WiGLE (https://wigle.net/) is a worldwide WIFI and cellular network mapping project that relies on data submitted by wardrivers or stumblers. They started in 2001 as an educational effort to outline the many networks without encryption. People did not realize that even though it was their private network, anyone within range could access their wireless network.
To date, they have 415,942 stumblers finding these networks. They have discovered 994,745,848 unique wireless networks, 1,305,555,067 Bluetooth devices, and 18,526,028 cellular towers. The wireless networks found provide an interesting breakdown of the level of encryption used, as you can see in the image below. The first thing to note is 23,068,147 use no level of encryption. No encryption is largely the result of large retail stores, restaurants, and hotels offering free WIFI. Internet providers, such as Xinfinity, also have open access points for customers that don’t have in-home devices. Setups like this require users to sign on after connecting. After they sign in, they get put into a different internet-accessible subnet from connected but not logged-in users. What is concerning is that 37,314,862 networks still use Wired Equivalency Privacy encryption(WEP). WEP was created in 1997, and in 2023 it can be cracked in minutes.
They have created an android application available through the Google Play Store and Amazon to allow anyone to start stumbling. The application formats the data received through your WIFI, Cellular, and Bluetooth receivers, allowing you to submit the findings. If you don’t want to use their application, you can submit networks on the website in a CSV format. More information on the structure of the CSV can be found here: https://api.wigle.net/csvFormat.html
