My laptop has the Intel 2200BG card and uses the ipw2200 driver. By default, when the driver loads, it tries to associate to any network that is open and accessible. This is the physical equivalent of your laptop automatically plugging itself into any network port in the area.
I don't like this behavior, both from a I-want-control-of-my-network-status as well as go-to-jail-or-pay-a-big-fine stand point.
Fortunately driver allows you to turn off this auto-associate behavior with a parameter. In my /etc/modprobe.conf I added the line:
options ipw2200 associate=0
Problem solved.
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