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Open Networking
New10k writes "Here is a feature article on guys in Seattle, San Francisco and elsewhere who are bringing the Open Source ethic to the idea of an available to all wireless Internet. Includes a short explanation of telco vs. free methods of providing access." I know folks who do this already, just not with permission (roam around cities with sniffers and find networks that aren't locked down ;)
It's nice to see that the author thinks that 802.11b cannot go through walls. Patently untrue. Yes, the protocol itself is completely independent of the transmission method (for example you can send ATM cells over fiber, or copper, or even wireless conceivably). What the author probably meant is that the UHF 2.4Ghz signals that the protocol is transmitted on will not propogate through dense obstacles. In a home network in a wood frame house this is not a problem since the wood/fiberglass insulation in a home does not interfere with the signal. However in the outdoor context that this article addresses the steel infrstructures and other metallic and concrete obstacles there will indeed block all but line of site transmissions at 2.4Ghz. For greater reception you generally must move to lower frequencies, but doing so means you have to use a larger chunk of the frequency band to push the same amount of data (and it means you are outside the frequency band allowed for 802.11)
The real problem with 2.4 Ghz is simple. It is not that the bandwidth will be simply saturated. It is that there is simply too much of it out there to maintain clear communication channels over time.
It is not just LAN and point to point network equipment in this range. There are 2.4 Ghz video cameras, cordless phones, and, yes, your microwave oven. Try it. Set a laptop or a PC with a 2.4 Ghz (microwave) network adapter in the proximity of a microwave oven. Start a data stream. Start heating some food or water. Watch your performance degrade.
Even the same type of equipment in neighboring areas will interfere, not just a little bit. It can take a system off-line. A single client with a weak/poor connection to a central access point will degrade performance to the entire cell. Watch your investment dollars. Have fun anyway.
what are you talking about?
$160 for an 802.11b card.
Your local network speed will be much higher than DSL or cable.
the $800 price is for someone who wants to set up an actual repeater node and grow the network. If all you want to be is a user, it's about $160 with no recurrent fee.
How much does that DSL modem cost? Now how much does it cost for the service?
Not sure how many people would want to pay for service that deteriorates when it rains
... at the moments when you feel like watching a bit of TV, like when it's cold, windy and rainy outside, the TV goes out too .. bloody thing.
:D
Yea, that sucks with satellite TV too
If the internet connection was out too it'd be pretty damn terrible!
--
Delphis
The idea of a ubiquitous network where you can get 'online' and be assured routing of your info is great -- however the grass roots bit will probably fail.
Perhaps, the better way to pull this would be a subscription-based thing. $5/month for that constant connection.
This does allow for all kinds of lifestyle reflection. In addition to being yet another way to find you, it'd allow for point of view cameras all over, even a virtual overlay a la CyberGeneration.
Anyway -- I'm done.
-- build a man a fire and he'll be warm all day. set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Apple's airport base station internals are Lucent, too. here's an article about how to upgrade the encryption it uses:
http://www.msrl.com/airport-gold/
One cool thing is that you can also use the newer Apple computers as base stations. So if you have a desktop & a laptop, you can use the desktop as a base station & then get wireless web surfing around your house with the laptop sharing the desktop's connection.
I have been interested in starting up
one of these in central NJ for a while now.
Is anyone interested? I could definatly act
as a node although I have squat for net bandwidth.
Mike
I'm sorry, but I cannot buy this. These devices use spread-spectrum technology: they don't stay on any channel but for some number of microseconds. they then shift to a another channel, and that next channel is selected based on an algorithm which is seeded by the SSID. You can't just brute force it that easily.
I think I'm still looking for someone who can *demonstrate* that it is easy, instead of just claiming that it's so.
A.
...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
http://www.enterasys.com/technologies/wireless/
I belive that the reason you can only use 104 bits is because the encryption uses the mac address as part of the key (cannot remember where I read that, sorry).
I don't really mind double posts on
once again, people post a new topic instead of noticing this has already been mentioned in a previous comment.
Aren't there regulations governing the use of the 2.4 GHz frequencies? Isn't it illegal to use them unlicensed? I'm not a HAM operator but I am working toward my license and I was just wondering about the stipulations on this.
-- Butlerian Jihad NOW!
Basically, you can find our planning so far
:-).
:-)
<A HREF="http://www.seattlewireless.net"> here </A> ifn' you were too quick to read the story, follow links etc. Granted that's only for the Seattle one, but there's links to the others too.
I'd really like to see this guy with the sniffer. It hinges on a lot of different things.
1) That's there's more people using 802.11 than I actually thought.
2) That the users went out of their way to subvert the basic encryption features on 802.11 cards.
Neither one of these would surprise me, but I can't really see it being to the point where it would actually pay back the time spent cruising around the city looking for it. Then again, if you have nothing better to do....
Just because it's wireless doesn't mean you have to throw security out the window. Can you give me a good reason why FreesWan wouldn't work just because it's going over an 802.11 connection instead of a land line? Plus, with recent releases of PGPNet, you don't have to worry as much about which OS you're using to connect to the FreesWan servers in the first place.
I think at the first meeting of Seattle Wireless it was expressed best, "If we get it to work, great. If we don't get it to work, still cool, cause we got to learn a lot of new things, meet new people interested in this, and drink some beer." I'll let other people argue whether or not that beer was free.
here at columbia university in new york, we have a public wireless network, although it only covers the main quad of campus, it's open to all, which is a suprising move for columbia, which tends to shy away from innovation when it comes to these sorts of things.
I live close to the wireless part in San Francisco (Richmond district near the Presidio), but they don't tell you how far away you can be to reach their stuff. Does anyone have any info on distance, and strenght? Don't want to invest $800 if it won't work at my house.
For more public wireless links check out:
www.seattlewireless.net/
www.teleport.com/~samc/psuwireless/
And at burning man with sat link:
www.eugeneweb.com/~bm/ibm.html
I think all of these are 802.11 based.
So, can you (or anyone) just arbitrarily sniff on an unencrypted RF network without knowing anything about the network (like the SSID, for instance)? If so, how?
Yes.
I have a home 2.4GHz wireless network. I live in a fairly large (416 unit) apartment in downtown Saint Louis.
Every time the linux-wlan package starts, it lists all the other wireless networks it can see. When I first set the package up, I noticed on Channel 6 that there was an SSID listed named "dave". Low and behold, configure anything on my network to SSID "dave" and I have full access to this guy's network. He lives downstairs somewhere, from what I can tell.
Now, granted, I'm not trying to break in to this guy's network. I'm just saying that for a total of a $115 investment (Pentium 166 I obtained for free + Zoomair 2.4GHz card) I am able to see what 2.4GHz wireless networks are within my reach. If I had a laptop with Linux, I can roam around and find out even more I'm sure.
For over 10 years, Dave Hughes has been traveling the world, wiring Indian reservations and Russian towns and all sorts of places. He calls his community networking service Old Colorado. And he's been pushing the FCC for years to open up some spectrum. Understands the value of multimedia too.
Andy Armstrong
Woah. I.. really really like this. I think I like this more than my Palm. In any case, I imagine that I will be picking one up as well. It'll make DnD games a lot more interesting :)
Is anyone living in New York City doing this? If so, I'd like to help.
When punk rock is outlawed, only outlaws will have punk rock.
The Symphony bridge I have set up uses signal hopping...it chances frequencies every few seconds just like the Borg's personal shields ("They have adapted"). It only accomodates a few people, though. You'd need a much more expensive RangeLAN if you want a wide range and lots of access capability.
The funniest incident by far was when a guy's garage opened which clearly hadn't been opened in a long while. There were boxes piled high against the door which all spilled out onto his driveway. This was at about 1:00am and we were on foot, and it took all our will power to keep from laughing very loudly as we quickly walked away. We walked back to my car and drove past the place on our way out of the neighborhood and saw a guy outside in his bathrobe picking up boxes. We probably should have felt guilty, but we just laughed even harder. He must have thought aliens had abducted his garage door.
As far as wireless networks and security go, I'm interested in using the Cisco Aironet products for a project like this. They have a "system ID" for security purposes (I think it's a 24-bit value) which at least provides a basic level of security, but I don't think that would be quite enough. I also don't know what the deal is with 802.11b network cards as far as whether it's possible to put them into promiscuous mode and/or change their MAC address. I've heard rumors that one or both of those things aren't possible with some cards, which would definitely improve security substantially.
Talking about insecurity, I think that sniffing might be usefull for saving on bandwidth. Just think of how many people are looking at a pecitular site at any one time, or would love to download a high quality version of the latest Fan Sub'd Anime movie (insert favorite series here).
Heck, why not have one user download a file and everybody else hop on for the ride? User A downloads the file on their large connection, and shares it wirelessly to users B C D etc. This would save on both the ISP's bandwidth and the servers bandwidth, and on bandwidth on the internet in gerneral.
This could be taken even one step further, as communities could have general proxy servers that could act as area wide internet cache's, @Home does this already for all of there users (you can bypass it if you want to go through the trouble to get an extra 10kps or so, and knock 5ms or 10ms off of your ping) and works resonably well. The automatic mirroring of certin pages (Slashdot.org and all links on the main news page would be nice for starters, I still can't get through to those darn pictures of Jupiter!) and contant caches of other pages, such as www.newgrounds.com could help the local community save alot of bandwidth. You even use a distrubuted networking setup and have the cached data spread pseudo-randomly about the computers of volenteers (have some extra HD space to donate to the community as a whole, well then, sign on up!)
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
This very morning I visited a company called NERA who make equipment for doing precisely what we are discussing (internet over radio links). Their top of the range point-to-point systems will do 155 Mb/s.
This sort of thing is not cheap and certainly not affordable for home use, but I was not suggesting that people could easily implement even 20 Mb/s links. I was just pointing out that available RF bandwidth is not the limiting factor.
802.11b supports 128b encryption (WEP)
www.bleepyou.com
Heh. I'm only barely productive on Caltrain right now because I have no Internet access. Must...fight...temptation...
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
I see this thread getting off topic.. so this should make you content in my reasoning.
.. c'mon.
.ph0x
OK, how many people are actually looking forward to the internet being split for a period of time and the complete flipflop of what you have been doing up to this point?
You will lose connectivity with sections of the known internet and the on-line world as we know it now will be split.
Don't get me wrong the 'concept' of IPv6 is there, we just need to find a better way for this to be done.
I really don't see our near future in IPv6.
Just my humble opinion.
Just as a quick note for a tack onto my other post..
;)
.ph0x
As a cyber-prophet(or whatever) I forsee that most of the Internet will be come similarly segregated nodes. joined together through a system of main-pipe gateways. and NAT-like address management.
DECENTRALIZE!@%&^@%!&
Well I think that this is a great way to actually relieve the stress of todays networks. Think about it.. what would be faster?, an overworked network or multiple semi-segrigated bridged networks?
.ph0x
I think the latter is the choice we need to go with. we could say screw you IPv6 and stay with IPv4 by segregating into smaller internal addressing schemes.
"...say 'screw you IPv6 and stay with IPv4'..."
And *why* would we want that? Why is it that you don't favor IPv6?
"If there's hope, it lies in the proles..."
802.11 supports something called WEP or Wired Equivilent Privacy, a 40 bit encryption system. To be an 802.11 product you've got to support this.
This uses spectrum called "ISM" (Industrial, Scientific, Medical) that is essentially unregulated worldwide. It's the same spectrum your 2.4GHz cordless phone uses. Lobbying or not, it'd be very nearly impossible to take back this spectrum.
Dude... We all did that one the day garage door openers got remotes... But what is real fun is when you can capture the channel frequency from someones built in car remote and change it on the fly effectively locking them out of their own garage.
flinging poop since 1969
Last time I looked, APR was still stuck in the dark ages, technology-wise. People were still running at 9600 bps, and you had to use explicit routing ("send this to A and from there to B and from there to C ..."). Unless vast technological strides have been made lately, I wouldn't even consider it usable for anything but email.
Slightly OT, but anyone else have an ELSA Airlancer MC-11 and got it too work under Linux? Its really a lucent Orinoco card but I can't get any drivers to work with the thing under Linux.
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a brutal anal raping at airport security
FCC regs cover things like power, and range of antenna. IANAH (I am not a HAM) so look into it further yourself. But there are plent of people who buy the better antennas, post them on their roof tops and point them where they'll be.
/. of course, the office had ISDN, so wireless in the office was more to show off than serve a real point...
I had an apt. in Tel-Aviv and pointed my antenna out my apt. window at my office in Ramat-Gan, or at Hayarkon Park, and could get decent signal, enough to browse
My point here is, it does work, and if done right, falls right under the point where the FCC gets edgy.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
For those who havnt seen it have a look at this: Cybiko its a 900mhz networked 'pocket computer' with its own OS, free software (dloaded from net). VERY neat little toy - ive just ordered one for my niece - I want one for myself ;). They also make a SDK available for those who would want to hack it
The device will set up an adhoc network consisting of these devices when they are in correct range (150 - 300 ft) Not enough range really - but certainly neat display for a child's toy.
Very neat tech for less than $100. There is a 'mail in rebate' for a free add on module that makes the device an MP3 player as well..
No im not getting paid for this - Ive just been reading alot of reviews etc trying to decide if it was appropriate for an Xmas gift this year...
Yeah, it will happen. The actual radio (in the case of a Lucent silver card, which is what Apple uses) is what tracks all the different connections. So it doesn't matter how fast a processor is being used with it, the radio itself is the limiting factor. The more clients you have, the slower the speeds. And as each packet has to be ACKed, functions that are highly interactive run slower.
Scott Plumlee
This will always be a problem with packet-radio style technologies like this. Current wireless standards are pushing to a packet-radio style architecture, and they are grappling with this very problem. Currently, all voice traffic on a wireless link is scrambled... however, the trend is NOT to have mandatory layer-2 encryption for packet data. Rather, the general consensus is "if people want security, they better enable encryption themselves, 'cuz we won't". So, yeah, if you don't want your IRC sessions or telnet connections sniffed, either encrypt the sessions themselves, or set up an encrypted tunnel with a fixed host somewhere and tunnel all your traffic through that with the fixed host acting as a gateway/relay. SSH does this quite nicely, or you can go the way of IPSec (or TLS/SSL for TCP stuff).
Here in Canada I pay 40 bucks (Canadian) a month for ADSL or Cable (I've used both). So at that rate, this scheme might pay for itself after 2 years, but in 2 years I'll probably have a faster and cheaper connection anyways.
I run ADSL in Canada also. It's a bargain, but it doesn't help me with my notebook when I'm sitting in Chapters or the library or a hotel lobby. I'd love to be able to tap into stray RF networks around downtown rather than working offline.
If we avoided subjects that have been previously discussed, we wouldn't have much to say, would we? I mean just because we've discussed Linux before doesn't mean we should no longer mention the word. This is a different topic because it's a different group of people. The only true repeated discussion would be one that is word for word the same, because every statement has a slant that makes it different. Some of us are interested in hearing news from all different perspectives.
I think the Open Source Ethic term (which I used to describe the article in my posting to Slashdot) applies NOT ONLY to the network bandwidth being free and open, BUT ALSO to the coalition of people working on it in the true hacker spirit of cooperation and sharing and exploration. AND ALSO, a lot of code will be needed before this goes beyond a few good hardware hacks and becomes The Next Big Thing -- there will be plenty of opportunity for good Open Source software to support this thing.
Optimist says glass is half-full; Pessimist says glass is half-empty; Dynamist takes a drink.
If you don't you don't have to.
It's a little risky but what a learning experience and if it doesn't work, you could always listen to the sound of your neighbour's microwave popcorn popping.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Do your research. Apple was one of a few companies that pushed the FCC for the opening of this frequency band so that they could research this technology.
That program was a riot when it was demonstrated at MacHack last June. Here it was on the big screen in the demonstration room, and all of a sudden a bunch of pics of bongs and weed popped up from someone surfing.
You should be able to turn off NAT using the Airport Administrator program. And if you are unwilling to do that, I believe that the Airport Base Station has DMZ stuff in it. Maybe putting your printer in there will fix it.
On another note, I think it is silly to keep using the "open source" metaphor outside the software industry. Open Source is a unique thing within software/the net because you are dealing with ideas - not limited resources. It is one thing to "open source" a method of doing networking, but the metaphor breaks down once you start talking about a noisy transmission environment. To stretch the metaphor to breaking - every new "copy" of the "source" changes the performance of everyone else's version. Everyone seems to want to latch on to "Open Source" just because it is fashionable without thinking.
True the air is not secure, but neither is the internet. People can sniff your telnet traffic and irc traffic on the internet. Everyone keeps talking about how "insecure" wireless is. Wireless lacks the same security that the internet lacks.
-ipl31
Well gee thats funny, the airport is another platform it uses a 486 processor. I wonder who they ripped that off of?
-ipl31
I guess it all depends on what this bw range is currently used for, I'm not sure how it is currently regulated. If memory serves there is a swath of the micro band which is designated the "junk band" and the FCC pretty much leaves it alone for the use of scientific testing and microwave ovens. basically running wireless service in this band is akin to UBR QoS in atm networks; you're not guaranteed anything, but it's cheap.
Another interesting point, though, is that in the USA, the american people own the rights to these frequency bands, the FCC is supposed to act as agent to prevent abuse by companies, etc., so true non-profit citizen groups should have the right to use them for free. private companies aren't paying for them anyway (apart from the one-time registration fees).
Hey, Here at Sacred Heart Univ, we have a 802.11 wireless lan. It's really sweet, they have it in all of the main academic buildings and they are giving the cards to all freshman and selling them to everybody else. The lan was put in this year, that's why the other must buy the card *grin*. We have the 128bit encryption to be able to access the network. I had ot rebuild my thinkpad earlier do the a problem with win98 and a piece of software I *tried* to run. I just entered anything for the ESSID, well long story short it didn't work. What was really werid though this that our Spectrum24 cards made by Symbol has a led on them and when we are connected to thelan they blink FAST. Even though I was within the signal range my card did not even indicate that I was in an access point b/c I had the wrong ESSID. Does anybody know of a home access point I could use to trasmitt my DSL/Cable line at home? Running long wires it just a PIA.
I find this topic interesting and all the discussion around it because this is the exactly the technology we use for our ISP here in Iowa. Check out their homepage for a look. The reason we do this is that here, in remote areas in the midwest telcos don't think we're worth enough for DSL, or even cable (even though we have digital cable from AT&T). Its not bad speed, standard rates are 128k/sec but you can purchase up to 1.5 m/sec. I get great signal all the time (which is the hardest part of the whole ordeal) and unless the main servers go down, I don't have any downtime. Hey, don't knock it till you try it...
No - this "frequency band" was not requested by Apple - it already existed. Apple requested additional frequencies (which were eventually allocated under the name "unlicensed NII"). The 2.4 GHz band is one of the Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) bands which have existed for some time.
Ricochet is going to cover 100 million people in the U.S. before the end of next year, and while it isn't as fast as 802.11, it is infinitely more reliable and designed by a company that has Paul Allen and WorldCom's blessing (and money).
http://www.ricochet.com It's a wide-area LAN that uses hundreds of Microcellular Digital radios (usually attached to light poles)arrayed around a city in a checkerboard pattern, with Wired Access Points directing the mesh network traffic onto tthe wired internet. It uses the 915Mhz and 2.4Ghz bands of free, unlicensed spectrum, so it avoids the billions of dollars of spectrum costs that the cellcos are going to have to pay for 3G...and here's the best part - it is available today at 128kbps, going to 256 and then 384kbps within the next two years.
Streaming media on a laptop, batman! I live in Santa Cruz and work in San Jose - but with my Ricochet modem (available in PC card form later this month) I can check my e-mail wirelessly from anywhere in the Bay Area - or Dallas - or Mahattan or anywhere else the network is eventually deployed. A co-worker of mine rode the ACE train from Fremont to work the other day, and stayed connected to the internet the whole time at 30-40kbps. The 128+kbps speeds (I've gotten as much as 250kbps at Stoddard's in Sunnyvale) are typical when you are stationary, but even 30kbps is usable for e-mail and light web use, turning the morning Caltrain or BART ride into productive time. It works with PCs and Macs, and with the USB support in the 2.4 kernel, porbably with Linux too (they've got a serial cable for the modem too, just in case).
The service isn't cheap, with prices at around $70.00 per month, but I think that we'll see that dropping over the next few months. For the convenience (and soon the ubiquity) of Ricochet, it's a small price to pay - plus, no tiny cell phone screens to squint at.
Some of you self-styled geeks should go check this out. It actually works and it is here today.
would this be similar to current free ISPs and if so how would they generate a profit (through advertisement)?
Ya'll, ok...the Lucent Wavelan Silver cards slide nicely into the Wavepoint basestation. We use these puppies as Points of Presence for a metro area business only Internet access solution, full 11MB wireless pipes into a backend with (2) OC3 pipes going up to the big boys...and yea..there are T1 backups and ISDN backups too... The client side demarc points are "very custom" kernel Linux Router Project boxes based in 486's, with Wavelan Silver cards stuck into the isa adapter card, got DMZs, private LAN and all the goodies in there. Anyways we implement network security using first and foremost really hard-to-guess names for the Wavepoint POPs with stupid hard admin passwords. In the Wavepoint there is a nice little setting for only allowing specific MAC (media access control)addresses to connect to the POP. (such as the mac address of the Wavelan Silver card in the client side router) In addition we encrypt the communication bi-directionally at some nifty high bitrate that I cannot remember off the top of my head. On a side note, the Wavelan cards are direct sequence and stick to one channel and that channel is fixed and thus easy to identify using the site survey tool (assuming you know the POP name or IP)...Note..the Breezecom products are frequency hopping and harder to thus get a link on, but they are WAY, and I mean WAY less dependable. That is my version of a warning to would be Breezecom users. Anyways, we actually make solid money with this stuff...if guys want to go solo..thats cool but make sure that you get the right antenna for the right job....and if you are gonna try and setup Points of presence in stead of direct shots...please, for your own sanity...use an array of directionals and not a Uni antenna. Way too much interference on client to Uni uplink usually as the Uni picks up everything in a 360 degree radius... limit your pain with directional arrays is the moral of this story. If you are gonna shoot long distances (15 to 20 miles) use as short a wire from antenna to wavelan card as possible ( db loss can be a pain on long runs) and use a pair of DB24 antennas with line amps. That would be my braindump of the day. enjoy. Oh yeah...add a beowolf cluster in there somewhere just to impress your friends.
For all you funky europeans with DECT cordless phones, make sure you change your security code on the base stations! It's the same deal as with the wireless LANs, except, DECT phones are far more common.
Most (all?) base stations ship with a default security code of "00", which makes it easy to reassign a random base station, if you just so happen to be walking down the street with a DECT handset.
Or something.
Anyone played with data over DECT? I see that there are standards for data and DECT, and DECT to ISDN gateways, etc., but haven't really seen any products. Data over DECT could be fun...
...j
Is real data flowing over consume.net yet?
If there was a node about 500 meters closer to me, I would be in range, but, well, until them. D'oh!
...j
160$ fee for a 9600 baud connection. Keep in mind the current speed limitations. Noaw compare that to cable or DSL, at speeds tremedously greater then those available.
:-)
Thats right.. Current network setups only give 9600 baud. Or, you can goto a screaming 56k for nearly a grand..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Not if you want RANGE..
:-)
An 802.11b card cannot provide nearly enough range for what is being talked about here. And you also have another limiting factor at that point. You're now sharing bandwidth with *EVERYONE* using this free service..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
pretty easy really. Most (if not all) 802.11b wireless products allow you tp specify that only certain MAC addresses can use it, so you can just mkae sure the MAC addresses of your wireless NICs are in the access list. You can also specify a network name rather than just allowing a card looking for "any" network to connect.
-jay
I thought Open Source was about having source code available. How does this apply to networking? You're going to require that the bandwidth be distributed with source?
http://www.opensource.org/osd.html
20Mbps seems a bit high. The highest experimental setup going a few yards at best, was 10Ghz and got 2-10Mbps.
A usable network would be about 2-3 Mbps at 10Ghz to 24Ghz.
I suppose you could take a larger spread with more xpensive equipment to get up to 20Mbps, but then you get more interference. The 2.4Ghz is already polluted from the sounds of the article. Its saving grace is that it doesnt carry very far, otherwise it would be extremely dirty.
At any rate, im not an RF expert like you said, but 20Mbps still seems very optimistic with any kind of hardware.
How much of this is usable for a dedicated RF transport? the 2.4Ghz band is quite large, but you cant use a 5 Mhz spread for your networking.
10Ghz microwave bands are nice for throughput, but what is the range for 10Ghz?
People were still running at 9600 bps, and you had to use explicit routing ("send this to A and from there to B and from there to C ...").
Actually there is a HAM group in Columbia, SC that has dynamic routing configured for their packet network.
I don't know the details, but it functions similar to an RF RIP protocol of some sort.
They may have something about this online, i'll look...
The benefit of sharter ranger 900Mhz or 2.4Ghz networks is bandwidth.
A typical 2.4Ghz network can handle over 1.2Mbps. Far beyond anything HAM bands can support.
While packet radio has its place, high bandwidth RF needs high frequency transport.
The equivalent of war-dialing.
There are a number of channel frequencies the devices operate at (within the 2.4Ghz or 900Mhz bands).
Via software configuration you can choose one of hundreds of available 'channels' and pretend your a valid RF device.
If you can communicate at all, you have found an active channel. If not, try the next.
Proprietary devices which do not use any standard or common channel frequencies require the more expensive scanning equipment to pick out the signal.
Is that you cannot guarantee security on the net ANYWAY. Use encryption.
That is fact, no matter what. You are transmitting data through networks you do not control, and have absolutely no power over.
You are right. The FCC had a proposal to grant thousands of low power licenses and the NAB poured millions into quashing this. Right now a bill that will kill this is on an appropriations bill, waiting for Congress to resume.
For more info see on the bill see this article.
For more on the media industry's lobbying to take away your airwaves see this report from the Center for Public Integrity.
Unfortunately the public mechanism that we have for arbitrating use of spectrum (the FCC) is under the thumb of the NAB. Witness what is happening with low power radio. The NAB pours millions into an effort to kill a proposal to grant thousands of low power radio licenses, that would bring diversity to the airwaves and permit the kind of civil society to flourish that these do it yourself networking projects have. If these projects become successful industry will in all likelihood manipulate the regulatory mechanism to quash any competition to their wireless services like MMDS.
We need to learn from what has happened to low power radio and not get behind like we are in open access. We need to create mechanisms for civil society to self regulate public resources, with the stakeholders doing the regulation not the government. And we need to make sure we keep access to our spectrum and not let the NAB lock it up.
This is something I have wanted to try to do for quite awhile.
I live in the Phoenix, Arizona area - specifically north of the east/west portion of Loop 101. My actual location makes it difficult to impossible to reach anything south and west (due to some mountains being in the way), but if anyone would like to help me set up a wireless (preferably optical!) net between houses - contact me or post to this thread. With enough nodes, dispersed properly, we could get around any obstacles of the nature...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Ok, I have a question. You say that for 'a few hundred bucks' I can buy a card that will allow me to tap into RF networks. Your link points to what appears to be a standard RF lan card.
How do you determine the SSID of the signal you want to tap (without a $15,000 box)?
Forgive me for playing the devil's advocate here, but people are fond of pointing out how easy it is to sniff wireless networks, but I've yet to see one person say 'I have done it and here is how'. One person said he sniffed his own network - but with a card set up for that net - well duh, no kidding.
So, can you (or anyone) just arbitrarily sniff on an unencrypted RF network without knowing anything about the network (like the SSID, for instance)? If so, how?
Inquiring minds...
A.
...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
The only downside is that it's set up for NAT and now I can no long remote print because stupid LPR bitches that I'm no longer using a priviliged socket .... anyone got any ideas for a quick fix?
Next step of course will be to find a way to get the local Cafe wired .....
No! I was just bitching about this last night! I am not going back to schluffing packets over a friggin 9600 baud link in an unlicensed band! Do you know how much that chafed?!?!
No. Stick to small yagis, mabye a uni-quad and friggin 802.11.
.sig: Now legally binding!
Like all things "free" this service, although well intentioned, is expensive, mediocre, and unrealiable. Best of luck to them. We'll stick with our T1 and DSL.
Someone you trust is one of us.
the mailing list archives are here....
http://lists.spack.org/pipermail/ptp/
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"don't smoke, don't drink, don't fuck
at least i can fucking think"
Minor Threat
It might be possible to use a lightweight accounting system based on the Digital Silk Road to spread the load around and provide an incentive for people to add new nodes.
What a load of rubbish. HAM radio has a band at 2.4 GHZ with enough bandwidth for at least 20 Mbps (not to mention 3300-3500 MHz, 5650-5925 MHz etc etc), it even says in the article that these guys got their antennas from amateur radio suppliers. I agree that most amateur packet radio happens at painfully slow baud rates, but there are people doing much higher speed backbones.
The point which I was trying to make is that a wireless LAN consists of two very different technologies. The computer bit (protocols, error checking, addressing etc) and the RF bit (modems (not the same problem as telephone modems), amplifiers, IP3 performance, antennas, propagation etc). The RF bit is every bit as complex as the computer bit. Being an expert in computers does not make you an expert in RF engineering. It is a seperate subject which takes just as long to study at University. HAM radio has spent very many years learning lessons about widely distributed radio LANs, it would be realy stupid to ignore that knowledge when its available free for the asking.
I do research into future aircraft radio equipment and I often meet people who design wonderous inter-aircraft digital comms systems in the fond belief that the RF bit will be easy to add on at the end. They put it all together and prove once again that old adage that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing". Then they go white when I tell them how much its going to cost to fix it.
About 5 years ago me and a friend built a device that scans through the channels attached to garage door openers. It wasn't to big of a deal, just a brute force method, sending out radio signals on a range of channels as quick as possible. We hoped in the car and drove around the neighborhood with it, I haven't laughed that hard since, watching everybody's garage doors open. But seriously, if Net Admins think the "broadcast" nature of Ethernet Hubs causes security problems, wait until wireless takes hold. Hackers don't even have to plug into the network they just have to pull up a van next to the building. And what about DoS attacks? It's not difficult to build devices that can send out strong levels of noise on select channels, bringing a wireless network to it's knees. All issues that Network Admins will face in the future, just in case you thought your job was getting easy :)
Jay
Well, isn't this a bit insecure in a way? The air isn't really secure - and what could you find out about your neighbour that uses telnet to connect to his new web hosting company?. This brings atleast that they have to use full encrypted ethernet/IPSEC doesn't it? Also, on IRC, who would like others to see your conversation?. On a sidenote, people who want a IRC server with full SSL support (client-server, server-server), check the url in my sig.
-Stskeeps, http://unrealircd.com
Making only certain MACs privileged would still leave the network vulnerable to impersonation of those MACs, which would be visible to the sniffer. This is the same vulnerability that allows cell phones to be cloned. You'd need to encrypt everything to prevent this, in which case it wouldn't be necessary to allow only certain MACs (but it certainly wouldn't hurt anything).
It's "free" as in "Fair Use." And even that's not free; just remember what Sun did to you when you tried to release "Java(TM) Invaders." And also remember that Sun Microsystems threatened to sue when you use the "stylized Java(TM) logo" for the Java story topic.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I think this kind of misses the point. Ala Heinlein: TANSTAAFL, and everyone knows it. Of course hardware costs money, and of course running it costs money. This is a big-ole "DUH". Implementation is not free. That's not what "free as in beer" means. The beer recipe is downloadable gratis, but running the microbrewery is not.
But "free as in beer" means that the Intellectual Property *is* free. That vapor about which everyone is so worked up, patenting, and suing over is free. The details are out there, for free, is non-proprietary, and open to comment and further development.
The idea behind all this open network development is not so that you, or anyone for that matter, can get a cheaper lunch, it's so that those odd people out there who like burning themselves occasionally with solder might tweak with something that they're not going to get sued for reverse engeneering, folding, spindling, or mangling. Maybe, just maybe, an open development model might eventually come up with ways to make it as cheap or cheaper than commercial service... but that's not the point. That's a potential side effect of people who want to tweak.
So if you don't want to muck around with wiring, schematics, frequencies, climbing up on your roof, network settings, etc... feel free to just buy service from your local carrier. That's why they exist. It's an easy choice.
But the moment you want to start helping out that local carrier, or figure out how their tech works so that you can tweak it for your own benefit... forget about it. Their stuff is neither "free as in speech", nor "free as in beer".
The article said "Rain and walls also clog the pipes." This is different than saying 802.11b won't go through walls at all.
I'm typing on my laptop using a Lucent 802.11b card now, and I can tell you that walls do "clog" 2.4GHz signals. My data rate drops from 11Mb/s to 2Mb/s if I walk out my back door and sit on my porch.
These "community network" folks are pushing weak signals at distances they weren't designed for. Walls would do significant damage to their signal strength.
Without encryption, it would be like having a hub on my DSL modem that anybody driving by could plug in to...
Man, it would take a very hand and nerves of steel to accomplish a feat such as that.... =]
Karma: Dyn-o-mite!(mostly affected by Jimmy Walker reading your comments)
there's the same WaveLan PCMCIA card that's in my Linux laptop .... 802.11 is something that Apple adopted, not something they invented .... like lots of other coold stuff (like CD Drives, bitmapped displays etc etc) Apple is a great early adopter but just because you first saw it from them don't assume that they thought up the idea .... (oh yeah I love my Apple Airport - makes a great/cheap 802.11 RF router for my Linux network)
etherpeg.org have source code for an applicaiton that sniffs JPEGs and GIFs from 802.11 nets and draws them on the screen - great fun in public areas running AirPort.
Also, this is not an Apple-developed system. I believe that it was pioneered by Lucent. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Apple's implementation is Lucent's.
Fuck 'im up, Tim! His views are invalid! -Pirate Corp$
By the way, I'd like to hear more about cruising the streets with a sniffer looking for open networks. How's that done, and what does one do to 'lock down' the network? I've been thinking of putting in a wireless network, but I hadn't thought about this hazard.
Here I go with a bit of karma-whoring (joke)
Go here to read about a loose coalition of london people trying to set up a similar scheme.
And go here to read all the comments from when this subject was last posted on /. just over a week ago.
Ben^3 (wondering whether CmdrTaco et al have goldfish DNA)The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
It seems to me that rather than trying to take wireless LAN technology which is realy designed for short range in-building networking and fixing it to big external antennas (which is basically what these guys are going), it might be a better plan to take technology from the HAM community and adapt it to these unlicenced bands.
The article is vague, but I very much doubt that these wireless LAN radios have the strong signal handling required to operate well when connected to a large external antenna.
Summary: An interesting idea, but one that needs as much imput from radio expert as it does from computer experts. RF engineering is not as simple as it sounds once you start dealing with a lot of signal over a large area.
G1DGL
"Free as in beer" software is not really "free as in beer". Someone has to pay for hardware, electricity, web hosting, whatever... So there is a cost, but it's so small that the creator is absorbing it, or perhaps ad banners or sponsors.
This is hardly free either: "$800 to buy all the components needed to get hooked up". (that's US) + maintenance + time.
Here in Canada I pay 40 bucks (Canadian) a month for ADSL or Cable (I've used both). My adsl connection will actually run 2 machines straight of the ADSL-modem (with a hub) (anyone with sympatico can do this).
So at that rate, this scheme might pay for itself after 2 years, but in 2 years I'll probably have a faster and cheaper connection anyways.
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Since this is obviously a big threat to large telecom providers like ATT, MCI, etc., I wonder if they will lobby the FCC to step in on their behalf. This kind of movement has happened before, most notably with micropower (around 1 watt) FM radio stations.
A couple of years ago, I became interested in setting up my own radio station so I investigated the FCC requirements for getting a broadcasting license. It turns out that the application fee for getting your broadcast license is several thousand dollars and the associated paperwork takes a team of lawyers to complete properly. Not only that, but the FCC won't even CONSIDER giving you a license if you're broadcasting at less than 100 watts. The equipment for that level of power gets pretty expensive for the average citizen. IMHO, these requirements don't benefit the public at all, it just artificially restricts broadcasting on the public airwaves to the big companies that can afford the price of admission. I suspect some heavy lobbying was involved...
I wonder if the large telecoms and their teams of lobbyists will try to get the FCC to step in on this...
This
These types of RF networks have been in use by companies for quite a few years (i.e. manufacturing data collection)
Like the TacoMan said, many of these networks aren't secured very well.
Half a dozen manufacturing plants that I integrated RF data collection devices for did not use any type of authentication of encryption and relied solely on frequency channels to identify remote RF terminals.
For a few hundred bucks, Intermec and others can provide you with ISA cards to tap into RF networks and even PCMCIA cards that you can plug right into your laptop.
These devices setup an IP connection that ties a psuedo terminal on a unix server to the ANSI/VT100/etc emulation terminal running on the data collection devices themselves.
Some of the newer models provide a light weight web browser configured for various ports on a unix server to handle the data collection interface.
Almost all (95%+) of the data collection applications that are attached to the other end of these RF terminals are running on critical enterprise servers so that they can be close to the databases they feed.
It always baffled me that the IS tech's would be so lax on security simply because it was 'RF'.
As a side note, eavesdropping on an RF network is orders of magnitude easier than typical networks (ethernet / ATM) and effectively impossible to identify. For a few hundred bucks anyone can make a RF 'tcpdump' with a laptop and RF PCMCIA card that will trap every single IP packet flying over the RF networks.
So, the moral of this story is:
RF entails much more security risk than typical networking. Beware when you implement an RF network, and keep security at the top of your to-do list.