DOD vs. 802.11b

goombah99 writes "The NY times (reg required) reports that "The Defense Department, arguing that an increasingly popular form of wireless Internet access could interfere with military radar, is seeking new limits on the technology". It would seem they have a good point; radar is an essential for both defense and civilian aviation as well as ship navigation in tight quarters. Critics of the restrictions contend technology can limit the interference, but what proof is there to these assertions? Sure we all want wireless internet but maybe there should be more careful review of its consequences."

Comments

fear mongering

[dbrower]

it's not about current wifi, but about expansion into the 5ghz band being debated. there are no current examples of interference.

-dB

Re:fear mongering

[corebreech]

Fear mongering? No current examples of interference???

No current examples of interference are possible, since our military appears to be completely incompetent!

Consider 9/11. At approximately the same time the first airliner struck the World Trade Center, the flight that was to hit the Pentagon went NORDO, i.e., was identified as a hijacked aircraft. This thing was tracked on radar for FIFTY FUCKING MINUTES before crashing into THE FUCKING PENTAGON of all places and the fine men and women charged with protecting our airspace DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO PREVENT IT!

It takes big balls on their part to now say that we can't do any further development on WiFi because it will impair the military use of radar. I fail to see how military radar can be rendered any more ineffective.

Re:fear mongering

[Catbeller]

The only person with the authority to give the order to shoot down a civilian airliner is the President, who was sitting in a classroom like a stunned sloth for a half hour instead of being a President. The military was competent. Bush was not.

If he had gotten up and actually acted, the planes would have been followed by fighter planes, and given authorization, shot down before they got close enough to take out the towers.

It wasn't the military's fault. Hell, I think they took out the flight over Pennsylvania -- the blast debris was too widely scattered for a crash.

Bush sat like a deer frozen in headlights instead of giving the order to shoot if necessary. Without his OK, there could be no shootdown.

Then he ran away. The story about the White House being under threat was later dismissed by the White House, to the utter disinterest of reporters.

If Clinton had failed to get out of that chair, and those planes had hit the buildings... if he had fled to Louisiana... he'd have impeached the next week. Trent Lott and all the other patriots who gave Bush their fawning support would have personally shot Clinton, if he had shown the stupidity and cowardice displayed by Bush.

Had to be said. The planes hit because the order was never give to shoot. The order wasn't given because Bush just sat there, listening to some children.

Re:fear mongering

[saider]

Well said from the comfortable position of 1 year's worth of contemplation.

Re:fear mongering

[stinky wizzleteats]

If he had gotten up and actually acted, the planes would have been followed by fighter planes, and given authorization, shot down before they got close enough to take out the towers.

I notice your conspicuous use of the plural term "towers" above. Do you honestly mean to suggest that on the morning of 9/11, before the first tower was struck, it was appropriate and justifiable behavior to shoot down airliners that were flying off-course?

Let's take the discussion further. Let's move to just after the first plane crash. Do you expect the president of the United States to authorize the destruction of every airliner in U.S. airspace which is off-course because one happened to run into a building?

I don't know what a careful decision on the part of the Commander in Chief to use deadly force against innocent civilians looks like in your political universe, but I sleep better at night knowing that my president is reluctant to take such action.

Re:fear mongering

[finkployd]

Well geeze, where were you if you knew these four planes were being hijacked to ram into buildings? You should have been telling the military to shoot down any hijacked planes because unlike the vast majority of hijacked planes, you know these ones were going to use used in this way.
What a gift your forsight could have been, it is a shame our President did not have the gift you appearently did.

Finkployd

Re:fear mongering

[mesocyclone]

What a load of .... ahistorical disinformation!

It was not clear what was happening at first. There were no fighters that could intercept in time - some were launched but didn't get there fast eough.

The fact that Washington might come under attack was not immediately obvious. In fact, nobody knew it was terrorism until the SECOND plane hit the WTC. By that time, the third plane was getting close to hitting (it was also flying low, with the transponder turned off, and was very hard to track on civilian radar). And most people don't realize that the US normally had ZERO armed fighters aloft, and only a few on standby alert for the entire east coast.

As far as the flight over PA... the crash was witnessed. It was not a military attack. The debris was not scattered over a wide area, but rather confined to the small area typical of high speed flight into the ground at a high angle.

The president wanted to return to DC. His advisors wisely suggested he do otherwise until the magnitude of the threat could be determined. It was some time before it was determined that there were no more rogue aircraft up there.

If Clinton had been president, he would have sent a few more cruise missiles up the rear of a few more camels, and then gone crying to the United Nations. Oh, and he would have blown up a pharmaceutical factory somewhere. It was Clinton who failed to take Al Queda seriously in the first place - missing opportunities to capture Bin Laden. Furthermore, Clinton's "impeachment war" was widely recognized throughout the world as a phony war meant to distract from political embarassment. As such, it further inflamed the Arab world when they saw a US President willing to kill Arabs for his own personal gain!

Oh, btw... the order WAS given to shoot down the PA flight if it came into striking range of a major target.

Re:fear mongering

[stinky wizzleteats]

first, he is reluctant to take military action against US civilians -- if you listen to the rhetoric coming from washington at the moment (take out saddam) you will note little indication that the loss of civilian lives weighs heavy on the minds of military planners (considering large civilian losses are expected if an invasion is to actually take out saddam).

The contrast you are attempting to make is poorly supported by the practices and doctrine of the US military, which takes incredible measures to protect the lives of enemy civilians, and by the fact that the only people being shot at in Iraq right now are U.S. pilots. I therefore find your suggestion as to the state of mind of military planners with regard to said civilians to be extremely suspect.

it's a situation that we havn't encountered but we should be flexible enough to handle these situations. a lame analogy to my line of work would be having a production server crashing while i'm eating lunch and lesurely enjoying my lunch instead of fixing the problem. the point is that people (i won't point fingers) didn't do their job.

Your lunch analogy has a very big problem in being applied to the 9/11 crisis. In your example, you have complete awareness of the problem, its scope, and the solution that is required. You do not depend on thousands of people in various organizations that lie between the president and a radar operator for the FAA to impart the knowledge that radar operator has that Something Is Wrong.

Can you identify for me a point of view, be it Air Force One, the cockpit of an F-16 searching the skies for the missing plane, a fire truck parked in front of the twin towers, or anywhere else in the country from which a clarity of vision sufficient to kill hundreds of airline passengers could have been obtained? Given the pain and tragedy of that morning, I would consider such conceit not only hopelessly divorced from reality, but also viciously unfair to those who struggled to find the right thing to do that day, many at the expense of their lives.

I spend a great deal of time studying history, particularly moments of crisis such as Pearl Harbor. I find that we are instinctively driven to find a meaning in disaster, so that we can try to create a construct of belief that we can avoid it in the future. It is therefore much easier to find blame in the actions of those in crisis than to admit that given the millions of life's uncertainties, combined with our own imperfections, nothing could have been done. I admit that it is a painful, powerless confession to make, but I simply believe that the honor of those who died that day demands it. Somehow, I think that our ability to truly learn from those events depends upon it.

Ok Ok - This is obvious ....

[bizitch]

This means WAR!! (driving)

Concerns

[coreman]

Well, they'd better tighten up the radars to deal with it else they've just given an off the shelf solution to interfering with these radars, and told interested parties about it.

Consider the impact of a Beowulf cluster of these!

Why not just use cell towers for radar?

[guacamolefoo]

Recently in the ex-Yugoslav mess, I believe that there were reports of the use of cell towers to track the "stealth" bomber, so who needs radar? Besides, is the DOD planning on bombing Starbucks? One can only hope!

GF

I can see the military's point

[MetricT]

802.11 is only used by terrorists and degrades our ability to conduct military strikes against Starbucks...

Interference?

[wiredog]

Don't wifi/802.whatever/etc have power outputs in the milliwatts? Military radars work with hundreds of watts.

And if these technologies do jam radars, is there an application in the field of speeding ticket avoidance?

Re:Interference?

[voodoopriestess]

Most modern radars have attenuation and can handle a wide range of RF frequencies. This can be from 0.5 GHz to 40 GHz. Mobile phones and current WIFI inhabit the 2.5 GHz range (commonly refered to as CD band) and is dealt with seperately to the rest of the microwave bands (E-J and K). A WIFI adapter will NOT jam a military radar but rather show up as an unknown emitter which in a time of war will generally cause the ship/plane/helicopter to go "defensive" and defend against the potential threat!

Re:Interference?

[Detritus]

A radar may have a very high ERP (effective radiated power), but the signal returned from an illuminated target is small. You have the path loss to and from the target. That is what makes it possible to jam a radar with a modest transmitter.

Re:Interference?

[Dark Lord Seth]

A WIFI adapter will NOT jam a military radar but rather show up as an unknown emitter which in a time of war will generally cause the ship/plane/helicopter to go "defensive" and defend against the potential threat!

... meaning that you'd better have a fast vehicle if you go wardriving near any military installation because you might just end up with a HARM missile chasing your SUV down the interstate. Although if you're in a suicidal mood, you could ping something from your car and mock the HARM missile as it locks onto the emitter, which shut down after sending the echo-request packet, causing the missile to loose lock, after a bit your wifi card sends out another icmp-request packet, causing the HARM missile to momentarily re-aquire a lock onto you again, etcetera.

Can you imagine some poor pilot having to report to his CO why his HARM missile is continously losing lock in the middle of NYC?

FCC should take care of this

[spacecomputer]

Last I checked it was the FCC that was responsible for the allocation of spectrum in the United States and territories. They are the arbitrator of interference issues. In short: I use WiFi, if there is a problem then the FCC, not me, is to blame.

Re:FCC should take care of this

[Qzukk]

What is the military complaining about, doesn't their equipment have the FCC stamp on it?

The military version of the FCC stamp reads "This device must accept all interference, and is permitted to fire missiles back."

Take time to be sure

[seosamh]

The article says that DOD only wants a delay in the consideration, blah, blah...

"The Pentagon wants regulators to delay consideration of opening an additional swath of radio frequencies..."

It seems prudent to at least explore the possibility that wireless could degrade the use of radar (for military and civilian purposes) before jumping on this issue. The key to being responsible about it is to move quickly on the necessary research.

Priorities

[Genuine669]

Maybe I'm wrong, but being an up and coming naval officer myself, I don't think there is much of an argument. Radar or wireless internet...radar or wireless internet... or maybe they could combine both..you know, ping someone, find their lag....and their distance =)

Re:Priorities

[m0rph3us0]

... because when our planes start bombing our cities in the hunt for the terrorists I'd really hate to interfere with their bombing abilities ny the use of my WLAN.

Just wait till the gov't finds out that the microwaves in our house transmit at similar frequencies to those that my WiFi card emits, except they do it at 700W.

Maybe we shouldn't build our radar systems in the public spectrum.

1. Buy microwave
2. Remove shielding
3. Sell "radar jammer"
4 ?? Proft.

Typical Military BS

[Boulder Geek]

Choice quotes: "might cause interence", "not right now, but maybe in the future"... This is the Pentagon spreading FUD, and knowing the predilictions of the current administration, it all bodes very ill for wireless in general and WiFi in particular. In my quick scan of the article I didn't see any mention of 5Ghz or 802.11a, so it rationalizations that the Pentagon is looking at the UII band are misplaced.

Consider yourselves warned.

Suggestion for Saddam

[nomadicGeek]

Get on Amazon and order a whole mess of Linksys WAP 11's. Then get a hand on as many Pringles cans as possible (Pringle can antenna article) . This is the cheapest missile defense system you can build.

In a war room near you...

[Kredal]

"Sir, there's a wireless access point at 30,000 feet, coming straight for us! The good news is, we can anonymously surf pr0n for the next 15 minutes... the bad news is that the access point is loaded with 50 megatons worth of bombs!"

Huh?

[Fnkmaster]

Didn't it occur to them to talk to the FCC about this, and the standards bodies that set up the 802.11a standard BEFORE products were out there on the market? If they missed the boat with this, then somebody's fucking head should roll. What a bunch of idiots. Fire whoever is responsible for failing to bring this up in the first place and make them personally liable for business losses to companies if they have to pull products off the market. That'll teach em.

Nope.

[glrotate]

According to this article it was a modification of existing radar.

Some aviation experts suspect the Serbs used a crude version of passive radar -- plugging computers into their existing air defense system -- to locate an F-117A Nighthawk stealth bomber, shot down in 1999.

Also from the article:

John Hansman, professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said passive radar is still in its "infancy, but is something that will lead to new stealth research."

"This is another trick that will force stealth researchers to push forward," Hansman said.

All in all just another iteration in spy v spy.

Baloney!

[cosmosis]

Dbrower - you are absolutely rigght. All of this stuff about interference is pure BS. Software Defined Radio combined with Open Spectrum renders interference problems obsolete. Ironically, it was the military who invented software defined radio in the first place!

I would say this has more to do with either pure ignorance on the part of the DOD, or an excuse to squash this liberating technology.

Planet P Weblog - Personal Liberty with Technology.

Re:Baloney!

[krlynch]

More likely than ignorance, they (DOD scientists and engineers) are probably concerned that this new use of spectrum previously allocated for air traffic control, weather data collection, and defense purposes will cause problems for OLD radar equipment that IS NOT capable of changing frequencies. You know, the backwards compatibility problem. There are billions and billions of dollars worth of government (military and civilian) radar systems that could be affected, and no one is talking about paying to replace or upgrade those systems to eliminate the potential for interference.

Reading (somewhat between the lines of) the article, I find explicitly or implicitly the following points:

• There exist critical radar systems for civilian and military air traffic control, as well as weather radar that CAN'T change the frequencies they are operating on.
  
• The spectrum they have been allocated and are currently using is a logical location to put new WiFi capabilities, in geographic areas where they won't cause radar interference.
  
• In areas where there is potential for interference, the manufacturers of new WiFi gear have designed their new systems to choose spectrum such that they don't interfere with those radars, in anticipation of those spectrum bands becoming available for such use.
  
• The DOD is concerned that these designs do not provide sufficient guarantees that they won't cause the interference DOD is concerned about
  
• The industry is unwilling (either because they don't think it is necessary, or they don't want to spend the money ... take your pick) to go back to the drawing board and make stronger signal isolation guarantees.
  
• The two sides are lobbying the FCC to see the truth of their beliefs.
  

I don't see a big conspiracy here ... just two groups of people that don't quite agree with the technical points raised by the other side, and a number of issues that need more study before everyone will be happy.

While I wouldn't mind faster and more capable WiFi, I'd much rather that the tech industry be forced to make changes to ensure that interference won't be a problem NOW than having to do so AFTER someone's web surfing causes a plane to disappear from air traffic control screens ....

Re:Baloney!

[mesocyclone]

Baloney yourself!

Neither software defined radio nor the Open Spectrum initiative renders interference problems obsolete. Saying otherwise is about as meaningful as saying that modern computing repeals the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!

Radios of any sort increase the energy in the bandwidth that they use. This is true whether they are narrowband traditional radios or ultramodern, cellularized, spread spectrum or ultra-wideband radios of the future.

Any radio receiver has to pull its desired signal out of the ambient noise. That noise consists of natural noise (thermal noise, spherics, astronomical sources, etc) and man-made noise (either noise-like signals or coherent signals). Many radio systems must operate close to the theoretical edge of practicality. The military and reconnaisance organizations especially need to operate with very small noise margins - their ability to do so is one of their advantages.

Increasing the ambient signal levels do degrate the capabilities of these systems. That is trivially proven.

Open Spectrum is an approach to improve bandwidth sharing. That is all it is - it is not a magic panacea that somehow makes interference vanish. Software Defined Radio is simply processing radio signals in software. It also doesn't change the underlying physics.

Consider the issue of radar... radar operates with an inverse-fourth law (the radar equation). The return signal is inversely proportional to the fourth power of the range. Normal radio operates by an inverse square law. Thus radar is especially vulnerable to interference.

To put a little numeracy in here... let's look at a 5GHz space based radar. Assume it outputs 1000 watts peak power (power is very expensive in orbit, you know) from an altitude of 150 miles. Assume the antenna shapes this to 100,000 watts effective radiated power (ERP).

By the time this reaches the earth, it is about 1E-7 watts per square meter. Assume the radar wants to image an area of 100 meters. This is 1E-3 watts or 1 milliwatt. A *single* WiFi stations puts out 10s of milliwatts. Thus if you have one WiFi per 100 square meters, you will have ambient "noise" of 20-30 decibells above the radar signal.

So, this is not a trivial issue. Of course, coherent integration can overcome much higher SNR's, but only at a cost (it requires much more time per resolution area, reducing the overall capability of the system).

In other words, there ain't no free lunch.

The Pentagon has the services of the best experts around to advise it on issues like this. Discounting their objections out of hand is arguing from either ignorance or opinion, not science or engineering. Determining whether their objections are appropriate in this case is a matter for analyses far more complex than will appear on slashdot, and in some cases, probably will require access to very sensitive classified information.

Re:Baloney!

[GooberToo]

I would say this has more to do with either pure ignorance on the part of the DOD, or an excuse to squash this liberating technology.

Certainly sounds reasonable considering a large enough network built using wireless could effectively prevent a large segment of traffic from ever going across major backbones. That means in some instances, the DoD's net and ISP sniffing technologies will be greatly snubbed.

Won't someone think about the Whales?

[Flamesplash]

Apparantly this only works one way. There have been a lot of articles out lately about Navy sonar and other artificially generated waves interfering with Whale communications.

I wonder what they would do if the Whales went and destroyed facilities developing the devices that mess with them. Now if only they could get them to do the main development on ships, then the time of the Whale will come upon us. MWUAHAHAHAHA

Re:I can hear it now...

[yack0]

Mr McKittrick, after very careful consideration, Sir, I've come to the conclusion that your new Wifi network sucks.

This is about 5Ghz technology

[goombah99]

Despite the misleading headline inserted by slashdot editors, the article refers to an"increasingly popular" wireless technology in the 5Ghz band.

The pentagon is not trying to poop on the wifi party. And they are not out to supress info transfers. They just want to make sure that a stupid irrversible giveaway of the wrong band does not take place. Apparently a lot of next generation radars need this band and depend upon a noise free environement. for example the article notes weather radar. Believe me getting a radar return of gas is very very difficult. Even high power radars are not the whole answer--the return signals are weak and fall off 1/r^2 limiting the range.

My fear is that the bush admin will give way to the coroprate interests. Microsoft is one of them mentioned in the article. these companies have dumped tons of money into campaign contributions. And the easy thing for the bush admin to do is to do nothing at all.

regardless of your misgivings about the department of defenses other activities, having good radar is a swell idea that we all can benenefit from.

presumably there might be some techno fix that could make all happy. But remember these radar systems take years to design. Its not just about making the latest up-to-date technology but also about quality assurance, standards and interoperability. So just saying they could be redesigned is not a valid response. You dont retrofit safety systems on a whim because some thinks they can make it better. Murphy's law will get you. And its often better to have standardized less than state of the art systems people know the limitiations of than a myriad of superior technologies they dont know the relaibaility of.

Re:This is about 5Ghz technology

[archeopterix]

Shouldn't it show the DoD that they should start work, today, on the next-next generation of radar, which won't be able to be foiled by a bunch of high-power 5 ghz transmission devices, the basic parts for which might soon become available from civilian outlets over the Internet.

It's not that easy to jam a radar. Bats are a living proof of this. Thousands of them can navigate in dark caves without jamming each other. Radars are designed to avoid jamming - they use quite a wide spectrum of radio waves that changes dynamically (bats do that too, only with sound waves). Of course it is probably possible to build a jamming system, but such a system would involve many high-powered transmitters and thus would be very costly. I guess that widespread use of radar-frequency Wi-Fi would just slightly degrade military radar performance (perhaps civilian aviation radars would suffer more) and that's what the military are concerned about. I would be more concerned about a kilowatt radar signal damaging Wi-Fi equipment though.

Re:Other problems as well

[aborchers]

Interference of cell phones with avionics is a red herring. The real problem with using cell phones on airplanes is that at high altitude and speed, a cell phone hops towers too frequently.

The case for avionics interference is actually quite weak, from all reports I've heard. The policy for cell use on aircraft is partly CYA, partly greed (use our in-flight phone instead) and partly a cookie to the cell industry, which cannot or does not want to deal with the hassles of supporting high-speed tower-hopping on their networks...

Ha ha! (and 1984)

[famazza]

Forget it! This will be another great technology that will no longer be avaiable in US.

But pay attention, acording to Goldenstein (984)continuous state of war serves as an excuse to cut civil rights avoiding protests!

The wrong target?

[bald_spot]

According to This article, The most important source of interference in the band is commercial microwave ovens, of which there are over 100 million in use in the US alone.

Re:I can hear it now...

[volsung]

I'd piss on a sparkplug if I thought it would help me check my email!

Home radar jamming?

[OYAHHH]

I've,

Done a lot of civilian radar track data analysis and I can tell you that radar data is already littered with LOTS (and I mean LOTS) of inaccuracy.

I've seen cases where the data loss was so bad that I can hardly imagine the situation where joe-schmoe-bin-ladin with his laptop and homemade radar jamming equipment could make it any worse.

It's one of those situations where if you knew what the ingrediants were you might not want to eat it.

I certainly don't have a problem with the DOD wanting to limit radio encroachments into vital wavelengths.

But, sometimes I get the feeling that the military is crying wolf when the wolf has been there the entire time and nobody in the know is brave enough to admit it.

make them stop!

[six11]

"Hello, is this the Bad Guys? This is Col. Sanders of the US Army. Listen, do you think you could tell your advancing armies to please stop jamming our systems with those pesky wireless networking signals? It's really making it difficult to prevent you from invading us. What's that you say? We should have thought of this? Well, yeah, we did, but we dealt with it by telling our citizens to knock it off. Hey, it worked for them, why should it be any different with you?"

Yeah riiiight

[phr2]

Free wifi is going to interfere with military radar, but I bet when some big-money corporate interest group wants those same frequencies, they will get them with no radar objections being raised. We don't hear about UHF television interfering with radar either, or 1.8 ghz cell phones, etc. This is just another scam on the goverment's part to interfere with private communications.

We must not have!

[wiredog]

A mineshaft gap!

Yep, that's the obvious point.

[twitter]

Killing the utility of 802.11 in the US won't keep others from expoiting our problems. It will simply keep us from having better, lower cost communications. I posted this making fun of DoD in another thread.

Oh, great...

[TheSHAD0W]

Sure, tell EVERYONE what radio frequencies they need to use to jam US military radar. Sheesh.

Re:This is still about fighting "terrorists"

[Catbeller]

Osama bin Laden does not use beepers, landlines, telephones, cell phones, WiFi, the Internet, laser comm, satellite phones, carrier pigeons, or the U.S. mail.

He communicates via trusted lieutenants, face to face.

The idea of terrorists using the Internet and WiFi in particular is not only speculative, it's just plain wrong. A professional guerilla warrior does not use traceable tech, not if they want to succeed.

This is FUD. And a prelude to a marketing campaign against free networks. Or, it just illustrates the really bad thinking coming from the White House's Nixon retreads right now -- not Bush. Bush doesn't know WiFi from HiFi. This is coming from the army of Marching Morons that are running the Executive Branch and the DoD right now, to the dismay of the intelligent professionals who have been shoved aside and told to shut up.

I never thought I would see the day /. and .gov

[t0qer]

would be barebacked doin the nasty sleepin in bed together. I think slash has fallen to an all new low.

We all know GWB and his little gang of croonies have been silently moving to gain "control" over the internet. They've enlisted the help of the RIAA and MPAA plus their teams of lawers to overpower the routers of major backbone providers with threats of bankrupcy. Those that play ball such as AT&T will have their right of way taxes deferred, those like worlcom will have to suffer.

They want it controlled for "our safety" "We don't want no stinkin terrorist using "Our network" to transmit dirty messages to bad 'ol osama (read satan)

They want it controlled to keep the ever slipping grip of media copyright back in the hands of the huge players like sony, virgin, capitol records, ect. Who cares if it hurts the smaller labels.

And killing 802.11 would be a major win to them because it's such a "pirate radio station" They can't control it and that scares them. The worst thing is seeing slash become party to the "psychological warfare and FUD" the .gov is trying to spread about 802.11

I can't really comment about the technical aspects of if this REALLY affects radar, but as an american citizen watching this issue, I can.

A smart person would look at thier reasons and say, "Hmm, messages, oh yeah, PGP mail... and uh people trading MP3, well can't do much there unless you cut off their ears"

Instead of letting the smart people address this issue they're trying to play on our emotions and get the mob riled up. You are not a good american if you run a public 802.11 node. You are not patriotic for sharing MP3's. You're in bed with the terrorist for using encrypted e-mail.

Well, this message too will probably be modded into oblivion too. As i'm sure /. has been given it's walking papers by the man. Either convince your .5 million readers we're right or we pull the plug. Fucking shameful, just shameful.

It goes even deeper then that!

[Newer Guy]

Have you seen the ads on TV: "This is Mary. This is Mary's nickel bag of Pot. This is Mary's dealer. This is Osama binLaden. Mary's dealer buys his quarter pounds from Osama." The govt. is trying to connect EVERYTHING to terrorism! They want control over EVERYTHING...and they're doing it in the name of 'protecting' us! The propoganda machine is running full tilt 24/7.......

Re:Other problems as well

[mesocyclone]

The problem isn't "high-speed tower-hopping."

The problem is that the signal from one cell phone at altitude hits many cell towers at once, interfering with other callers.

The word "cellular" means that the system uses small areas called cells. The primary reason for for this article is to allow the same frequencies to be used in multiple separate cells at the same time, by different users. From an airplane, all of those cells are hit at once.

Cellular architecture is one method of improving spectrum efficiency, and was mandated by the FCC for that reason.

How about UWB 802.11?

[JohnnyCannuk]

Sounds like a good time to switch to/invest in a new 802.11x ultra-wide-band solution.

UWB, as I understand it, sends out nano-second pulses over a wide band of frequencies. These pulses sound like regular "noise" if they are detectable at all. Best part they don't interfere with existing signals on any particular frequency. They can be used for communications or specialized radar (ground penetrating, seeing through walls to find people etc).

So either your DOD swithces it's radar or gets your FCc to allow higher power UWB (currently the range is limited to about 10 meters...great for a UWB mesh network ;) )

Anyway, I may not be the most knowledgable in the field, so someone ca correct me but this sounds like a great opportunity to make a better more decentralized technology take hold

WRONG WRONG WRONG!!! (bzzzzt)

[flatulus]

There is so much misinformation in both the NY Times article and the discussion here on /., I just have to set the record straight:

1) The DoD is concerned about the 5 GHz U-NII (Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure) band -- which is where 802.11a (not 802.11b) operates. This is a recently opened band.

2) There is no way the DoD can mount a plausible objection to 802.11b, as it operates in the 2.4 GHz ISM (Industrial, Scientific, and Medical) band. The ISM band is the home to microwave ovens, which frequently "leak" 30 times more RF than an 802.11b "intentionally" transmits. There are industrial applications of the 2.4 GHz ISM band that emit KILOWATTS of RF. The 2.4 GHz band is, in essence, the junkyard of the microwave spectrum.

3) The IEEE 802.11 committee is already working on interference mitigation techniques to make 802.11 radios more "friendly" to radar in the 5 GHz band. This is the work of Task Group H. The two major innovations being hammered out in that task group are DFS and TPC (dynamic frequency selection and transmit power control). Both of these are mandated by the European Union's regulatory bodies, in order to open up 5 GHz for 802.11 radios. When ratified, this will lead to an 802.11h radio, which is functionally analogous to 802.11a, but with DFS and TPC. At that time it is likely that 802.11a will wither on the vine, being replaced with 802.11h in the U.S. also. (Note: 802.11a is legal only in the U.S. today. And DoD is basically following the EU's lead in expressing concern about interference to radar. That's what the NYT article meant about Europe being "ahead" in this matter.)

4) While the FCC is in charge of CIVILIAN use of the RF spectrum, they are not the sole arbiter of RF in the United States. The rest of the job is done by the NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration), which is the caretaker for government use of spectrum. For the FCC to open up the 5 GHz spectrum, they needed approval from the NTIA first (which they got).

Summary: "But the times they are a' changin."

Basically the DoD is trying to head off proliferation of 802.11a before it's too late. Of course, the market leading vendors (e.g. Atheros) are none too happy about this, and I don't blame them. Changing the rules after they invest many millions in development of a product on the basis of an expectation of marketability would make even the most accommodating entrepreneur cranky :)

DoD FUD

[markcic]

This is FUD generated by the DOD. The FCC limits the EIRP (equivalent isotropically radiated power) of the ISM band used by 802.11. The allowable power levels for 802.11 are 1 watt using an omni-directional antenna and 4 watts for a directional antenna. I doubt the tinny amount of power these devices emitted will interfere with military radar. For more info about 802.11 power levels check out this 802.11 Planet article.

How many times do I have to say this...?

[cr0sh]

I have read many of the comments made on this topice here in this forum. I understand that there seems to be a confusion as to whether this issue is related to 802.11a or 802.11b. Frankly, I don't think it matters.

The fact is, 802.11x communication systems ARE REGULATED BY THE FCC. If they chose (or were ordered), they could easily deem the spectrum used by 802.11x to be off-limits to anyone! Sure, I have heard the comments like "but businesses have invested millions in 802.11 - they would howl" - perhaps they might. Or perhaps a transition would occur to make the larger companies happy, by providing some form of wireless that isn't available to the average consumer like 802.11x is - but still gives those communications companies a foothold in wireless comms, while making consumers happy, and also possibly providing an easy place for the feds to tap, while making community nets a thing of the past (think it impossible? Try to buy, as a consumer, your own TXRX system for a cell phone - good luck, if you can even afford it). Everyone (mostly) wins - except for the citizen, ne - consumer...

I have said many times that the government has this (unelected, unrepresented) power via the FCC to do this (think I am joking? Do a search on my past comments, if you don't believe me). In these same comments, I have presented a solution that very few have worked on (at least on the homebrew front), that could keep community networks alive, a solution the government (FCC) cannot regulate (but oh how they would try - and if they succeeded, well - then that is the cue for true revolution):

Laser/LEDComm

I daresay RONJA is probably the most advanced "homebrew" system out there (if anyone has links to more advanced stuff - such as on the order of homebrew sighting/retargeting systems like AirFiber's System - please post links!). Other links of interest:

http://www.alphalink.com.au/~derekw/upn tcvr.htm

http://www.hut.fi/Misc/Electronics/circu its/laserlink.html

http://www.geocities.com/Silic onValley/Lakes/7156/laser.htm

http://www.n1bug.ne t/tech/laser/laserfr.html

http://www.n1bug.net/te ch/laser/alc_wa6ejo.html

http://www.repairfaq.org /sam/lasersam.htm

http://www.qsl.net/w1vlf/techin fo/optical_transmitters.html

http://misty.com/peo ple/don/laserdon.html

So - these systems have problems (line of sight being the largest) - but all systems have problems. At least one company (AirFiber) is using similar tech to run a business for WAN layouts - so it should be possible for a homebrew solution to be worked out. Are we going to simply wait until 802.11x really gets "outlawed" before we do something? What kind of shit is that?

Oh - wait - this is /. - where apathy seems to almost be the rule when it comes to politics...

If Clinton had been president

[MichaelPenne]

more likely he would have acted on his plan to attack Al Qaeda:

The Bush administration sat on a Clinton-era plan to attack al-Qaida in Afghanistan for eight months because of political hostility to the outgoing president and competing priorities, it was reported yesterday.

Rather than sit on it.

Meanwhile, Clinton, with the Legislature spending most of their time sniffing blue dresses for presidental spunk, lacked the support necessary to invade Afghanistan and take out Bin Laden.

Bush's team thus has two major mistakes to answer for: not listening when Berger and Mr Clarke outlined the threat in briefings they provided for Condoleezza Rice and, when they did get around to taking action, letting Bin Laden escape.

However, I agree that one can't really fault Bush for not giving the order to blow civilian airliners out of the sky on 9/11, I don't think even Jack Ryan would have been that on the ball.