Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Wireless Clouds for Good and Ill

Posted by michael on from the slashdot-needs-a-wireless-topic dept.

dr_delete sent in a story about Athens, Georgia joining the ranks of municipalities creating free public wireless networks. In a counterpoint to that, we have the Pentagon cracking down on wireless devices, trying to control information leakage. And Newsforge has a story about starting your own wireless ISP. Nifty stuff.

6 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. Good and 3? by TonyZahn · · Score: 2, Informative

    Y'know, ILL doesn't really work well in that font...

    Just saying...

    --
    - sig? who is this sig of which you speak?
  2. In the UK .. by SpatchMonkey · · Score: 2, Informative

    .. there is an active effort underway to build a national wireless network. It's over at consume.net. Unfortunately the uptake seems rather slow with too many people just interested and not active.

  3. Warchalking by Andy+Smith · · Score: 3, Informative

    The BBC had a good story last week about warchalking which is a grass-roots effort to track down wireless networks so anyone can use them. Unfortunately the warchalking web site is no longer being updated because the owner, Matt Jones, wants to sell the domain and hand the project over to someone else.

  4. Whats the big deal about the Pentagon? by Arcturax · · Score: 5, Informative

    When I saw the Pentagon mentioned along with a crackdown, I expected something about them cracking down on citizens. Instead it is simply about the Pentagon taking the wise move to curtail wireless WITHIN the military only use until they can be assured it can be used securely. That strikes me as a smart move, closing a hole that a terrorist or assassin might have otherwise used. Its good to see those in the Pentagon using their brains and thinking of interesting ways they might have security problems rather than having a tragedy happen first.

    --

    --Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
  5. Re:Fidonet. by ejdmoo · · Score: 2, Informative

    "Now, if only there was an 802.somethingelse hack that let these 'clouds' contact each other over inter-city distances"

    That is partially possible. I recently bought two Intel wireless access points where one can act as a repeater. I have a wired network in my house, but it only is at the extent of my office. I wanted to get to the back yard, so I put one AP (access point) in my office, that covers the front of the house. Then, all I did (after *extensive* configuration/headaches) is plug the other AP in to power in the kitchen and put it on top of the cabinets, and voiala! If I'm on the porch, I talk to AP2 who talks to AP1 who talks to my router. :) Looking here you can see the purdy pictures that show you what I'm talking about. The one setback: you cannot do more than 4 hops (I'm doing 1 hop...2 APs), but you could theoretically have one central AP, then multiple APs that only have one hop back to it, but go in different directions.

  6. Winternet by Rupert · · Score: 2, Informative

    Winternet were my dialup ISP before I got cable. They are still going.

    --

    --
    E_NOSIG