True confession:  I think that WiFi has great potential for helping to address certain aspects of the digital divide, but I really have very little hands-on experience with it.

So I decided to give it a try today.

I went to an office supply shop, bought the cheapest available wireless network card for a laptop and took it home.  It happened to be a Belkin "High-Speed Mode Wireless G Notebook Network Card."  The box indicated that it was "802.11g,"125," and "2.4GHz."  However, what really interested me was the promise that installation was a matter of three easy steps, which I quote verbatim from the box:
1)  Insert the CD in your CD-ROM drive.

2)  Insert the High-Speed Mode Notebook Network Card into an available CarBus slot.

3)  Start networking!

And for once, the installation procedure really was as easy as advertised.  I love when that happens.

My plan was to install the card in a laptop at home, and then take the laptop to a nearby public hotspot in order to experiment with my new toy mobile productivity tool.  (Praise be to the Boston Wireless Advocacy Group, for maintaining a list of hotspots that are available for public use in and around Boston.)  However, as soon as I completed the installation, I was confronted with what was simultaneously a pleasant surprise and an ethical dilemma.

It turns out that someone who lives very near me has an unsecured wireless network, and that therefore the building where I live is - for technical if not for ethical purposes - a hotspot.

It is of course socially irresponsible to use someone else's wireless network without permission, and I can hardly even begin imagine what sort risks to data security that it would entail.  Fortunately, my scruples about this are wonderfully reinforced by the knowledge that the wireless signal appears to be rather weak and that my conventional internet access at home is quite reliable.