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Faster, Stronger 802.11b
stoney27 writes: "Looks like U.S. Robotics has doubled the speed of 802.11b plus increased the range. See link on MacCentral." You'll need upgraded equipment at both the base-station and computer ends to get a boost in speed, but they claim compatibility with standard 802.11b.
IMPORTANT: There is a huge security hole in all Mozilla builds thatwas just discovered yesterday. By inserting a properly-constructed URL into anXHTML source file with MIME type application/xml+xhtml, arbitrary code can berun as the client user on his machine. This hole exploits a known bug inMozilla's xml parser, that doesn't properly handle certain character entities(e.g. &#nnn;). If the decimal number inside the character entity is greaterthan 65535 (the maximum legal Unicode value), a buffer overflow is triggeredand arbitrary machine code can be inserted into the running process.
Luckily though, the fix is small, simple,and can be automatically downloaded over the Internet, thanks to Mozilla'sXPI installation facilities. This patch is available from the BrowserSecurity page at data.com [data]. Simply click the link, and after a short verification the fixwill install itself.Please install their patch ASAP, before malicious hackers wipe Mozilla offthe web!
Isn't open-source grand? Had this been an Internet Explorer exploit,we wouldn't even know of its existence until about a month after sKr1p7 k1dd1eZ started hacking with it. I applaud the Mozilla team for promptly discoveringand disclosing this bug, and the fine folks at data.com for hosting the fix.
now my dream of wireless, dynamic net access around a whole city is coming to fruition!
bleh.
This is not the first post. Read on.
First post!
I can't find shit on the internet on where to add an email address and a domain name to a text field in order to stop spam from comming from there without signing up to spamcop or a bunch of other crap. how gay!
Ex-Porn Star Lovelace Dies at 53
By COLLEEN LONG
Associated Press Writer
DENVER (AP) -- Linda Boreman, who starred as Linda Lovelace in the 1972 pornographic film ``Deep Throat'' and later became an anti-porn advocate, died Monday from injuries she suffered in a car crash. She was 53.
Boreman was taken to Denver Health Medical Center with massive trauma and internal injuries after the April 3 accident, hospital spokeswoman Sara Spaulding said. She was taken off life support Monday, Spaulding said.
Boreman's ex-husband, Larry Marchiano, said he and their two adult children were at the hospital when she died.
``Everyone might know her as something else, but we knew her as mom and as Linda,'' Marchiano said. ``We divorced five years ago, but she was still my best friend.''
The family moved to Colorado in 1990 and the two divorced in 1996 after 22 years of marriage.
Boreman claimed her first husband forced her into pornography at gunpoint. They divorced in 1973.
Their relationship disintegrated into a life of violence, rape, prostitution and pornography, according to her 1980 autobiography, ``Ordeal'' and her testimony before congressional committees investigating pornography.
Boreman said she was never paid a penny for ``Deep Throat'' and her husband only was paid $1,250, though the film grossed a reported $600 million.
After leaving the industry, she traveled the lecture circuit on a crusade against pornography, speaking at colleges and with prominent feminists.
``I look in the mirror and I look the happiest I've ever looked in my entire life,'' she said in a 1997 interview. ``I'm not ashamed of my past or sad about it. And what people might think of me, well, that's not real. I look in the mirror and I know that I've survived.''
Boreman was born Jan. 10, 1949, in the Bronx borough of New York.
Who run Barter Town?
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/04/20/149213 &mode=thread
my other sig is a 500 page novel
This was reported last Saturday on Slashdot. Why again?
Double the bandwidth! Does that mean I have to use two pringle cans as antennas? Once I pop, the file transfers don't stop!
I design user interfaces for a free network management application,
anything to make wardriving easier.
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
This *was* on /. just a few days ago.
2 13 &mode=thread
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/04/20/149
It's still cool, though you only get the speed boost if both the transmitter and receiver are USR.
... when you post all your stories twice.
my other sig is a 500 page novel
Introduction
Purpose
The status in many western nations of the hallucinogenic drug LSD as illegal and criminalized is unnecessary and inappropriate. The illegal stigma is improper because of the following sound reasons. First, its criminalization infringes on the persona l freedom of a mature adult to do as he chooses with his body and mind. Second, LSD is a very safe drug in many respects. Third, there are firm reasons to believe that the use of LSD is actually beneficial in a number of ways. This paper will attempt t o briefly outline these major arguments for the legalization of LSD while noting that the issue is quite complex and deserves a more thorough treatment from all angles.
Background
Lysergic acid diethylamide-25, or LSD, is a mind-altering chemical first synthetically produced by Dr. Albert Hofmann in 1938 in Switzerland (Guide 54). It is considered a "Class A" drug in the United Kingdom (Porter and Teich 155), which puts it in t he same category as drugs such as cocaine, crack, methamphetamines, and heroin. Similar categorization and legal attitudes towards LSD exist in the United States. Its effects are strongly psychedelic (Guide 54), a word whose etymology comes from the Gr eek "dios," meaning heavenly (Mirriam). It causes disturbances of visual, auditory, and tactile senses such as hallucinations and depersonalization (Sandoz 1). LSD has been illegal in the United Kingdom and in most western nations from around 1971 (Port er and Teich 155).
The Issue of Personal Freedom
Being allowed to care for oneself as one sees fit is usually considered essential to personal freedom. Despotic governments should not unnecessarily control an individual's life; in a free society, the individual is trusted to make decision s for himself as long as he does not infringe upon the rights of others. The questions we can therefore ask about LSD are:
Is LSD harmful to others?
The point of "individual freedom...[is] an important consideration usually overlooked in drug policy debates (Bandow 63). A valid claim to make would be that if an individual's actions are harmful to others, the government is justified in prohibiting them. If we examine LSD, though, it seems clear that it is strictly a topic of individual concern. Cases of LSD users directly harming others while under the influence of drugs are relatively few in the literature. LSD is also nearly immune to the prob lems of social destruction that are attributed to drugs like heroin and crack. The reason for this is twofold: LSD is extremely inexpensive; it generally sells for around $3-$8 US (Porter and Teich 122, Clutterbuck 93). It is also non-addictive, a topic that we will explore in more detail later. The two necessary components of social destruction are thus not present in LSD. These two factors also prevent it from being an economic trouble for the user; there are no documented cases of people stealing t o finance an LSD habit. It can be said with a high degree of certainty that use of LSD does not pose a significant threat to others.
Is LSD harmful to oneself?
If we assume that the government has the right to legislate doing harm to oneself, which is a controversial assumption, it still seems clear that LSD is no more harmful, and indeed often much safer than, many substances which are now legal. Physical s ide effects can include "salivation, lachrymation [mournfulness or sadness], vomiting, hypotension, and brachycardia [elevated heart rate] (Lewis 385). Such mild reactions hardly seem cause for illegality. Nor is it directly physically dangerous. "Leth al (toxic) doses of LSD are, conservatively, several tens of thousands of times as much as a normal dose, making it (in the toxic sense) one of the safest drugs known" (Honig 10). A study by Sidney Cohen found an average of, per hundred, 0.18 psychotic e pisodes, 0.12 attempted suicides, and 0.04 completed suicides (130). Cohen concluded, "Considering the enormous scope of the psychic responses it induces, LSD is an astonishingly safe drug" (130). Other myths about LSD, including one which claimed tha t LSD causes chromosome damage, have been disproved (Honig 10, Dishotsky et al 440). The relatively weak links between LSD and physical harm to the user undercut any governmental legislation that claims to protect an individual from doing physical harm t o himself.
Further considerations
The final point related to the issue of individual freedom is that of education. In order for someone to be able to make a rational decision whether he wants to use LSD or not, objective information must be available. A society that would control the use of LSD would be more likely to control the information about LSD. Making or keeping LSD illegal promotes misinformation, urban legends, and underground myths. This can be evidenced in the widely propagated rumor that LSD was being laced with strych nine (rat poison) on a large scale (Honig 5-7). In a freer society it would be easier for the individual to become properly educated on the topic.
The Issue of Safety and Danger
LSD does not function in same manner as many physical drugs. Rather, it is a hallucinogen and causes psychological and emotional phenomena (Sandoz 1). It is "one of the most potent mind-altering chemicals known" (Guide 54). Such a powerful drug "isn 't for morons," as Honig put it glibly (2). It is generally agreed that a user needs to be able to handle the intense phenomena that use of the drug will cause or risk adverse reactions. The principle negative reaction is known as a "Bad Trip" (Strassma n 577). However, in extreme cases, the unfortunate effects can sometimes last beyond the temporary panic of the bad trip. Those who tend to go into "LSD psychosis" (Honig 8) are most often those with "a history of psychiatric illness and/or treatment [p rior to taking LSD...and have] a histroy of polydrug abuse (Strassman 577). Honig concludes that the studies on LSD psychosis "point toward, at most, a possible precipitory role in the development of these disorders, in a non-specific and not etiological ly related manner" (9). It seems that those who do have extreme adverse reactions to LSD were predisposed to such reactions and therefore should take even greater care and educate themselves as much as possible before using LSD.
We can conclude that LSD poses "purely psychological hazards; [it is] not harmful to the body" (Honig 10). This brings up the dichotomous phenomenon of substance dependency, or addiction. The potential for addiction can be described as being either physical or psychological. LSD has "zero physical addiction potential. Not something that makes you want to do it again immediately" (Honig 4). Likewise, it has "essentially zero psychological addiction potential" (Honig 4). There are no cases in the literature where an LSD dependency is cited. Honig admits though that it is possible that LSD can become involved in the "polydrug abuse" patterns of a mentally ill person, though "the fundamental problem is a personal difficulty" (Honig 5). That is, us e of LSD in conjunction with other drugs may be a symptom of deeper problems that need to be addressed.
The Potential Benefits of LSD
LSD, when used in conjunction with proper set and setting, can bring significant emotional benefit to the user. It has also been logically postulated to be medicinally salutary. LSD can generate more than the simple hedonistic experience that it is us ually associated with.
Emotional Benefit
A simple argument can be made that LSD is a proper end-in-itself. The fact that people use and enjoy using LSD justifies its existence; it is beneficial because it makes people feel good. However, this grossly oversimplified notion contains fundament al flaws.
A prominent recent study published by Oscar Janiger, M.D., and Marlene Dobkin de Rios, Ph D., showed that LSD can enhance creativity and appreciation of fine arts and beauty (1-7). This can be explained by the argument that LSD causes you to notice sm all details you may previously have missed or find images aesthetically pleasing that others would tend to miss (Honig 87). Indeed, many users of LSD agree that its use had a "lasting and positive effect on their lives" (Honig 69).
Medical Benefit
Dr. Albert Hofmann, who originally synthesized LSD, envisioned it as being used to treat mentally ill patients (Sandoz 1). During the 1950s and 1960s numerous experiments were conducted with schizophrenics and other psychological patients, with mixed results (Honig 29,69). This can most likely be explained by the wide range of patients with many latent and pre-existing psychoses. Dutch psychiatrist Dr. Hans Bastiaans's "use of LSD for decades in the treatment of concentration camp survivors is an in spiring example of the beneficial use of psychedelics in the treatment of people with severe trauma" (Honig 56). However, study of the potential medical benefits of LSD has been put on hold, as use of LSD in human test subjects was discontinued in the 19 70s (Honig 56) due to the illegalization.
Another vision that Dr. Hofmann had was that LSD could be used by psychiatrists "to gain an insight in the world of ideas and sensations of mental patients" (Sandoz 1). By taking LSD, the psychiatrist would better relate to his patient. Little docu mentation is available in the literature that examines this interesting theory.
Conclusion
The categorization of LSD as an illegal drug in most western nations is questionable. There are many arguments that show that the use of LSD does not deserve to be criminal. Responsible and mature adults should be able to determine what to do to thei r bodies and minds; if a person wants to indulge in a practice that does no harm to others, he should be allowed to. LSD is such a practice. It is also clear that LSD in and of itself poses very little physical risk to the user. However, the psychologi cal potency of such a strong hallucinogen cannot be understated. Given its potential for adverse psychological reactions, it makes sense to increase education and awareness of these facts. It should be the burden of the individual to decide if he is cap able, based on his knowledge of the effects of the drug and of his mental state. Information that would facilitate this decision-making would be inherently more accurate and available in a legitimate market, as opposed to a clandestine underground. Ther e is also evidence that LSD is beneficial to the user in the realm of creativity and appreciation. Treatment of mental patients may stand to benefit as well; only continued testing will allow us to discover and reap whatever benefits there may be. The l egalization of LSD would further the causes of freedom, knowledge, and pleasure, and be a sound legal policy.
"You're just scared like a little white pussy. I'll fuck you till you love me, you faggot!"
So we poor .EU people (where 802.11a is not allowed as the 5.4 GHz band is not free) can get a speed bump as well? I only wonder at what range the 22Mbps will work? 50m? 25m?
What's the usual range?
-----------------------
You are what you think.
2. Frantically attempt to hide dead baby
802.11g (Score:4, Interesting)
.11b APs will.
by cyr on Saturday April 20, @12:13PM (#3379398)
(User #571397 Info | http://a26.lambo.student.liu.se/)
A nearly free 100% speed boost is nice, but I would wait for 802.11g instead, giving 54Mbps in the 2.4GHz band and also being backward compatible with 802.11b.
I'm not an expert, but it seems to me 802.11a is doomed. Is there any reason to prefer it over the upcoming 54Mbps 2.4GHz stuff?
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
A couple reasons to choose 802.11a over 802.11g (Score:5, Informative)
by Freeptop on Saturday April 20, @01:35PM (#3379691)
(User #123103 Info)
First, the 2.4 GHz has a ton of other devices sharing the same spectrum, from Bluetooth to wireless headphones, to your microwave. 802.11a runs in the 5GHz band instead.
Second, according to the last proposals I'd heard of, 802.11g is going to achieve higher bandwidth by taking up more of the spectrum. In other words, it is going to use more channels to simultaneously broadcast data, rather than just being able to shove more data down the same channel. This means your own access points will begin to interfere with each other much sooner than your 802.11a or
In general, it is going to depend on your situation as to which you wish to choose. 802.11g will be great for backwards compatibility, but the news coming out of IEEE seems to indicate that 54Mbps is more like something to shoot for than something they expect to achieve. 802.11a won't have compatibility, and it will also have a shorter range, but it will have higher speeds with less interference.
Who run Barter Town?
U.S. Robotics, in doubling the speed of 802.11 by x2, has also succeeded in upsetting users of competing 802.11Flex modems.
More to come.
Deja vu all over again. I think this is worth announcing twice, for those who use the technology. For the rest of us.. one day your computer won't have a blue wire permenantly attached :)
Move faster
... arise from the doubling of stories on /.
This is not the slashdot I remember from a when I was in college.
This is just plain obnoxious.
Nice! Now I can war drive at twice the speed!
Get your anal sex here!
(_(_)=====D (_0_)
These chips double 802.11b speeds by functioning full duplex. The drawback however, is that this requires category 5 air.
;)
Not all offices and homes fulfill this requirement. Location plays an important role: in the city you'll most likely not be able to communicate full duplex. In suburbs you'll have a fair chance if you're not too close to the city. In rural area's you'll most probably always have full duplex.
You can communicate at 22 Mbps over short distances using category 4 air, but when the peers are more than a few meters apart, category 5 air becomes a must.
Just something you might want to know before you buy these things..
Note: since this story seems a duplicate, I'll just duplicate my reply as well..
First, the 2.4 GHz has a ton of other devices sharing the same spectrum, from Bluetooth to wireless headphones, to your microwave. 802.11a runs in the 5GHz band instead.
.11b APs will.
Second, according to the last proposals I'd heard of, 802.11g is going to achieve higher bandwidth by taking up more of the spectrum. In other words, it is going to use more channels to simultaneously broadcast data, rather than just being able to shove more data down the same channel. This means your own access points will begin to interfere with each other much sooner than your 802.11a or
In general, it is going to depend on your situation as to which you wish to choose. 802.11g will be great for backwards compatibility, but the news coming out of IEEE seems to indicate that 54Mbps is more like something to shoot for than something they expect to achieve. 802.11a won't have compatibility, and it will also have a shorter range, but it will have higher speeds with less interference.
So if you have a USR Courier on both ends, you get better transfer speeds?
Let me guess -- they'll offer server-side at a steep discound if you can demonstrate that you run a BBS.
Oops. Wrong decade. Same marketing ploy, though.
Cheers
-b
11 Mbps to 22 Mbps SOUNDS like a 100% increase, but what is the real speed/range gain? Given an 11 Mbps system with 3 nodes each at 10m from the access point, what is the actual thruput? Is switching to the USR system going to actually DOUBLE that?
Network speeds rank right up there with CRT sizes, CD-ROM spin speeds and tape storage capacity as some of the biggest bullshit numbers in computing.
_Yes
_No
_I only fuck the dead
..yu0 are Teh Funnay! Now please choose an answer to the poll. As you can see, this poll is IMPORTANT.
Lets "upgrade" this standard but still make it "compliant"
...else you'd get a +1 Funny.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
All of the 22Mbps 802.11 hardware coming out is based on the Texas Instruments ACX100 chip. TI was proffering this (their own) standard to become 802.11g, but lost out in the end. The chip is indeed fully backwards compatible with 802.11b.
There are going to be others putting out HW based on the ACX100 as well, Linksys for one. So well see how many people jump on the the bandwagon before 802.llg gets into the market.
The operating range for HW based on this chip will be larger. This is because the device can get a full 11Mbps signal with a signal to noise ratio half that of current HW. This means that at 11Mbps the range will be significantly larger. However at 22Mbps the range should be about the same as, perhaps slightly better than, current 802.11b systems.
The system uses the same channels as 802.11b and AFAIK doesn't use up more channels than 802.11b (ie 3 orthogonal channels in the US).
The chip is also all CMOS so power consumption should be somewhat better than todays 802.11 stuff as well.
That's all I know, hope this illuminates the issue...
It seems to be at least 24km, large-Milo(r)-tin-to-half-omni, provided that the half-omni is in Perth's Hills area and the Milo(r) tin has clear LOS to it from the flat bit.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
My guess? USR is just the first to bring a product to market using TI's 802.11b chipset. See this product note for details...
Oh, you saw the spin-CDs-to-destruction report as well? The one where CDs would consistently explode before getting to true 64x?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Reminds me of the HST modems of USR you would get 1700+ kbs instead of 1500-1600 kbs...
You could only do this with 2 usr hst modems....
By reading the Headlines today I get that...While finding the Programing zone we have pay to recycle our PCs or play hardball tactics with the devil wearing solar powered wearables one the moon, surfing faster on 802.11b... wow and i didn't want to get out of bed this morning...Good Morning Slashdot!!
Just Limin' Mon
They have a chance at this being successfull IF other companies use the same TI (Texas Instruments) chipset that USR is using. Otherwise - the doubling of speed will ONLY work with USR products that use the TI chipset - meaning your still stuck on 802.11b. (And paid extra money to do so)
are why crap like this doesn't take off as quickly as it could.
:/
stay tuned for 802.11xyz!
did overhear some prospective tenants talkin about wifi with dsl, but if they are going sprint dsl, there's not much bw to share
all that's left to do is make it Harder (better security) and Better (change the name to something cooler perhaps?). Sorry, I couldn't resist.
I belong to the ______ generation.
Speaking of...
Have you noticed that all the new cdroms and burners have warning stickers now? They say not to use a badly scratched CD or risk having it exlode at high RPM. I sort of find that hard to believe, unless the thing is cracked already.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
We can rebuild it. Faster. Stronger. Geekier.
Anyone want to loan me a few million?
------
Today's Top Deals
Does that mean that I now only have to sniff packets for half the time in order to decode the WEP keys?
I know I'm being redundant.
Oh what the hell, that doesn't seem to bother anyone else here, might as well just submit and get my down mod, just like they posted and got my lame rebuke number 389...
Hey!!! the parentheses are good for something
so, don't you think you owe those who pay for /. another cool story? or do you give refunds?
11g is really 11a-style OFDM at 2.4 Ghz rather than the 5 Ghz band. There would be two (at least) 11g modes: a compatibility mode whereby OFDM packets and legacy 11b CCK packets coexist, and one which is "pure" OFDM at 2.4 Ghz.
... and these differences are quite small if you have a good 11a radio with a good antenna.
The compatibility mode adds a huge overhead to each transmitted packet. An 11g transmitter in this mode must first complete a legacy 11b RTS/CTS operation on the air which, if successful, is followed by the actual packet. Even if the actual packet were transmitted at nearly infinite bandwidth, the effective bandwidth you'd see on a connection would be quite low - think 10 Mb/s on average. That's not exactly chopped liver and its way better than legacy 11b, but it's definitely not 54 Mb/s.
There are suprisingly large differences between 11a products, even those using the exact same vlsi chips. There are two primary reasons: differences in choice of output power amplifier (or lack thereof) and differences in choice of antenna. You can deduce some of what's going on by looking at power and sensitivity ratings in manufacturers product specs. By the way, this also a great way to distinguish between 11b products as well.
Second generation 11a products have much better receiver sensitivity and output power than the first generation versions. And they do transmit through walls... although not concrete or metal or mirrors or some ceramics.
The main reason why 11b can reach farther than 11a in some situations is that 11b can ratchet down to 1 Mb/s whereas 11a is defined for rates from 54 down to 6 Mb/s (11g is identical to 11a in this regard). The difference in SNR and sensitivity needed at a receiver to pick out the 11a or 11g signal accounts for nearly all of the differences in range
Thus, 11g will have the same power, SNR, and receiver sensitivity challenges as 11a in the 5 Ghz band, but will also have a small boost in signal propagation efficiency in the lower band.
Don't get bamboozled by the hype about compatibility with 11b. Compatibility for sharing the channel does not imply that the radio properties of 11g are the same as 11b.
Most vendors are busy bringing out 11a+b base stations and NIC cards. 11g in compatibility mode looks like a nightmare, whereas 11g in "pure" mode looks like 3 more channels of high performance OFDM if you have an 11a radio that can tune to both the 5Ghz and 2.4 Ghz bands. Aside from the higher-power outdoor channels at 5.8, this provides 11 channels for OFDM (8 at 5 Ghz plus 3). And this means that a group of base stations in an AP-dense environment will certainly be able to find a clear channel.
I didn't say much about the PBCC-based 22 Mb/s products. PBCC is actually a clever design but is likely going to be overshadowed by OFDM at 5 Ghz (11a) and OFDM at 2.4 Ghz (11g variants).
it was reported last week in other places.
Double the bandwidth
Double the posts
Double the fun
Dub Dub Dub Dub Double Mint Slashdot
Its green for a reason.
Why didn't I post this anonymously.
SPAM
11 mbps is fast enough thank you but if you're going to double something then double the SNR and effective max range instead.
15 minutes ago, I brought home a new Zyxel 316 Wireless starter kit. I just figured I check slashdot before I configured it, and now its obsolete. Great.
Go to bed. You should have been asleep hours ago.
Do you want to remove linux?
Didn't 3Com buy that lame company USR? Did they get spun off again? God I hope not!
Other companies will have this as well... D-Link, SMC, Netgear, Linksys (although they just OEM from someone else, their stuff sucks).
Just wait for 11g
Oh My Head
CanNaCoke
TI has been pushing the PBCC modulation scheme for years. Recently, PBCC was dumped from the 802.11g spec, so now TI is trying to do an end run around the spec, and making it a done deal.
The OFDM method used in 802.11g and 802.11a is more elegant, and provides a higher data rate than the PBCC. Of course, in fairness, Intersil is pushing for OFDM.
Bottom line: if 802.11g isn't out soon, TI will be in a good position to put PBCC back into 802.11g by market pressure. The catch - 802.11g will be slightly (maybe $20) to support this lower performance mode.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
802.11b specifies a transport that goes as fast as 11mbps before DCF overheads are accounted for. If someone has a device that goes faster than this then it is not 802.11b. It is something else.
If it can still interwork with 802.11b devices then it will be doing so at a maximum of 11mbps.
If you want something faster, then why not use something that will not be obsoleted by a standardized solution such as 802.11a or the still-in-progress 802.11g?
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
a .uk person who cares about EU? Maybe I need to submit a scoop to /. ....
Apparently true, as in, leaves gouges in 1mm sheetmetal, and CD drives aren't made that tough.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
That aint pushing the envelope, this is:
http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/prod_041702.html
Urd.