CWatters wrote on Apr 30th, 2009, 2:06pm:It's possible but normally if they are clever enough to detect you they are clever enough to secure their wireless LAN.
It's possible they have a wireless access point and are using a desktop PC to share there internet connection (daft idea as routers are cheap but not as cheap as an access point). If they turn off their PC it will break your connection.
Many folk also turn off their router along with the PC - Something I hate folk doing, but many do.
Many wireless routers come with no security enabled to allow laptop users to easily configure the router without cables. More recent routers do have the security enabled these days out of the box, with some makes having a different password/WEP/WPA per box.