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Well as my little comment under my name suggests I am a full fledged Red Bull junkie and having not had an ice cold RB in hours I stopped into my local CVS Pharmacy for a fix.

I had my iPAQ with me and for some strange reason I fired up PocketWarrior and blamo there was an active ap.

SSID= cvsretail
type= unknown
WEP= NO

This seemed strange to me as to why the SSID would be broadcast.

I went inside, got a Red Bull and when at the counter I asked the young girl if they were using wireless registers. She just stared at me with a cocked head. I just gave her the 2 bucks and left.

What gets me is that this CVS Pharmacy is on my normal route when running Ministumbler yet MS never picked this AP up, but it registers loud and clear with PW?

More investigation will need to be done as to what CVS is doing with wireless. Hopefully there is some sort of propietary security measures in place, and hopefully has nothing to do with the Pharmacy side of the biz... that could be ugly.

Originally posted by HITMONEY This seemed strange to me as to why the SSID would be broadcast.[/B]

They may be running some hardware that doesn't work well with broadcast disabled. Or maybe they just like guests.

FWIW, I've heard from a reliable source that there's rarely any traffic, just beacon packets and no clients on the LAN.

I've got a CVS in my neck of the woods and found the same thing... I know a guy at headquarters... I'll send him an e-mail..

Every store has the same 'cvsretail' setup.. or at least from Northern Maine to NYC.

Well I too talked to a reliable source, Iris , and she pointed out that there was nothing but beacon traffic too.

Yeah - We just started getting CVS here in Houston, TX...

Got about 4 of em in my general Travels.. all but one gets picked up by MiniStumbler as I drive by... and my setup is by no means strong - iPAQ 3765 + Sleeve + Orinoco GOLD - no ext antenna and MS....

Nothing there.. just beacon.. another one just like CVS is the HEB grocery stores.. I pick them up too, and they are all the same too - ssid = HEB1905 -- just beacons - nothing else. I have checked with them.. they are using wireless checkout registers.

When checking out a local HEB, I picked up another ssid in the strip mall parking lot... it was comming from the Cingular Wireless store... and was unlocked!

Well.. i thought it was funny...

CR-X

yep, i'm in roswell, GA and there's a CVS w/ ssid = cvsretail and no WEP. strange.

yeah cvs, home depot, wawa: all seems the same probably just for inventory.

Originally posted by chuck2
yeah cvs, home depot, wawa: all seems the same probably just for inventory.

Home Depot uses the wireless for just inventory from what I have experienced. They have some nice barcode scanners.

There is a CVS here. I drove around it today but didn't get anything. I am going to have to try it when the store is open and see if I can get it.

Matt

My ministumbler rig doesnt pick it up. I picked it up with PocketWarrior and airmagent also picks it up.

Got the official word - the WLANs only carries 'pricing information' on it. Not used for checkouts, registers, etc.. However, they are going through a conversion to enable WEP. Although I can't confirm, I'd bet they are going to start rolling out other wireless apps.

Thanks buda,

I will be watching mine closely.

I would hope that if they are going to use
AP's for anything more than they are now,
that they use something more than WEP to
protect it.

i worked there years ago and they use handheld scaners (http://www.symbol.com) to check inventory and prices, they scan the bar codes on the shelf, count the items and makes sure it matches the stock they are suposed to have and that the price is correct.

i bet thats what its for.

SSID= cvsretail
type= unknown
WEP= NO


I find these all over northern NC and southern VA, same deal!

TW