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Ricochet Modems == Wireless LAN?
dpease writes: "Metricom, purveyor of Ricochet wireless networking, died today. I understand that, sans infrastructure, a Ricochet wireless modem can call another Ricochet modem, and that modem-to-modem range is nearly a mile. Is the hardware this company leaves behind a viable solution for a really cool, really cheap wireless LAN?"
There is a peer to peer mode in Ricochet modems - at least (here's the catch) the older modems. Some guys on the Wearable Computing Mailing List have gotten them to work in P2P mode without any trouble.
However, Ricochet removed or somehow blocked this functionality in more recent models (those released within the past year). So the newer modems, unless you can figure out what they did and undo it, are useless in P2P mode.
As for your buddy, he must not know about the older models (I've seen them work in a demonstration here in Canada - definitely no network infrastructure).
(Keep in mind, the only ricochets I've worked with are the old 28.8's belonging to a friend. All bets are off with the new USB ones.)
/. crowd knows of the treasure, the prices will be driven up. Argh. Any one wanting to sell me their old 28.8 serials for $15 or so, email me at p-au-l@sim-er.net (Remove hyphens)
From what I've read and *seen*, these work much like landline modems. They even accept AT commands! Just tell one to "dial" the serial number of another one. If it's within, say, a mile of yours, a "ring" will happen on the other end. Just establish a PPP connection (Win98's Dial-Up server and many linux solutions will work), and you've got long range (>2 miles in good conditions), albeit slow, networking.
The possible uses for this just make me tingle. Wirelessly controlled robots with webcams, anyone?
Of course, I've been looking for deals on these babies on eBay, but now that the
The difference, of course, is that it's harder to tap a phone line for data than to drive around with a radio receiver. For dial-up authentication, passwords are usually sent unencrypted. That would be a disaster for a wireless network.
I believe I also read that these modems encrypt data locally, and transmit on a given frequency for only a very short burst at a time.
The frequency-hoppping element doesn't seem too relevant -- since the modems can establish a connection between each other in an untrusted mode, the same algorithm can be used to intercept the transmission.
If you've got concerns about eavesdropping, then add your own encryption before data is sent.
Data such as the password? At what point would encryption kick in to protect the password negotiation? Any idea what software would be used on both ends for that scenario?
Tim
So you can get your modem to work, you will not have any problems with the FCC.
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
Nope, they used some tricks to avoid the need. First of all, they put some pretty strict power constraints on these. That's why some people are able to (illegally) boost their power and transmit for many miles.
They also transmit on a given frequency for a very short time, then hop to another.
These things allow them to operate on "public" frequencies. It's a great hack, but easy to abuse. If 10 guys boost their power in a neighborhood, no one gets to use it, because of signal bleed.
It's a USB modem that uses PPP, my man! I have one running on Mac OS X right now. I'm talking to you through it. The only operating systems that they offer telephone support for are Windows and Mac OS, but surely Linux/BSD people can figure out how to connect a PPP modem? It is exactly the same as if the Ricochet modem were a 56k hooked to a landline.
I doubt Ricochet got their frequencies for free. What band are they using? Given my knowledge of the 900 MHz band, there are only a few places where one can just "set up" such a system, and I don't think there's room for dozens of channels. Given these things can talk a mile, their base stations and the service as a whole are likely licensed (although a quick FCC database search does not find them). Someone buying up Ricochet's frequency license and finding all these existing users there likely would be pissed.
I've developed online games for over six years. I understand lag.
If you really are Nostradamus (or at least his eyes), you should've seen that I was going to write a saracastic comment long before I acutally did.
There are actually 3 different ways (at least) to do peer to peer with the Metricom radios.
1. Assuming you arn't using the Ricochet network at all and just have a pair of modems and a pair of computers then you can just treat the radios like a regular modem. I've got a pair of the older units and on the back there is a number like xxxx-yyyy. Set one of your systems up to answer calls and plug that number into your dialer you're done. One minor annoyance is that the standard Windows dialer (at least some versions) likes to strip out the "-" but there are plenty of ways to work around that.
2. Star Mode. So far as I know this is only supported under Linux and it basically turns 2 or more of these units into a lan. Look for the STRIP driver in the Linux kernel and have fun.
3. If you do have access to the Ricochet network I believe you can do #1 above through the network and thus get around the distance limitations. My understanding is that this ability was eliminated/changed in later models but I only have the older units and I'm nowhere near any official Ricochet nodes anyways.
As for the range, it depends entirely between what is in between the two nodes. In my particular neighborhood 1/2 mile was about the limit for normal use however if you have a clear view of the other node then you can go much farther.
--
Ray
But incredibly insecure?
that's why people invented VPN's
You're entirely wrong when you say there is no difference between physical and wireless networks.
And you're entirely wrong trying to tell me that my personal experience is wrong. I said that I do not consider any wired network to which I have ever connected secure, therefore it's no different for me to switch to wireless.
I understand that most people think of their network connection as being sort of like a phone line for computers, and think of a connection between computers over a network as sort of like a phone call between computers. Private, isolated, secure. They're wrong, of course, and personally, I don't consider a network medium secure unless I personally control access to the premises or can see all of the wires and equipment without wandering around or turning my head. I don't even take for granted the security of my Apartment Area Network. Why? I have a roommate and a landlord.
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
From what I've read and *seen*, these work much like landline modems. They even accept AT commands! Just tell one to "dial" the serial number of another one. If it's within, say, a mile of yours, a "ring" will happen on the other end. Of course, to prevent breakins, just have the recieving device set up with authentication. Just like you would running a dial-up server at home.
I believe I also read that these modems encrypt data locally, and transmit on a given frequency for only a very short burst at a time. (This allows them to avoid hefty FCC charges!) If you've got concerns about eavesdropping, then add your own encryption before data is sent.
Bah, forget that. Just go up and steal them. Take a big white van and wear a hardhat and the cops won't bother you either. :)
funny munging
So we all want an open and free network...
The next time a large network like this shuts down and auctions their network off (unfortunately, we can't do this with Ricochet because they've already registered the bidders), let's all pitch in and bid on it.
Sure, there are a lot of inherent problems in purchasing this. For example, who would maintain the hardware?
It's still a decent idea, and if we all pitch in a little, it just might happen...
Do you like German cars?
It seems to me after reading the article you refernce that the only way P2P is going to work is if no one buys the network and they shut it off. Then the whole problem of the nameserver goes away.
Actually, I just tried both p2p and starmode with my Merlin 128kbps card. Worked just fine.
.@.
Well - you are at least ignorant. This much you just demonstrated. Do you even know what business model Metricom was founded on? Thought not. There original business model was to build a self-organizing set of radio repeater cells that would be placed on people's power meters! They were to replace meter readers! Metricom saw another possible use for the technology as they were getting this all rolling at the beginning of the intenet revolution. They switched hats and rolled out their wide-area radio network. At least get your facts straight when you opine something like this.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
I thought they were just bankrupt. Aren't they hoping on selling all their equipment, technology, and customer base to someone else?
http://www.metricom.com/auctioninfo/index.html
I'd love to see a Freenet spring up in Dallas using these things. Any others interested?
Here's a link to a FAQ on using your Ricochet Modem outside Metricom's Network.
/ ricochet%20gs%20modem.htm
http://www.enlightenment-engine.com/eeng/ricochet
I don't know if the LAN idea would work, but this would be a great idea if it did:
Instead of a normal LAN party (everybody in the same room) in a place where people were within a mile (I'm thinking dorm) Quake or CS would be great with next to nothing pings, but without the fuss of moving everything and getting it set up. Admittedly you lose the atmosphere, but I'd rather go for a few of these plus a regular LAN setup.
No sig for you.
from the Website it looks like they tried to stay afloat, but died anyway. They filed chapter 11 (which doesn't always mean the company dies) a month ago. In so doing, "the Company sought to restructure its operations and debt obligations while maintaining the operation of its wireless network and continuing to provide services and access." Oh well, guess it took them a month to figure out they couldn't, cause on August 8 they'll be gone. Wonder how much the tech behind the modems will go for at the auction? Not much atm, since no one has any money. I'm not looking forward to my eventual lowering of salary due to there being more and more techies available. We're not the rare commodity we used to be!
If I remember correctly there was an article (can't seem to find it) on ticalc.org on how you could hookup one of these modems to a TI-85, then using another one hooked up to a computer you could execute telnet commands and such from a client on the TI. So, while it may not be 802.11 compliant it may be feasible to build a wireless LAN around it.
Man, I'm frustrated .. I read the article the other day about Ricochet and that they intended to let go of their staff and turn off their network, and I called up my provider, WWC (Wireless Web Connect) and asked what was going on, and if my service would be impacted..
I was immediately assured that Ricochet had only announced Chapter 11 Bankrupcy and that this was only for financial reasons and it would not impact my service at all. I pointed them at the article on slashdot, and was assured that it was just a rumor.
So now, I call them up again and all I can get is a recorded message saying that they have filed legal action to force Ricochet to keep their network online and provide users with at least 30 days notice. Additionally, they say that although Ricochet intends to keep their service online until the date in the future, degredation of service will happen between now and then.
(Case and point, it took me 30 minutes to get connected.. I kept getting No Dial Tone, even though I have green flashy lights indicated signal).
WWC has a lot of sales speak about remaining committed and blah blah blah. They'll stop billing us if Ricochet's network should happen to go dead. How great of them. They also claim that they're working with AT&T on their Wireless Data Service .. A new CDPD modem will be needed, and their trying to get existing Ricochet customers a $$ break. .....I guess I need to get a new ISP Account .. and back to 33.6 I go.. :( :( :(
I'm sure someone can elaborate... but I believe that it basically said it will work with the older 28.8 modems, but not the new 128 capable ones.
Looks like there are SOME interesting uses for these old Metricom modems in Linux. STRIP looks pretty interesting. Still, I'm seeing articles like this that make me think that the newer, faster modems are going to be useless.
Anybody have any more info relating to using these new GS models in peer-to-peer? I just bought a GS model, and I'm looking to get another. I'm seeing people posting on here that the modems are trash now-- but I'm not so sure that's the case.
The Attitude Adjuster, I hate me, you can too.
Alex Belits, a true Metricom packet radio fan, has lots of information on this at http://phobos.illtel.denver.co.us/~abelits/metrico m/.
I have mixed feelings about the demise of Metricom, myself. Properly used, the technology could have had great benefits. However, the company was arrogant and poorly managed. At one time, K N Energy (the local gas company) announced that they were going to deploy Metricom in our town. Neither they nor Metricom had given consideration to the fact that a wireless WAN serving many community organizations and some of the schools ran on the same frequency band. (The Metricom equipment -- dozens of transmitters running at the maximum legal output -- would have blown the other users right off the air.) The existing users made a reasonable request before the City Council: If Metricom was going to monopolize a public resource -- the 900 MHz band -- they should pay at least some of the cost of moving the schools and small business users to another band. But Ralph Derrickson of Metricom (the CEO until the bankruptcy) arrogantly refused to make any such concession. Fortunately, K N Energy's management was not so coldhearted, and agreed to help the community network move to another band if Ricochet was to be deployed in our city. (The network was never deployed, however, as K N Energy dropped its Ricochet franchise shortly thereafter.) The story is at http://www.lariat.org/metricom.html.
It may have been a similar lack of consideration for others (prices too high for the market; poor customer service) that led to Metricom's recent economic problems. $80 per month for 128 Kbps or less simply wasn't competitive with DSL, and there are not enough mobile users to support such a system by themselves. $29.95 per month would be more like it.
--Brett Glass
Its called STRIP - STarmode Radio IP, and there are Linux drivers. Check out the info at:
http://ns.uoregon.edu/~jremy/strip.html
There appears to be two modes to these modems: peer-peer or broadcast. Apparently Metricom calls their broadcast mode "starmode." These drivers allow you to basicly setup a wireless subnet. Very cool.
Can someone comment on the security of these modems? I might have to get myself a couple.
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
But incredibly insecure?
What difference does it make whether the network media is secure? I have been connected at one point or another to a variety of different wired networks and I have not considered any of them secure. Therefore wireless is no different from a security standpoint than Ethernet. As a result I use secure applications (ssh, https, etc). Is there any compelling reason why someone should not use secure applications on every network whether it's a secure one or not?
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
Will their "hubs" (or whatever they use) be liquidated and turned into cash, or will the stuff all be left on the light-poles? Can people go and grab those things now, and reverse-engineer them, and build a new ricochet network, guerilla-style? Heh, if they were in my area, i'd be seriously looking into cherry-picker-truck rentals. :)
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
I have to disagree there. All you have to do is put the card in promiscuous mode and you can sniff every packet going by. You can do the same thing on an ethernet LAN, but there you have to be hooked up to the physical network and have root access on the box. If the "physical LAN" is open air, anybody nearby is on, and you probably have root on your own box. Grab every telnet packet that goes by and hey, you've got their passwords! (which is why you should use ssh).
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Of course, given the extremely small user base of Linux laptops, Ricochet probably doesn't care. But I think you can make it work.
I'm not sure why that was funny; this can actually be done. All you need is a Graph Link(the real one, not the cheap black one) and a couple Ricochet modems. The Graph Link converts the TI proprietary protocol to standard RS232, so you could use any type of modem. You hook one of the modems up to the calc through the Graph Link and the other to some computer, and you should be able to log in to the computer using a terminal emulator program for the calculator. I've never been able to do this, simply because I don't have a real Graph Link, but I'd imagine it would be pretty cool.
Here is a schematic for a 6 watt, 900 MHz bi-directional wireless data amplifier this would be perfect for old Ricochet hardware. All the parts are quite easy to find also.
According to Alex Belitis's Metricom-on-Linux web page, there was no hardware change. It's just that the Metricom pole top units were no longer programmed to forward peer-to-peer "star mode" packets for modems registered after December 23, 2000. If you have two modems talking directly to each other rather than through a pole top unit, then there shuld be no problem.
On the other hand, six months ago I tried and failed to get my Merlin Metricom card to talk my external USB metricom modem in star mode.
no, not the strip clubs...
yes, we have heard much of this before in the comments section. Nevermind reading the articles, do you read the comments? You would think that the editors would. Oh wait. They don't read the articles either half the time.
boys, pay more attention. Worthless Karma whoring happens when you do shit like this.
The "modems" can be used for point to point links without retransmitters, however the distances that I have observed were much less than a mile -- apparently long distances are achievable only if there is a cleat line of sight between transmitter and receiver, and in those conditions 2.4GHz wireless stuff makes at least as muhc sense, plus it's faster.
The information about ricochet modems and their use in both "normal" and point to point mode under linux is at this page that I maintain.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I am sure everyone reading this thread is trying to get onto Alex Belits web page (link doesn't work, hence this post) as it is linked multiple places in this thread, and every webpage worth it's weight is linking to his page (he added support for the Richochet GS/128 k modems to STRIP). Unfortunately his page is inaccessible; however, and I know this is not really kosher; GOOGLE has an archived copy of this page, allowing you to read up on the support, and get a better feeling of where the project is now, as well as the support for the USB modems and 2.x kernel, straight through support and patches for the 2.4.1 kernel. Hope this helps everyone, this sounds like a very interesting technology, it's too bad it didn't fly.
-OctaneZ
Can anyone clarify the range without line of site? It sounds like Alex is saying the range of 802.11b is comparable to the Metricom radios. I've found 802.11 to be pretty limited w/o LOS, so I would be willing to trade a doubling of range for the bandwidth.
But isn't that line-of-sight?
Alex Belits, a true Metricom packet radio fan, has lots of information on this at http://phobos.illtel.denver.co.us/~abelits/metrico m/.
I have mixed feelings about the demise of Metricom, myself. Properly used, the technology could have had great benefits. However, the company was arrogant and poorly managed. At one time, K N Energy (the local gas company) announced that they were going to deploy Metricom in our town. Neither they nor Metricom had given consideration to the fact that a wireless WAN serving many community organizations and some of the schools ran on the same frequency band. (The Metricom equipment -- dozens of transmitters running at the maximum legal output -- would have blown the other users right off the air.) The existing users made a reasonable request before the City Council: If Metricom was going to monopolize a public resource -- the 900 MHz band -- they should pay at least some of the cost of moving the schools and small business users to another band. But Ralph Derrickson of Metricom (the CEO until the bankruptcy) arrogantly refused to make any such concession. Fortunately, K N Energy's management was not so coldhearted, and agreed to help the community network move to another band if Ricochet was to be deployed in our city. (The network was never deployed, however, as K N Energy dropped its Ricochet franchise shortly thereafter.) The story is at http://www.lariat.org/metricom.html.
It may have been a similar lack of consideration for others (prices too high for the market; poor customer service) that led to Metricom's recent economic problems. $80 per month for 128 Kbps or less simply wasn't competitive with DSL, and there are not enough mobile users to support such a system by themselves. $29.95 per month would be more like it.