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802.11b Network Scanning In London And Amsterdam
jbrw writes: "Beware of cat skulls in sombreros! Bicycle + laptop + gps unit + 80I.11 magic = WarPeddlaz, currently scanning London. Replacing the bike with a canal boat, and you have the WarFloataz in Amsterdam. Pics, info and raw scan data available at free2air.org." Some amusingly altered photos in here, too. Now that I have an 802.11 card working, this is getting even more interesting.
I just recently set up a Linksys BEFW11S4 router with wireless access in my apartment.
Shortly after I set it up, I found a guy using my network via the wireless access point. At first, I was fine with it, but I realized quickly that this wasn't some guy passing on a bike, but rather someone in the same apartment building.
I tracked him down, and told him that I wasn't in the business of providing free internet to the entire building. Now he pays half the DSL cost. Not a bad deal.
The point is this: I still leave my network open. Anyone wandering by is free to use my 802.11 network. In fact, the settings are such that anyone with a computer set up to connect to the local university's wiress network will get a connection here.
The lesson learned: keep your network open. Smile when some wandering soul conencts for a while. Unless you've got your own T3, though, you better make sure someone isn't getting free, continued, high speed internet, at your expense.
What about misuse. Unless you keep excellent log files you might find yourselves in a lot of trouble if the next CodeRed get launched from your IP number. I am not saying this is a reason not to leave it open, just a reminder that it unfortunately has a flip side.
Help fight continental drift.
Since /. kills many many sites with interesting stuff on them every time it links to them but is unwilling to cache the pages because the lawyers run the show there, how about Google?
/. posts the google cache URL?
Slashdot should organise with Google to cache the page as they approve a post. Google grabs the site before the hoards and next to the real link
The free2air project sounds interesting, even though it got /.'ed and I couldn't find much information on it, but we have seen in the past the fall of the free dial up and similar plans to create a free internet.
One question: Where does the revenue come from? I imagine that nobody is going to give away bandwidth, and that it would be difficult to force banner ads onto the public to pay for it.
Perhaps if they cached the web and inserted their own banners in the pages, that would genereate some money. But would it be enough? Caching napster traffic to conserve bandwidth would not be a daunting task, and scalability of the networks would also create a problem. How many nodes will 802.11b support, and how much additional equipment would be needed to expand the network would have to be addressed all but immediately.
I'm not saying it wouldn't work, I'm just saying it would be hard to make any money off of it.
Angry White Guy
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!