So... my home network's SSID needs to be set to "home" for that to work? You are just spoofing an SSID? That's not so bad. Usually when TWC, ATT, etc, give you a router/modem it is set to some random string. A lot of people don't change that (lived in 7 apartments in 5 years), so you'd only grab the people that literally set their SSID to "home" then.
If your laptop is used to connecting to "home01284", it will send out a probe "hey home01284, are you out there?". Anyone nearby who gets this packet can respond, "yes, I'm home01284, connect to me!" They don't have to know a priori what SSID you were looking for, because your machine specifically advertises it.
Or am I missing something here?