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Multihomed WLANs from Intel

accessdeniednsp writes: "El Reg gives us some insight on Intel Labs' new software to let your wireless LAN card hop between various networks (802.3, 802.11, and 'fixed Ethernet' they call it). Perfect for us snoopers to walk by college frat houses and hopping on the 'net with our linux ipaq's :)" First company to come out with a "universal connectivity" PCMCIA card wins all the marbles.

128 comments

  1. Multi homed? by dadaist · · Score: 1, Funny

    I have trouble leaving my own home as it is. Please.

    --

    ~
    MU!
  2. Who does the hardware? by Render_Man · · Score: 0, Troll

    My question is, if they are doing this with software to switch between those protocols, what new and funky harware are we going to need?

    It would be really cool if they could get an 802.11 to talk to bluetooth and others.

    --
    Where are we going, and why are we in this hand cart?
    1. Re:Who does the hardware? by keep_it_simple_stupi · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "what new and funky harware are we going to need?"
      Not only this, but will the hardware be reliable? I recently set up a LinkSys Wireless router for a friend and anytime more than one PC generates traffic, the router simply locks up - it must be reset. If this is how the hardware is going to be than no thanks.
      I hope someone is using their head and actually tests this equipment before putting it out on the marketplace.

    2. Re:Who does the hardware? by meatplow · · Score: 1

      Perhaps you should return it as defective, or set it up correctly.

    3. Re:Who does the hardware? by tdrury · · Score: 2

      The Linksys WAP is horrible. I had mine lock up at least once a day and needed a hard reset. I upgraded the firmware to the latest on the website (1.39.2?) and the lockups went away. But the wireless functionality stopped working. Check out DSL Reports and go into the network hardware forum for Linksys. You'll see a huge number of complaints. In fact, they had a higher rev of the firmware (1.40.x) on the site, but had to pull it because it was even buggier.

      So I bought the SMC router/wap, and guess what - it's just as buggy. It locks up every 2 or 3 days.

      -tim

    4. Re:Who does the hardware? by afidel · · Score: 2

      I would suggest looking for a Cisco home base station. Although they were EOL'd a few months ago they are based on a similar platform to their enterprise AP's. They cost more than the Linksys or SMC units but you get what you pay for. I have never had mine lock up =)

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    5. Re:Who does the hardware? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, don't listen to the parent. *Please* go buy more Linksys access points!

      I love being able to have free anonymous Internet connectivity all over town.

    6. Re:Who does the hardware? by stripes · · Score: 2
      I would suggest looking for a Cisco home base station. Although they were EOL'd a few months ago they are based on a similar platform to their enterprise AP's. They cost more than the Linksys or SMC units but you get what you pay for. I have never had mine lock up =)

      Mine never locked up either, not even after it broke. It just started dropping about 30% of the traffic. Cisco wanted $750 to fix it (which is more then I payed for it). Apparently that's more then they sell for right no too.

      I bought a new Apple base station, which seems to have less range then the Cisco, but it is prettier.

  3. Just means people who are serious about... by mystery_bowler · · Score: 3

    ...network security are going to have to be even more "on their toes" about their wireless network.

    I certainly think it's a good idea, though. I can imagine this kind of universal wireless compatibility preventing a lot of headaches for busy travelers when airports and mass transit terminals start implementing WLANs.

    Now if I could only get my boss to let us put up an 802.11 network so I can code from Barnes & Noble down the street...

    --

    My sigs always suck.
  4. This was on techtv by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You should have seen this on techtv...

    here is one mention of it...

    ... Intel's Wireless Gateway and will let PC users go from a hardwired connection to a wireless connection and back, seamlessly.

    Would be nice if I had some form of wireless network in the first place

    1. Re:This was on techtv by The+MoMo+King · · Score: 0

      Just like Windows allows mean to switch back and forth between programs, seamlessly.

  5. Frats with LANs? by Skyshadow · · Score: 3, Funny

    Maybe I've been out of college for too long, but the highest level of connectivity I've observed at most frats was the build-in beer taps.

    --
    Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
    1. Re:Frats with LANs? by LunchLady · · Score: 0

      Then you must have missed this article at MSNBC about the frat that put fibre optics throughout their house (30 rooms!). They got some local businesses and some of their alumni to sponsor the T1 link to the internet! Not bad!

    2. Re:Frats with LANs? by inerte · · Score: 1

      There seems to be a dense white cloud running on air tubes from time to time too, but none remembers what it is.

    3. Re:Frats with LANs? by garcia · · Score: 5, Informative

      I am not in a frat, but I do have a wireless LAN in my apartment. Playing MP3s to the stereo from a laptop (and using it to surf from the couch) is far easier and safer (for drunken idiots) than running ethernet to the living room from the hub in my room.

      I do phone support and I hear a lot of people getting into wireless routers b/c of the ease of having it run to all the computers in the house. Why not do it for frats?

      And unfortunatly I do have a WLAN but no kegerator ;(

    4. Re:Frats with LANs? by juggler314 · · Score: 1

      Perhaps it's because I went to an engineering school, but not only did my Fraternity have a LAN (which I installed) I also got the ISDN up and running back when the phone company sales reps didn't even know they SOLD ANYTHING CALLED ISDN. Unfortunately we have more data on tap than beer now:(

    5. Re:Frats with LANs? by KingKire64 · · Score: 1

      What you dont realize is that i have a bunch of friends in a fraterity and they are rather high tech. The one guys does the website and they run all thier partys off laptops with mp3s. No need to Worry about cds getting ripped off. Oh and BTW they were featured on collegehumor for the largest game of beer pong 720 cups

      --
      "All I can tell the "lesser of two evils" folks is that if they keep voting for evil, they'll keep getting evil."-Lp.org
    6. Re:Frats with LANs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People have been accusing fraternities for "networking" with each other for years...and
      now it's true! I personally installed my chapter's CAT-5 back in '96.

      IMHO, it might be more interesting to see what
      some of the sorority house are doing with their
      networks...streaming webcams, anyone? >:)

      OW...my (sorority) girlfirend just slapped me for that one...

    7. Re:Frats with LANs? by Icy · · Score: 1

      Well things have changed. My fraternity house had a major remodeling and had 2-4 ethernet drops put into every room in the 3 story house. For a while we were just connected via a dialup modem, but then our school ran single mode fiber the mile or so to our house (for free! & the house is not owned by the school). All we had to do was buy the expensive transceiver for our end, and we had access to the campus lan and internet. We thought the number of drops for each room was crazy at first, but then every Freshmen after my class got a Thinkpad laptop, and the extra drops in the rooms and even basement (for DJing mp3s through our huge stereo) came in real handy.

    8. Re:Frats with LANs? by jandrese · · Score: 2

      I remember those days. Those were the days when the phone company assumed that anybody who wanted an ISDN line was a business. I remember pricing schemes like: 56k (full duplex though): $250/month + 2 cents a megabyte + 10 cents a minute. I don't know if anybody ever actually bought that, but it seemed like a complete ripoff to me. The scary part was, they actually offered more expensive options (dual line ISDN).

      I'm pretty sure they really wanted you to buy the T1 for $4500/month. Even these days with DSL and Cablemodem everywhere they still want $1500/month for a T1 and have completly forgotten about ISDN again.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    9. Re:Frats with LANs? by stighammond · · Score: 1

      Everybody I know that was doing ISDN in those days was using a loophole in the business ISDN (at least with the Bell Atlantic tariff) that allowed "voice" calls to be placed for 10 cents a call. Then you'd get a Data-Over-Speech-Bearer capable router, like the Ascend Pipeline, and make exactly two calls per month; one per B channel.

      Presto. 112K full-time connectivity for $35 a month. Plus twenty cents, of course.

  6. New Software by inerte · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Reminded me of the IWarez history. Getting software will be easier, and while you walk with the dog.

    Maybe a MS Office Lane, or Metallica Street?

  7. catching up with the mac by SweetAndSourJesus · · Score: 0, Troll

    "notebook switched seamlessly between two wireless and one wireline Ethernet network without skipping a beat. "

    My iBook does that all day. It's nothing to get excited about.

    You just can't beat the Mac's ability to switch networks on the fly. Since windows can't switch network settings without a reboot, this is more of an OS issue.

    --

    --
    the strongest word is still the word "free"
    1. Re:catching up with the mac by x1l · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Since when can't windows switch network settings without a reboot? Try windows 2000, or XP....no need to reboot

    2. Re:catching up with the mac by keep_it_simple_stupi · · Score: 4, Informative
      You just can't beat the Mac's ability to switch networks on the fly. Since windows can't switch network settings without a reboot, this is more of an OS issue.

      You need to get your information straight. This article is talking about completely different architectures being supported with no additional hardware.

      Besides, any NT based (at least from 4.0 up to 2000 and XP) can change settings on the fly. As a matter of fact, XP can even retain settings for more than one network and automatically switch between the two, one w/ DHCP and another with static settings. Or you could use NetSwitcher to do it...
    3. Re:catching up with the mac by SweetAndSourJesus · · Score: 0

      Change workgroups, NetBIOS machine name, or TCP/IP filtering rules. Pow, gotta reboot. So lame it hurts.

      --

      --
      the strongest word is still the word "free"
    4. Re:catching up with the mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      News flash: putting Service Pack 2 on Windows 2k causes any changes to networking to need a reboot.

    5. Re:catching up with the mac by SweetAndSourJesus · · Score: 0

      Perhaps I'm not reading the article right. No additional hardware needed to switch between a wired and wireless network? Excuse me? You're going to need a wireless card, and you're going to need a nic, one way or another.

      Then again, I may be an idiot. I'm not entirely closed to that notion.

      --

      --
      the strongest word is still the word "free"
    6. Re:catching up with the mac by CodeMonky · · Score: 2

      Not on the three copies of Win2k SP2 I just tried.

      --
      --"Karma is justice without the satisfaction"
    7. Re:catching up with the mac by SweetAndSourJesus · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Ok, so, just because I am a troll, this gets modded down as a troll, even though this wasn't a troll? I don't get mods sometimes. When the linked article mentions that they are catching up to the mac, and I think that's a valid point of discussion, that's a troll? I'm honestly trying to post a valid comment here.

      To top it off, some non-troll posts an inaccurate rebuttal and is flagged as informative? Fact : you cannot change IP filtering settings without a reboot in Windows 2000.

      Go ahead and mod me down for this one. I don't know why I let it bother me, I guess this just seems totally unfair. It seems like every time I try to fly right here, some arse mod comes along and tells me not to.

      --

      --
      the strongest word is still the word "free"
    8. Re:catching up with the mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Besides, any NT based (at least from 4.0 up to 2000 and XP) can change settings on the fly. "

      Which paradise planet are you on? I've watched 2000 and XP not be able to recognize a new IP and/or route without a reboot. And no they weren't hooked up to smart switches either.

      Until MickeySoft convinces me otherwise, 2000/XP networking still sucks.

    9. Re:catching up with the mac by vlag · · Score: 1

      I just changed the domains and gateways of 650 stations running W2K SP2. Live. That was 3 minutes ago. No complaints yet. :-)

      --
      Do you want to remove linux?
    10. Re:catching up with the mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep.

      Or you can let a skript kid do it.. when HE feels like it.

      F! NT, 2K & XP. Show me a Linux box I can crash by printing characters on the screen. I'll eat my RedHat (CDs, all 7)

    11. Re:catching up with the mac by Julian+Plamann · · Score: 1

      umm... what exactly was 'inaccurate' about his reply? Hell, even Windows 95/98 has the ability to update DHCP info. winipcfg.exe...

  8. What we really need by vlag · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What we all really need is a wireless nic that can be upgraded to new wireless standards à la 802.11x via firmware. The argument exists that we don't have the components to build these cards but I feel that this is where research should move. As it stands now, we are poised for a new standard roll-out every 8 months for the next few years. Anyone know about this type of tech being develloped?

    --
    Do you want to remove linux?
    1. Re:What we really need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you seen www.vanu.com?

    2. Re:What we really need by eqteam · · Score: 2, Informative

      Companies are working on 802.11b/a and a/g solutions, but you will not see $199 cards for this until 2003 (from what I hear). The biggest issue concerning the ability to support the newer standards via a 'firmware upgrade' is the fact that the 11a/g handle the air interface differently from 11b. This requires different/upgraded transcievers in the card itself, not to mention new access points.

      To get specific, 802.11a uses a different spectrum (5.5GHz) and 802.11g uses OFDM for modulation at 2.4GHz, and both of these are vastly different (hardware level) from 802.11b. Secondarily, the other 802.11x standards mostly effect the MAC layer (QoS et al) and this is typically not handled by a general purpose processor, so just upgrading the firmware won't necessarily help here either.

      Just my 2 cents

    3. Re:What we really need by vlag · · Score: 1

      I understand the underlying technology and that different gear is needed to work at different frequencies, but one thing I find to be lacking is backwards compatibility. These cards are being made smaller and smaller. Right now, they are being manufactured small enough to fit 2 802.11b devices on a single compact flash card. Area wise, we should be able to fit 4 on a PCMCIA card, no sweat. Antenna size might be an issue but other wise, these wouldn't be a problem. The real problem here is the fact that most of the manufacturers are more interested in selling new product instead of bearing out their existing product lines. I love the bandwidth of 802.11a but it just rendered my 802.11b gear useless. I try to turn over my clients' networking gear every 4 years with 1 upgrade in between. I'd far rather buy a $250 PC card every 3-4 years than new access points and cards every 8 months. I've stammered and grumbled enough. It boils down to this: why not examine the next few proposed standards, and put the transmission / reception products on board now and make them active with future firmware updates. As long as the transmission hardware is present, we could off-load the "work" onto the CPU like a Winmodem (which is the bane of my existance) or AC'97-style onboard audio present on those cheap motherboards. Not the most elegant choice, but I'd buy into it for a little longer product life.

      --
      Do you want to remove linux?
    4. Re:What we really need by jbf · · Score: 2

      eqteam, thanks for the sanity =)

      If you think you can offload OFDM encoding and decoding to the CPU, think about the kind of bus bandwidth you'd need to do it. PCI runs 64 bits at 66 MHz, best case. That's a bandwidth of 512MBps. Suppose you could specify a single chip with one bit on the bus; then you could live with a chipping rate of 4Gcps. Given the 10.4dB processing gain, you're _bus_ bandwidth capped at 372Mbps, and that's with nothing else running.

      Let's get a little more realistic: currently PCI runs at 32 bits 33MHz in your desktop machine. That means that if your computer is ONLY sending chips over the bus, you can't even do turbo mode (dual channel) 802.11a. (93Mbps 108Mbps).

      Now let's make things worse. To make it completely frequency independant, we assume you only need to code the ISM bands: 26MHz wide at 915MHz, 83.5MHz wide at 2.4GHz, and 125MHz wide at 5.8GHz. That's a total of 234.5 MHz of bandwidth. Now you've got to cover about 4-8 times as much ground as the simple 802.11a situation, and you're still dependant on the ASIC translating your chips into OFDM modulated stuff.

      I'm not enough the physical layer guy to tell you how much data you need to pass across the bus to get OFDM to work without the hardware knowing anything about it...

      Lots of the 802.11i stuff is aimed at being back-compatible to existing WEP hardware. It's hard to make things like QoS do that though.

      Winmodems can work because the bandwidth of a phone line is so small. With the size of frequency bands in the ISM band, you can't do that anymore.

  9. Re:wireless handheld: theory and practice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    how about if it's so nice out, why dont you enjoy it instead of squinting at a handheld?

  10. Coding in B&N? more like... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    making sure the shit isn't hitting the fan while you take in a peep show at the studio across street from B&N.

  11. Walking around campus by essiescreet · · Score: 2, Funny

    How the hell do you walk and surf the web at the same time? Those laptops must be pretty tough, b/c you'd all the time be running into things...

    1. Re:Walking around campus by matastas · · Score: 1

      Obviously, you've never undocked your laptop from your desk, and walked to a conference room in another part of the building, having to connect to a walljack and renew leases (or if Windows is having its typical day, reboot). This makes that problem vanish, with proper implementation.

      Or, how about moving from one building on campus to another with your laptop packed up in sleep-mode, breaking it out in your next class ready to go with no hassle?

      It's not necessarily for your literal WWW-on-the-go, but for the hassle of getting there and moving from net to net. Those of us who do have it (I've got my wireless NIC at work) would *love* to see that.

  12. Re:You are so funny by garcia · · Score: 2

    umm, there stereotypes are true in this case, and *most* frats should be proud of it.

    that's my opinion though.

    as far as the "white smoke running through air tubes..." I KNOW WHAT IT IS ;-)

  13. all the marbles by wiredog · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Personally, I don't want any of the marbles. Keep stepping on the damn things late at night.

  14. Is this a good thing? by AndyMan! · · Score: 1

    What happens when you walk accross the floor of your office and your DHCP server disapears?

    Or maybe a better example would be your intranet mail server disapears because now you're hooked into the Starbucks network?

    Is thought being dedicated to when the user wants to switch providers?

    _Am

    1. Re:Is this a good thing? by znaps · · Score: 1

      Yes. SSID's are used to specify which wireless network you want to be a part of.

  15. Frats by SilentChris · · Score: 3, Funny
    "Perfect for us snoopers to walk by college frat houses and hopping on the 'net with our linux ipaq's :)"

    Call me crazy, but I don't remember most of the frats in my college being crazy about wireless ethernet. They were too busy drinking/partying/etc. I guess maybe if you're at MIT...

    1. Re:Frats by Durandel1020 · · Score: 1

      Let me get this right. You would rather snoop around a frat house looking to hop on the net instead of hopping in on the fun? hehehe.

      for the numbers, im in a fraternity and every room is fully hardwired. Plus we have a 802.11 hub running for public access. Works great for sharin MP3 libraries during parties! And the 802.11 draws in TONS of geeks with ipaqs for us to throw water balloons at!! woohoo!

      Roland
      ;)

  16. Power Consumption by Jon_E · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I don't understand why displays don't have their own power - I mean if it does take up 33% of the overall power, wouldn't it make more sense to have something detachable that I could swap batteries on rather than having to power down the entire system?

    And where's the affordable goggles? If display tech is the limiting factor in portable devices, why not just have attachable goggles to a small base that surfs wireless WANS .. perhaps even visualize the networks you're attaching to a la the article on AR.

    come on .. it's 2000 - so where's our rocket packs!? (go anywhere we strap them on our backs -DA)

    1. Re:Power Consumption by Jon_E · · Score: 1

      offtopic? I'm sorry - did you actually read the article?

      "Sehert said the CPU only accounted for seven per cent of the typical power consumption of a mobile device (although the chipset accounted for another 13 per cent). With the LCD sucking up a third of the power consumed, that's where the problem lies."
      in other words - why is Intel focusing so much on "Device Performance States" and s/w embedding when much of the problem they're trying to solve is external .. I mean big whoop - skamania can speak to several different protocols and switch between them, but if the limitation for implementing this sort of tech is in overall power consumption, why not separate the systems instead of adopting the "feature-creep linux model" one drug cures all ideal.

  17. who pays for firmware upgrade? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The current model is that new features = new hardware.

    Changing that model to new features = software download is substantially different, and a little scary for business.

    If they offer a download, they would need to charge for it: software doesnt write itself.

    With all the headaches associated with verifying
    software releases across multiple hardware versions, I think it's cheaper and easier for everyone involved to just buy a new $100 hardware
    when it comes out, rather than deal with the buggy firmware upgrades.

    1. Re:who pays for firmware upgrade? by jerryasher · · Score: 1

      And yet, my sonicwall firewall works exactly that way. I bought it three years ago, it's out of warranty, and still it faithfully tells me each time there is new firmware available. That firmware may fix bugs, counter new attacks, or add other features.

      I believe the enabling technology is that sonicwall chose to build on a extendible, scalable platform themselves. A big benefits is that their systems do get better over time, unlike most pieces of hardware or software in which each new device/version often moves the users back down the reliability curve until the bugs get worked out.

    2. Re:who pays for firmware upgrade? by afidel · · Score: 2

      Well for the most part you have described how Cisco's IOS development works, they add new features and charge for them accordingly. They also price differentiate their line based of features, eg a basic IP 3620 costs a lot less than a enterprise 3620 with EIGRP, BGP, IPSec etc. Now the biggest problem right now as far as firmware upgradable standards goes is that the PHY's lock you into one frequency range. There is some early work going into firmware defined PHY's but with current tech they are limit to the upper bound of the frequency range they can operate at. If the frequency for the new standard is higher than what the new protocol uses then you are back into the harware upgrade cycle and your origional part was more expensive. It's almost like regular ethernet but with quicker upgrade cycles. If you have been using cat5 then you only needed to upgrade the cards and switches, not the wiring, but if you went with cat3 because it was good enough then you have to upgrade all 3 components.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  18. All your marble are belong to Nokia by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 2

    The Nokia D211 supports 802.11 and GSM/GPRS. I guess it's only lacking Bluetooth.

    1. Re:All your marble are belong to Nokia by tymesf · · Score: 1

      Uhh, what about cat5 and fiber interfaces? That shouldn't matter, but unfortunately it looks like it's a typical "TYPE 2 BUT WE MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO ACCESS THE OTHER SLOT" wireless gizmo. If they're going to make it impossible to access the other slot, they'd better give me all the interfaces I need.

    2. Re:All your marble are belong to Nokia by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 2

      That's what you get for buying a machine without Ethernet on the motherboard...

  19. you can do much of this now by The+Pim · · Score: 5, Informative
    I do part of this (hopping between wired and wireless) now with ordinary hardware and software, although a few bits are missing. The key piece is proxy ARP, a nifty trick I had never heard of until I tried to solve this problem.

    The basic idea is to set up a gateway on both the wired and wireless networks, and proxies ARPs on both networks, so that hosts on the different network see each other as if they were on the same LAN. This is a little like bridging--except that only a tiny bit of traffic (the ARP's) needs to "bridge" the two networks. The rest is taken care of by normal routing.

    The trick is switching a host from wired to wireless without changing its IP addresses (so it doesn't drop any connections). Note this implies that the gateway's routing table has a host route (specifying the interface) to every address that is allowed to switch networks: you can't tell from the address which side its on, so the usual subnet mask routing won't work.

    Pulling off the switch requires that the gateway be able to detect the switch, and then do two things: One, change its routing table, so that traffic for the address goes out on the right interface. Two, send "gratuitous ARPs" to other hosts, forcing them to update their ARP tables (since, if the host moved to the other network, traffic to it now needs to be routed through the gateway).

    I think the most straightforward way to detect the switch is to have the gateway run a DHCP server, and have the mobile hosts renegotiate a lease when they switch networks. Then, add a hook to the DHCP server to do the magic whenever it notices a host renegotiate on a different network. For the mobile hosts to be identifyable across networks, they need to send the same client-identifier on both networks. Since the default client-identifier is usually the MAC address, this requires configuration on the clients (I edit /etc/dhclient.conf and pick one MAC address to use as the client-identifier). Of course, the DHCP server needs to be configured to give out the same address range on both interfaces.

    Unfortunately, on the network I care about, my gateway is not the DHCP server. Instead, I run a DHCP relay. This mostly works--except the ISC DHCP relay doesn't have any hooks, and I haven't hacked it to add them. But it should be easy.

    Another way to solve this might be for the gateway simply to monitor ARPs and do something when it notices a host switch networks. I haven't found a clean way to do this, and I think it might be less than perfect, because the host wouldn't get switched until it initiated an ARP transaction.

    The last problem is that different systems seem to respond differently to gratuitous ARPs. For example, Linux systems don't seem to require them at all, because they (apparently) issue a new ARP pretty quickly after the old MAC address stops answering. But I can't get Solaris systems to listen to gratuitious ARPs at all, and they don't time out for minutes.

    Also, gratuitiously ARPing the whole network is ugly. Ideally, we would would only send an ARP when we notice another host using a MAC that we know has moved to the other network. I have no idea how to do this.

    Despite all the glitches, it's quite fun to switch to the wireless for mobility and back to the ethernet for speed, without losing my ssh connections. Improvements on this setup would be welcome!

    --

    The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
    1. Re:you can do much of this now by multipartmixed · · Score: 2

      The ARP thing can be done by monitoring the dhcp CLIENT end of things. If the IP number changes, broadcast ping the subnet you're on now, and the one you just left. That's enough for more hardware out there to get it's head out of its ass and recognize your host, and it's reasonably efficient, too. (Two small ICMP packets per network change)

      --

      Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
    2. Re:you can do much of this now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We've done that at my company, switching between an 802.11b network and our "4G" network, seamlessly. Our current network does this already, proxies ARPs and transfers the TCP connection between routers as you move down the highway. Quite cool =).

      On a similar note, we've extended the range of 802.11b over several miles, using only software. All covered here: http://www.meshnetworks.com/pages/newsroom/press_r eleases/release_02_06_02.htm.

    3. Re:you can do much of this now by The+Pim · · Score: 2
      If the IP number changes

      It doesn't. Read again. But, yeah, you could trigger this off of whatever you use to switch interfaces (ie, PCMCIA scripts).

      broadcast ping the subnet you're on now, and the one you just left. That's enough for more hardware out there to get it's head out of its ass and recognize your host

      My experience is that hardware can be pretty stubborn, but I'll try it. Thanks for the idea.

      --

      The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
  20. And one more line to hosts... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    127.6.6.6 goatse.cx

    ...we can all apreciate that.

  21. Wrong!!!! by tacokill · · Score: 1

    One word: Porn.

    1. Re:Wrong!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's "pr0n", newbie.

  22. Cool... by 42forty-two42 · · Score: 1

    Now what?

  23. Re:wireless handheld: theory and practice by greymond · · Score: 1

    maybe squinting at a handheld outside IS my way of enjoying the "outside"

  24. %s/vegetarian/vegeturdian/g by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A well-applied trollilian use of sed, my friend.

    1. Re:%s/vegetarian/vegeturdian/g by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      s/egetar/egeturd/g

      actually ;-)

  25. Re:sorry , offtopic but this is important by greymond · · Score: 1

    actually theres more informative articles out there on this - its just that they are trying to set up and utilize the "bunker" for the senate rather than use the current building because they were worried about attakc son our government.

  26. Re:You are so funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My fraternity has a DRY house. Nor are we a bunch of backwards, beer-swilling, womanizing assholes. We do have fibre to the house and two ethernet ports per room plus some near tables, etc. No, the sterotypes do not apply, they rarely do.

  27. what do they mean with 802.3 *and* fixed ethernet? by ruud · · Score: 3, Insightful

    802.3 is fixed ethernet, see this page.

    --
    bgphints - internet routing news, hints and ti
  28. Skamana by mccrew · · Score: 1
    From the article:

    Intel's demo showed Skamania (cute name) hopping between 802.11, 802.3 and fixed Ethernet, ....

    Skamania is the name of a county along Washington State's southern border with Oregon, by the Columbia River.
    Intel has a facility nearby.

    --
    Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
  29. Skamania -- a jab at microsoft? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Skamania is a severly underdeveloped, ass-end redneck county in Washington. I think its the worst county. Is the name be a jab at microsoft, or at the entire Puget Sound area?

  30. Too little too late? by blair1q · · Score: 2

    Why do I get the feeling that just as we get this problem solved, 100mbit wireless LAN will become available at reasonable prices?

    --Blair

  31. Re:You are so funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds like a pretty boring frat.

  32. wrong again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that's n00b, newbie

  33. I figured they were just Skam Records fans. by dave-fu · · Score: 2

    You know. Autechre and Boards of Canada and all them lovely folks.

    --
    Easy does it!
    This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
  34. earth to jerryasher: apples and oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    who gives a hoot about your firewall?

    I can download patches for my SPARC,
    I can download updates for my Cisco.

    I can't (wouldn't want to) download
    updates for my 2 yr old 802.11 NIC.

    There's a big difference between a card
    for a PC, and another piece of equipment.

    1. Re:earth to jerryasher: apples and oranges by jerryasher · · Score: 1

      In addition to being an anonymous coward you seem to be a moron.

      You say you wouldn't want to download updates for your two year old nic? Why not? Most of the rest of us relatively faithfully look forward to new and updated drivers. What do you think those drivers are?

      I download/upload new firmware to my motherboard (that has given me support for SMP and faster processors). I download/upload new firmware and drivers for my various video cards (Matrox esp.). I bet those with winmodem download/upload new firmware and drivers for their winmodems. I know many of us downloaded/uploaded new firmware when our modems went through that 33Kbaud -> KFlex/Foo/56Kbaud nonsense years back.

      If you have a high performance SCSI board there's a very good chance you're on the download/upload track for that board.

      Gosh there really is little difference between a card for a PC and any other piece of equipment.

  35. OSX? by BWJones · · Score: 3, Informative

    Shoot, why not just get a Mac running OSX? I have been doing just this sort of thing for almost a year now with a Powerbook and now an iBook running OSX. The iBooks are really impressive small laptops that can be had for as little as $1100 and they give you a hell of a nice GUI and the option to X-windows or CLI in UNIX to your hearts content.

    --
    Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
  36. Re:You are so funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yeah, sure, like I would pay to be dry, drugless, and use our campus connection. lol.

    rent-a-friend? nah, rent-a-boring-dork.

  37. Power Consumption Reference Also Interesting by meehawl · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sehert said the CPU only accounted for seven per cent of the typical power consumption of a mobile device (although the chipset accounted for another 13 per cent). With the LCD sucking up a third of the power consumed

    It seems to me that controlling power consumption requires a user eye-tracking mode. As I look at my dual screen setup, at every moment my focus rests only on a small couple of square cm of the screen. Surely with eye tracking it should be possible to dim/fade the rest of the screen, cutting down power consumption.

    This might also have advantages for graphics cards/CPU, because you could concentrate on doing most your rendering and aliasing in only the portion of the screen within eye focus. For that to work you'd need some sort of tile-based rendering system though.

    --

    Da Blog
  38. Re:You are so funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Uhh... I though you said you wern't in a fraternity? SO how would you know if we are proud of the stereotypes?

    Shut the hell up!

    (Oh, and its fraternity, not frat. We don't call your country a cunt, you don't call our fraternity a frat. Thanks).

  39. Re:what do they mean with 802.3 *and* fixed ethern by Guy+Harris · · Score: 2
    802.3 is fixed ethernet, see this page ...

    Try this link instead, as it actually works. (The "Preview" button, and the left mouse button, are your friends.)

    (BTW, the top-level 802.x page has links to a lot of information about 802.x standards, including a page of links to pages for the working groups for each 802.x standard (I'm amused to find that the 802 standards committee appears to be supersititious - they say 802.13 wasn't used), as well as a link to the Get IEEE 802(TM) page from which you can download, for free, PDFs for 802.x standards that were published 6 or more months ago.

  40. Wireless Frat Houses? by Wintermancer · · Score: 2

    Dear God.

    I can only imagine what would happen for people using netstumbler:
    "The airwaves! They're saturated! I've never seen so much pr0n!"

    In all honesty, I've mentioned a number of times the advantage of wiring up the ol' fraternity house.
    Since most of them are not geeks, their eyes get more glazed over than after a 6 kegger party. Simply stated, most fraternity members are not interested in being able to run SSH over an 802.11b WLAN.

    Being able to score with the hotties in the sorrority next door, that's another thing entirely.

    Go Deke!

  41. Nokia Wins by rbeattie · · Score: 3, Informative


    Here's a news item at InfoSync about the new Nokia GSM, GPRS, HSCSD, and WiFi PCMCIA card.

    Pretty freakin' cool. I want one.

    -Russ

    --
    Me
  42. Wireless LAN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    this has already been done on the University of Western Ontario campus

  43. funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Intel's demo showed Skamania (cute name) hopping between 802.11, 802.3 and fixed Ethernet...

    it's not really a cute name...Skamania is the name of a county near Portland (Intel HQ)
    They get all their names from locations here...Wilamette, Tualitin, etc...

    BUT IT'S NOT CUTE!

  44. Re:sorry , offtopic but this is important by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No its a paralell government which can be handed power at any time , not just a bunker. They have people working around the clock at secret locations and most mayor departments have made legal preperations to hand over power to them . And the part about controling "civil unrest" is very disturbing since they can give law enforsment orders whithout disclosing who gave the order or even that the order was given.

  45. Frats have WLANs it seems by accessdeniednsp · · Score: 1

    well, the thing is, jus this past week, a buddy of mine and i had a laptop with the orinoco card, the home-built extended antenna and the appropriate access-point snooping software. we drove down the main street in one of the local college towns. just so happened to be driving by frat houses and local businesses when we found 30 open APs in a 2 mile stretch. we gracefully hopped onto a few and we were browsing internet sites at stop lights up and down the street ;) so yeah, frat houses have WLANs these days it seems...

  46. Re:You are so funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    no you're morons, you should have kept happy w/frat.

    If you're not proud of the stereotypes, it just goes to prove my point furthur.

    your comparison sucks. find a new one.

  47. Re:wireless handheld: theory and practice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hi! This is a test!hi!