Right now I am connected to the internet via some wonderful hub named “MS-Wireless” that, despite a genera-horrible name, has been trucking on for nearly 6 months somwhere across the street from my office. With a locked down guest Wi-Fi and VPN, that hub has been a lifesaver.

Well, with anonymity on the brain, I have been suprised at just how hard true anonymity is on the internet these days. So, of course, the following post from Cult of Mac made me smile:

You know what it’s like when you’re strolling around looking for networks. They’re all the same. They’re all called “belkin54? or “NETGEAR” or “BTHomeHub”. So generic. So default. What we really need is networks with imaginative names. Names like “Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem”

Just for fun they asked readers to submit their creative WiFi names, which resulted in gems like “Don’t even think about it”, “connect for viruses”, “My bandwidth is bigger than yours”, “rabbit”, “The House Of Trouser”, “Good bye and good riddance”, and “Get off my LAN!”

It is curious that most of these anonymous SSIDs are gatekeeper-like warnings. Personally, I was expecting more location oriented or identity related names (sorry, rabbit doesn’t cut it). There is a “20009” somewhere on my street (that is my zipcode, let the stalking ensue), and my home wifi network is a play on Q St (where I live) and its proximity to the gay ghetto: “QueerStreet”. Funny though, before that it was actually “anonymous”.