, a Cessna 182RG four-seater.

"The idea is to kind of assess how many wireless access points are out there," said Reed, "what their state of security is, maybe figure out where they are distributed."

On a recent flight over California's Silicon Valley, Reed's node navigator was "Dave," a San Diego-based technology worker. Dave's worried that his employer -- whose customers, he says, includes the US Department of Defense -- might not like his new hobby. (Hence, our use of only his first name.) Dave, a Wi-Fi enthusiast, hooked up with Reed through a warflying invitation the pilot posted on the San Diego Wireless Users Group mailing list.

"I was genuinely surprised at being 2,500 feet up and having access points rolling in just like we were driving down the street," said Dave.

Keeping it legal

Unlike warchalkers, Dave says he and Reed are careful not to tap the Wi-Fi nodes from the air. "Unlike a lot of folks out there, I don't access the networks that I see," said Dave. "That's illegal and it's not something I'm not interested in doing."

On this trip, Dave logs over 400 wireless Internet access points, many of which he believes are unsecured.

"A lot of these companies spent tens of thousands of dollars to set up firewalls and [Virtual Private Networks] and secure their networks from the Internet," said Dave. "And then they don't bother to configure their access points in a secure manner."

Reed is looking forward to trying other airborne Wi-Fi mapping experiments. But Dave says his warflying days are pretty much done.

"It gets pretty boring just looking at access points popping up on the screen. I'm really not that interested in mapping more," said Dave. "To me, it was just the novelty of getting the chance to do this from the plane."