Wardriving was driving around town with a laptop scanning for WiFi access points without any encryption. Most wardrivers would have a GPS card and software that’d build a map up as you drive of all SSIDs and locations, which could be uploaded and contributed to by others.

This was back before ubiquitous open WiFi and encryption.

Slight amendment.

The heyday of wardriving (IMHO) was before the industry got its shit together with WPA.

Because before WPA, there was WEP. Which it turns out had multiple vulnerabilities, given enough traffic.

https://www.dummies.com/programming/networking/understanding...

Ergo, there was a period from ~1999-2004 whereby one could aim a Pringles cantenna at a neighbor's AP and crack their WEP password in order-of-an-evening (depending on how much traffic they were generating).

Not that I ever did such a thing, mind you.