BleepingComputer.com: Networking Question

Hey everyone. I'm fairly new to the site, but I've already introduced myself in the introductions forum. My question is how do I connect to different available networks around me. I see a list of 3 or 4 of them, sometimes more from time to time for some reason. When I try to connect, it always says it can't connect. It says key provided for me automatically and all that, I was just wondering why it wasn't working.
I'm using a Belkin wireless adapter with a Belkin router and Firefox 3.6. I'm not trying to do anything illegal or whatever, just wondering really. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to hop around different networks from time to time with my neighbors. They do it to me lol. Thanks to anyone for future help.

They have them encrypted with software on their routers. When it asks for a password that is their security.

And stop trying to steal other people's bandwidth. =)

Lol. To be perfectly honest, I'm really not trying to use their stuff, mine is pretty fast actually. I hear people talk about it all the time how they use other people's networks and I don't even know how. Just wondering more than anything really.

Oh I understand, you see them in the list and its just a button click to connect.

Now what you need is Wireshark then the real fun begins. hehe No I won't help or tell you....you'll figure it out =)

I personally think a lot of router owners with wireless are aware that their unsecured connections can be hi-jacked. (If you want to call it that)

I know that a lot of businesses (such as coffee shops and libraries) provide free wi-fi for their customers and their signals do at times carry a lot further than perhaps they intended them to carry outside the building.

So the question is a catch 22 of is it legal or illegal to use that wireless connection, if you are not a customer, but just a lucky person who happens to live with-in the area that the wireless signal covers.

I might be wrong with my personal assessment of this, but I feel if a wireless router owner does not secure their connection, then it should expected that someone is going to take advantage of it. And that being said most routers with wireless do keep logs and also show which devices are connected, even the wireless ones.

So I can't exactly view a case like this as a person trying to steal anything if it is easily available for public access.

That's just my personal opinion.

Yeah i think the same way Bruce i think of it this way if you have it open then it is open for everyone and if it is closed and someone tries and succeeds at hacking it then is it illegal (duh) I admit to doing this a lot (open only) wireless access is ok to me.

And you are allowed to have that opinion but that is an opinion and that doesn't make it right or legal.