Slashdot Mirror
DefCon WiFi Shootout Winner Announced
devn2k writes "At the first annual WiFi Shootout at DefCon in Las Vegas, Adversarial Science Lab won the contest to shoot a wireless signal across the Nevada desert, with a distance of 35.2196 miles. The antenna was built from metal poles, window screen mesh, cardboard, duct tape, and aluminum foil! According to the official contest page, the antenna was designed the night before the contest, its component parts were purchased for $98 at Home Depot, and the next day it was built completely from scratch in the desert, on the side of the mountain, in the rain."
I'm sure their success is attributed more to knowing what you are doing in a McGyver'ish way than simply hacking.
:)
That special knowledge that is the difference between the guy who buys dirt for a garden versus one who knows what to plant and mix in to make soil healthier.
Yeah, anyone can make a bomb with the proper chemicals, but can YOU do it with bubble gum, a piece of thread and a muffin?
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
> There are a lot of theories regarding electromagnetism and the pyramid shape
True, however only the theorys that involve Maxwell's equations and a lot of advance mathematics can actually be used to predict the behaviour of electromagnetic waves in antennas. A theory involving aliens building pyramids will not tell you what angle the sides of your horn antenna should flare out at.
Notice that the shape of the winning antenna is a pyramid? There are a lot of theories regarding electromagnetism and the pyramid shape, including a bunch on how the ancient egyptians figured out how to utilize these electromagnetic properties, which is (supposedly) why the pyramids were built that way.
If you want to get kooky, it can also point to the extra terrestrial origins of ancient egyptian civilization.
That makes perfect sense! The aliens, feeling like outsiders in this new place, built gigantic 802.11 antennas to download porn and MP3s from their home planet.
If it wasn't for the unacceptably long ping times, they would still be with us today.
Easy!
You eat the muffin, stick the bubble gum over your rear end and fart until you have a nice big bubble full of explosive gas. You then poke the bit of thread into the bubble to act as a fuse. Done and ready to light.
Whilst the homemade winner was pretty good, im a bit suprised by some of the commercial entries.
eg: "Using a Stock Hyperlink 15dBi Omni at the base camp, and a stock Hyperlink 24dBi parabolic grid at the field site, with a confirmed distance of 10.1625 miles"
the WAFreenet (Perth, Western Australia) has several links of 18 to 22km (11.25 to 13.75 miles) - 30mW Clients with home modded 24dBi dishes (galaxy mods), connenecting to a 30mW AP with 14dB Waveguide. These links are about 8 - 10 SNR IIRC.
Our best is a link to the same AP from Rottnest island - 46 km! One connection was using an ipaq + cantenna with 2SNR, and another was with a modded satellite dish (overpowered at about 40dB EIRP), not sure of it's signal performance.
Several groups in the eastern states of Australia have achieved similar resulst.
If I only got 16km with a commercial 24dBi panel, i'd ask for my money back!