Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

CWRU Opens Largest Wi-Fi Net

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the join-our-network-please dept.

server1 writes "In what could be the largest public wireless service in the world, Case Western Reserve University is opening more than 1,230 Cisco Aironet 1200 Series wireless access points on September 1, providing free Internet access to faculty, students, staff and visitors to the Case campus and University Circle." Good news for Clevelanders looking for some free wireless internet access.

135 comments

  1. GNAA reccomends anuses cheeses by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which
    gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.

    Are you GAY ?
    Are you a NIGGER ?
    Are you a GAY NIGGER ?

    If you answered "Yes" to any of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
    Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
    GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the fastest-growing GAY NIGGER community with THOUSANDS of members all over United States of America. You, too, can be a part of GNAA if you join today!

    Why not? It's quick and easy - only 3 simple steps!

    First, you have to obtain a copy of GAY NIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it.

    Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA "first post" on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website

    Third, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on EFNet, and apply for membership.
    Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!

    If you are having trouble locating #GNAA, the official GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is EFNet, and you can connect to irc.secsup.org or irc.isprime.com as one of the EFNet servers.
    If you do not have an IRC client handy, you are free to use the GNAA Java IRC client by clicking here.

    If you have mod points and would like to support GNAA, please moderate this post up.

    This post brought to you by Penisbird , a proud member of the GNAA

    G_____________________________________naann_______ ________G
    N_____________________________nnnaa__nanaaa_______ ________A
    A____________________aanana__nannaa_nna_an________ ________Y
    A_____________annna_nnnnnan_aan_aa__na__aa________ ________*
    G____________nnaana_nnn__nn_aa__nn__na_anaann_MERI CA______N
    N___________ana__nn_an___an_aa_anaaannnanaa_______ ________I
    A___________aa__ana_nn___nn_nnnnaa___ana__________ ________G
    A__________nna__an__na___nn__nnn___SSOCIATION_of__ ________G
    G__________ana_naa__an___nnn______________________ ________E
    N__________ananan___nn___aan_IGGER________________ ________R
    A__________nnna____naa____________________________ ________S
    A________nnaa_____anan____________________________ ________*
    G________anaannana________________________________ ________A
    N________ananaannn_AY_____________________________ ________S
    A________ana____nn_________IRC-EFNET-#GNAA________ ________S
    A_______nn_____na_________________________________ ________O
    *_______aaaan_____________________________________ ________C
     um, dolor. Nunc nec nisl. Phasellus blandit tempor augue. Donec arcu orci, adipiscing ac, interdum a, tempus nec, enim. Phasellus placerat iaculis orci. Crasa sit amet quam. Sed enim quam, porta quis, aliquet quis, hendrerit ut, sem. Etiam felis tellus, suscipit et, consequat quis, pharetra sit amet, nisl. Aenean arcu massa, lacinia in, dictum eu, pulvinar a

  2. Hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Well, at least we know where all the kiddy porn collectors will be.

  3. GNAA Loves Gay Nigger Anuses by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    The Gay Nigger Association of America (GNAA) is the group that represents the world's Gay Nigger population as well as those non gay, non nigger patrons that support it. Its mission is to foster a gay and free-loving climate that supports and promotes our members' creative and financial vitality. Its members are the gay niggers that comprise the most vibrant national gay nigger conglomerate in the world. GNAA members create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 90% of all legitimate pro-homosexual propaganda and blue, rubber dicks produced and sold in the United States.

    We strongly urge you to join the GNAA and support our cause. Gay Niggers everywhere need your help!

    BE NIGGER!

    BE GAY!

    JOIN THE GNAA!!
    Join #GNAA on the EFNet IRC Network today! (irc.secsup.org, irc.easynews.com, irc.servercentral.net)

    ________________________________________________
    | ______________________________________._a,____ |
    | _______a_._______a_______aj#0s_____aWY!400.___ |
    | __ad#7!!*P____a.d#0a____#!-_#0i___.#!__W#0#___ |
    | _j#'_.00#,___4#dP_"#,__j#,__0#Wi___*00P!_"#L,_ |
    | _"#ga#9!01___"#01__40,_"4Lj#!_4#g_________"01_ |
    | ________"#,___*@`__-N#____`___-!^_____________ |
    | _________#1__________?________________________ |
    | _________j1___________________________________ |
    | ____a,___jk_ GAY_NIGGER_ASSOCIATION_OF_AMERICA_|
    | ____!4yaa#l___________________________________ |
    | ______-"!^____________________________________ |
    ` _______________________________________________'
    -posted by GNAA member Penisbird

  4. Put the DHS and RIAA on leashes now! by Angry+White+Guy · · Score: 0, Troll

    Because you know that they're going to be chomping at the bit to shut this type of reckless, terroristic behaviour down.

    --
    You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
    1. Re:Put the DHS and RIAA on leashes now! by bob670 · · Score: 1

      Okay, here's a primer for all of you with Mod points... he's being sarcastic yet still making a point. I mean really, does Slashdot only give mod points to the people who rode the short bus? Just because you don't find a paticular piece of sarcasm funny doesn't automatically means it is a troll post. And if you live in denial that the RIAA and DHS won't be trying to scan this network, then I guess you would believe this is a troll post.

    2. Re:Put the DHS and RIAA on leashes now! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I mean really, does Slashdot only give mod points to the people who rode the short bus?
      Yes. Next?
      (now i don't have to say anything about the sarcasm part ;))

  5. Yay, Northeast Ohio! by Corvaith · · Score: 4, Informative

    University of Akron's also got very good wireless coverage, and they push laptops rather heavily. It was so terribly convenient. I'm not going there anymore, alas... I miss it. The speed was really blazing, and nothing compares to the ability to actually be online looking up information related to your lectures while they're happening... can make for a much greater understanding of the material.

    Alas, my current school has some kind of fledgling deal going on, but so far I haven't even been able to get it to work, and they aren't very good about providing information on it. :(

    1. Re:Yay, Northeast Ohio! by calebtucker · · Score: 1

      the ability to actually be online looking up information related to your lectures while they're happening... can make for a much greater understanding of the material

      Hm, I try to pull up the prof's powerpoint slides and try to follow the lecture, but I usually end up refreshing slashdot.org like a mad man.

      I don't know if the profs have figured out the AOL IM sounds and pattering keyboards means the students aren't taking notes on their laptops...

      --
      My sig can beat up your sig.
    2. Re:Yay, Northeast Ohio! by Corvaith · · Score: 1

      This is why computers include *volume controls* with *mute options*.

      I did all those things, too, but I multitask well, and type very fast, so would usually end up with free space in the periods where the instructor was waiting for everybody else to write things down.

    3. Re:Yay, Northeast Ohio! by Zebbers · · Score: 1

      I goto Kent State and I really wish we had wireless to saturate the campus with...its a pain to carry a patch cable just to plugin somewhere. Not that I really think its all that useful to have access or a laptop IN class...but I use mine between classes to write papers and things while the labs are busy.

      BTW, KSU had a nice comeback victory against the Zips thursday ;)

    4. Re:Yay, Northeast Ohio! by asdfghjklqwertyuiop · · Score: 3, Interesting


      University of Akron's also got very good wireless coverage, and they push laptops rather heavily. It was so terribly convenient. I'm not going there anymore, alas... I miss it. The speed was really blazing, and nothing compares to the ability to actually be online looking up information related to your lectures while they're happening... can make for a much greater understanding of the material.

      Alas, my current school has some kind of fledgling deal going on, but so far I haven't even been able to get it to work, and they aren't very good about providing information on it. :(

      Just a little heads up to anyone who might be thinking of going there, living in the dorms and doing anything but web browsing on your computer:

      I just graduated from there this month. I agree, the wireless is good. Unfortunately however, they also put that campus-wide firewall in place that would make Hitler seem liberal. I'm in the computer science club there. I hear plenty of complaints from students who are trying to use the campus network for useful things (ie, services) but can't. Even some video games aren't playable.

      Certainly don't try making any special requests to the IT department. To them, the students are like a disease. I lived in the dorms my first three semesters there, before the network nazis put up the campus wide firewall. I very humbly requested a reverse DNS entry pointing to a hostname in a domain I owned. I got a very bitchy response back about how anything in 130.101/16 "represents" uakron.edu and it was incorrect to have PTRs going to any other domains. I then requested any DNS entry at all (because at the time they had no DNS entries for any dorm net addresses). After about a week they put one in place.

      Also, our student senate representative found out that they log all network traffic at border and store it for some time. If the RIAA or federal government ever comes a knockin', your ass and every bit of information they have on you will be in the sling faster than you can blink. You may have heard stores about universities refusing to turn student information over to the RIAA on request. Well, this is no such university, trust me.

      And then they had the nerve to apply this "technology fee" to our tuition, after making the network LESS usable than before.

    5. Re:Yay, Northeast Ohio! by Corvaith · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There *is* access, allegedly, in some places. I get a connection in the student center, tried using it once, it comes up--in the web browser--with some kind of login screen, and then claims that my login is valid but that I'm not allowed to login without a 'secure' connection.

      I wasn't even aware that there were that many places to plugin to the network, though. I haven't been bothering... hard enough finding places with outlets to recharge in the middle of the day.

    6. Re:Yay, Northeast Ohio! by The+Briguy · · Score: 2, Informative

      I am a student at Case, and these wireless points are all "secured" - that is, you have to have a wireless card with an approved MAC address in order to use any of these APs, so the original poster was incorrect - this will have absolutely no effect on the greater Cleveland area.... no free internet.

    7. Re:Yay, Northeast Ohio! by The+Briguy · · Score: 2, Informative

      BTW, I know if you RTFA, it says the access is for visitors too, but thats just PR bullshit. You have to have thier VPN client installed and have your MAC address registered with access services.

    8. Re:Yay, Northeast Ohio! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I went there, and I was working there in IT when they put in the wireless AP's. They had Cisco come in and do a survey and tell them how many AP's they'd need. After paying lots of money to Cisco to do that, they then put in roughly half that amount...

      So everytime one of us found a dead spot, which was pretty common at first, they put another AP to serve it. At least the football stadium was covered from the beginning, although I never could figure out why.

      The IT people there knew what they were doing... too bad the CIO didn't.

    9. Re:Yay, Northeast Ohio! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It may not be NE Ohio (where I'm originally from), but Wright State in Dayton has reasonable WiFi penetration for faculty, staff and students as well.

    10. Re:Yay, Northeast Ohio! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      when you run your own network you can have all the freedom you want. You think your college is bad, wait till you get a job in the real world and see what counts for "innapropriate computer use."

    11. Re:Yay, Northeast Ohio! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In addition, your complaint about the college turning you over to the RIAA makes about as much sense as saying "Well, I wouldn't have gotten busted for dealing heroin if it weren't for the sting operation." Who is ultimately responsible when you break the law? YOU. Whether you AGREE with the RIAA or not is irrelevant. You know what the law is and what the college computer usage rules are. Deal.

  6. why so many? by Comsn · · Score: 2, Insightful

    why would you need 1000 ap's? arent these things good for at least 100 meters? just how big is CWRU?

    1. Re:why so many? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      I don't know about CWRU, but my school has a lot of stone and brick buidings. 2.4GHz doesn't go 100 meters that way. Even a class room of people could suck your power way down.

    2. Re:why so many? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      The goal is to make most of the Cleveland area to have free WI-FI available. The Playhouse Square are also just went wireless for free (www.cleveland-freenet.com)

    3. Re:why so many? by Douglas+Simmons · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'd say maybe they're using a superfluous amount because "1000 access points" has a nicer zing to it than "we have 462 aps" does, which may have been the actual number needed if it were based on how much area was needed to cover. Keep in mind, a lot of this is to impress people to attract attention, money and applicants to a school. Touting that number is more buzz-worthy than saying We cover X square feet. You hear that, and you think, "Hot-damn, that's a lot of access points! They must really care about network accessability when I'm on the go." Marketing.

    4. Re:why so many? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I went there several years ago. The campus is actually quite large. The classroom buildings are spread out over many blocks. There are many tall non-school buildings (e.g. apartments, Severance Hall, University Hospital) that reduce the range of the access points. Also, University Circle is a name given to more than just Case. It includes the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland Institute of Music, Cleveland Institute of Art, and other major places halfway affiliated with the school.

      "This is the first phase of blanketing Cleveland with free wireless Internet access - a project we call OneCleveland"
      So, they are probably also going to have access points outside of the University Circle to help start the OneCleveland project.

    5. Re:why so many? by scseth · · Score: 2, Informative


      The campus at Akron has over 1000 access points for full coverage in and outside of buildinds. I know of other universities around the US (Tulane, UofTenesee) that also easily have that many as well. As you start doing the site planning the numbers of APs can easily start to add up. The 1000 number for Case does not seem unrealistic to me.

    6. Re:why so many? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      CWRU likes to waste the money students pay for tuition on things that will get media attention. They originally had ATM to the desktop (when its cost $1000/NIC) but have recently transitioned to Ethernet because the ATM networked sucked. They made a lot of false statements to become ranked as the most connected university in America, and then spent a hell of a lot of cash trying to back up those claims after the fact. I think there may have been a /. article about that.

      Ultimately, CWRU doesn't care about the students, just about getting money and name recognition. Trust me, I went to school there and dealt with the bullshit. It's a shitty school, with bright students and poor faculty/administration. I believe the only good thing CWRU has now is their BME program.

    7. Re:why so many? by LurkerXXX · · Score: 1

      Spoken like someone who's never tried to provide coverage in dozens of large several stories tall buildings made of brick and stone and steel. One access point covers a lot of space in a house made of two-by-fours, but these type of buildings are a different manner. Add in the fact that in some of the large labs (100+ med students all on laptops) you need a few access points to cover the same area just to make sure they don't get bogged down. There are a number of campuses that have 1000 access points.

    8. Re:why so many? by gniv · · Score: 1
      From the article:

      ...providing free Internet access to faculty, students, staff and visitors to the Case campus and University Circle. (emphasis mine)

      Looking on this page, the University Circle is quite a large area, with bussinesses, museums, etc. They purposefully covered an area much larger than the campus. It might be that there are even some University facilities in the extended area, far from the main campus (this tends to be the case with old universities in urban environments).

      But, as another poster implied, this is mainly a PR stunt to boost the image of the University. The article is a press release.

    9. Re:why so many? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not marketing at all unfortunately. I am a Case student and with the thick concrete walls in the dorms here we could use 1000 more WAPs.

    10. Re:why so many? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To us at CWRU it means, "You'd better get a real good firewall for your department/dormroom, and stop your windows shares with whoever sits near the Museum of Art or might walk by the this or that restaurant, or just drive by." And guess what, the businesses located in the University Circle get a free internet too. I think this is a waste of hard earned tuition and research money.

    11. Re:why so many? by server1 · · Score: 1

      CWRU spans about 2 square miles and parts include the Cleveland Clinic, also spanning around a square mile. In addition because of the frequency overlap, the channels have to be 3 apart from each other. The total area covered is quite vast. Actually i'm surprised they aren't using more than they are.

    12. Re:why so many? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I'm a student at Case (the CWRU nickname is officially retired ;) ), and my dorm has a wireless access point in each suite, i believe. That's over 20 in one building.

    13. Re:why so many? by wolrahnaes · · Score: 1

      CWRU uas a medium size campus, but it is in the middle of Cleveland, so there are lots of buildings.

      Buildings = reflected signals = interference

      anyways, 100 meters without hopped up antennas + amps (read: FCC violation) is a pipe dream. 100 feet with a reliable signal is rare.

      --
      I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
  7. Yodase by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    y______________________________GO_LINUX
    o_________________.'_:__`.________________y
    d____________.-.'`.__;___.'`.-.___________o
    a___________/_:____\_;__/____;_\__________d
    s_,'__""--.:__;".-.";:_:".-.":__;.--""__`,a
    e_:'_`.t""--.._'/@.`;___',@\`_..--""j.'_`;s
    x______`:-.._J_'-.-'L___`--_'_L_..-;'_____e
    ________"-.___;__.-"__"-.__:___.-"________x
    y____________L_'_/.------.\_'_J___________y
    o_____________"-.___"--"___.-"____________o
    d______________.l"-:_JL_;-";._____________d
    a_________.-j/'.;__;""""__/_.'\"-.________a
    s_______v.'_/:`._"-.:_____.-"_.';__`.v___s
    e____.-"__/_;__"-._"-..-"_.-"__:____"-.___e
    x_.+"-.__:_:______"-.__.-"______;-.____\__x
    _v;_\__`.;_;____________________:_:_"+._;_
    y_:__;___;_;____________________:_;__:_\:_y
    o_;__:___;_:____________________;:___;__:_o
    d:_\__;__:__;__________________:_;__/__::_d
     Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Praesent arcu. Integer quis lacus. Ut eget est. Proin auctor. Curabitur eu eros vel nulla vestibulum porttitor. Morbi ac eros quis justo venenatis adipiscing. Maecenas nec mi in erat ultricies semper. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Nunc non lorem pulvinar elit fermentum malesuada. In massa. Praesent mollis, lacus ut pretium gravida, odio neque congue massa, a sagittis tortor wisi ac nisl. Donec nec tortor sit amet orci feugiat adipiscing. Cras consectetuer porttitor libero. Pellentesque faucibus convallis nisl. Nam vitae elit ac lacus posuere suscipit. In tempor. Duis mi. Suspendisse consequat mi a justo. Donec consectetuer, diam vitae suscipit sagittis, elit mauris lobortis lacus, eget cursus elit nunc sit amet arcu. Nam malesuada fringilla quam. Nam aliquam ligula sit amet mauris. Aliquam nonummy lorem sed quam. In non wisi tincidunt ipsum posuere mattis. Ut vestibulum tortor non mauris tristique semper. Curabitur nisl. Donec nonummy porta nisl. Morbi vel nisl vestibulum turpis lobortis porttitor. Quisque vitae est. Suspendisse id enim eu ante tincidunt porta. Etiam pharetra. Maecenas hendrerit nunc sit amet eros. Praesent nec erat vitae nunc fermentum varius. Curabitur tortor. Duis adipiscing molestie eros. Nulla lorem eros, suscipit sit amet, laoreet a, accumsan sed, orci. In ipsum. Nam pellentesque urna quis arcu. Suspendisse velit tortor, accumsan sed, pellentesque at, accumsan non, est. In congue faucibus nibh. Cras risus dui, ultrices at, faucibus in, gravida sed, purus. Maecenas auctor sapien non metus. Quisque tellus diam, condimentum in, consequat nec, viverra vel, pede. Nunc eu pede. Nulla accumsan, ipsum a bibendum dignissim, pede lacus pulvinar tortor, a tempor justo magna quis sapien. Nulla facilisi. Duis lacinia fermentum orci. Aliquam vulputate enim mattis dolor. Maecenas in neque fringilla nunc lobortis semper. Cras sit amet felis non massa iaculis aliquam. Mauris commodo condimentum nibh. Cras et nunc. Aliquam sit amet tellus. Pellentesque a orci. Etiam nec nulla vitae nibh scelerisque auctor. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Aliquam erat volutpat. Aliquam dictum. Donec turpis ipsum, convallis et, mattis at, volutpat eget, turpis. Sed posuere nonummy augue. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Sed neque elit, posuere ac, viverra nec, aliquam id, metus. Duis in mauris. Sed pede. Suspendisse potenti. Curabitur faucibus semper nulla. Morbi iaculis viverra risus. Mauris tincidunt. Aenean tempus lacus sit amet purus. Nam semper. Vestibulum pulvinar. Nulla vel nisl id justo blandit vestibulum. Aenean nulla lacus, mollis a, dapibus eget, egestas eu, orci. Vivamus aliquam euismod nibh.

  8. And in other news... by Blrfl · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...Cleveland becomes the world's spam capital.

    1. Re:And in other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      oh lord i wish i had mod points. that was hilarious.

    2. Re:And in other news... by howlingfrog · · Score: 1

      "becomes"???

      --
      The original Howling Frog is a fictional character and has no UID.
  9. Free WiFi access will predominate by Alan_Peery · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is the way I expect WiFi access to evolve. Fee paying (particularly at more than $1/day) WiFi hotspots will only survive in spots with limited access and one landlord like airports.

    1. Re:Free WiFi access will predominate by gmenhorn · · Score: 2, Informative

      There is a small article in the latest Wired (Sept 2003, pg. 34) that states exactly this. "The way to cash in on wireless: give it away".

      --
      George

  10. messed up by jedi98629 · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    modd me down, mark me as a troll but those last 2 posts were just plain messed up, i was hoping america was past using racial stereotypes like that. around here i guess is different course i live in orgeon so i prolly just dont see it as much here

    1. Re:messed up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      Excuse me?

      If you go into any black/nigger community and listen in to the social banter, you will see us calling each other niggers in a friendly and polite way.

      Your cultural ignorance is typical of idiot morons like you and is a testament to the fact that you need to fucking go out more, moron.

      --Penisbird

  11. So? by pirodude · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't really see how this is news. Purdue has a good 1600 access points on campus and have total coverage in all the buildings and are working on open space coverage now. Any student/staff member can use it free. Here's our coverage map: http://www.itap.purdue.edu/airlink/WirelessCurrent 3.pdf

    1. Re:So? by BlueTooth · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think the point is that you don't have to be student / faculty to use this. Hence "largest public".

      --
      SPAM
    2. Re:So? by eggboard · · Score: 1

      Case is offering free access to people who aren't associated with Case. That's why.

      --
      Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
    3. Re:So? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      are the general public allowed on campus for recreation ? buisness ? use of facilities ? food ?

      somehow i think the security office will think different of the term public than the students do

    4. Re:So? by gniv · · Score: 1
      That's what they imply in the press release. But on another page they say something else:

      Only current students, faculty and staff of CWRU are authorized to use the wireless network and VPN services.

      Does this mean that the "public" can use the network, but not the VPN? It's not clear from their pages. Anyone tried it?
  12. good for them by jacquesm · · Score: 1
    Now if some company would be so kind as to provide decent bandwidth to rural Canada that would make me *very* happy.


    Are you on the grapevine yet ?

    --
    MP3 Search Engine
  13. GAY NIGGERS HAVE LARGE PENII by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
  14. Just remember guys... by morgajel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't abuse it. if you want to go kazaa-ing, go somewhere else. remember- when people are nice, and you abuse their trust, they tend not to be nice anymore.

    Try to keep it to a dull roar, or use something encrypted at least. If you make it blatently obvious that you're doing any sort of mp3 swaping, the BSA and RIAA will rain the holy shitstorm of litigation on the school.
    make sure if you use it, you write a letter of praise or something to the dean or head of IT praising their decision to make it open to the public.

    --
    Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
    1. Re: Just remember guys... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They banned Kazaa starting the Spring '03 Semester:

      http://www.cwru.edu/net/announce/ashfa8$a2g$1@ee yo re_INS_cwru_edu.html

    2. Re: Just remember guys... by zCyl · · Score: 1

      the BSA and RIAA will rain the holy shitstorm of litigation on the school.

      When was the last time someone sued the phone companies for criminals using public payphones in the street? Wouldn't we all find that idea ridiculous?

    3. Re: Just remember guys... by grub · · Score: 1

      If they don't use some traffic shaping software to slow down the P2P traffic I'd be suprised. It sounds like they've thought out the design well enough that P2P traffic shouldn't come as a suprise.

      --
      Trolling is a art,
    4. Re: Just remember guys... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They packet shape...and as far as the implimentation in business school, you must vpn in to gain access. They put you on a 172 and only give you access to the vpn server and select other sites.

  15. Who gives a shit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    I mean really

  16. New Ian Hunter song verse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    All the little nerds with the crimson Pringles cans
    Singing Cleveland WAPS Cleveland WAPS
    Living in Sin with a bogus MAC
    Singing Cleveland WAPS Cleveland WAPS

  17. "could be"??? by Douglas+Simmons · · Score: 4, Informative

    Last time I've checked, Drexel University in Philadelphia held this wireless title, not to mention the fastest Internet link of any university. When an announcement touts a school like this with "could be" instead of "is" makes me suspicious that they worded it in a way that could either allow what they're claiming to be false, or they didn't bother to fact check to confirm its validity.

    Anyone know more about where Drexel weighs in? Kind of a silly pissing contest, but having the Best or Fastest (blank) for a school is good marketing.

  18. Do NOT go there... by Thinkit3 · · Score: -1, Troll

    Spent four miserable years there. It's basically a pit in the ghetto. At least the gangsters aren't as bad south of you.

    --
    -Libertarian secular transhumanist
    1. Re:Do NOT go there... by bob670 · · Score: 2, Informative

      While I do live in Cleveland, and on a whole don't care for the city much at all, University Circle and the CWRU area are great, home to some great museums and probably one of the most culturally diverse areas in the metro area. Your sad attempt at subtle racism just sucks. Get back to the lilly-white suburbs where you belong.

  19. CDPD -- wireless, always on, approx $CA 40/month by Alan_Peery · · Score: 1

    If low-bandwidth (and streaming things in gradually) would interest you, check into CDPD. When I was in Manitoba last summer, MTS offered always-on connectivity at $CA 40/month--in places where telephone lines were not available. (IE, very rural.)

    There were two drawbacks:

    1) Equipment outlay was about $1500
    2) Bandwidth was not high. Theoretically 9.6 Kbaud, the higher latency and error rate than a wired connection reduced the throughput.

  20. All a 31337 h4x0r needs these days are: by Krapangor · · Score: 3, Funny
    1. a laptop with Linux/FreeBSD
    2. a WiFi card with reconfigurable ID
    3. assorted 31337 h4x0ring programs
    4. a ticket to Cleveland
    Risk: 0%
    Profit: 100%
    --
    Owner of a Mensa membership card.
  21. HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

    +MONDAY MORNING+
    CowboyNeal: I will not suck any more dick ever again.
    +MONDAY EVENING+
    CowboyNeal: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp*

    +TUESDAY MORNING+
    CowboyNeal: I will not suck any more dick ever again.
    +TUESDAY EVENING+
    CowboyNeal: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp*

    +WEDNESDAY MORNING+
    CowboyNeal: I will not suck any more dick ever again.
    +WEDNESDAY EVENING+
    CowboyNeal: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp*

    +THURSDAY MORNING+
    CowboyNeal: I will not suck any more dick ever again.
    +THURSDAY EVENING+
    CowboyNeal: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp*

    +FRIDAY MORNING+
    CowboyNeal: I will not suck any more dick ever again.
    +FRIDAY EVENING+
    CowboyNeal: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp* *slurp*

    +SATURDAY MORNING+
    CowboyNeal: I will not suck any more dick ever again.
    +SATURDAY EVENING+
    CowboyNeal: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp*

    +SUNDAY MORNING+
    CowboyNeal: Today is the Lord's day.
    +SUNDAY AFTERNOON+
    CowboyNeal: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp*

  22. Administration nightmare by Psiren · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I run a College network, and the thought of any Tom, Dick or Harry being able to wander in and use my network for pretty much anything would be enough to give me nightmares for a month. Can you imagine the potential security issues there, or virus outbreaks? Cold shower time...

    While I see wireless as a potentially flexible system, it is a security and management nightmare. We've banned our students from using their own wireless routers for just this reason.

    1. Re:Administration nightmare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Two Words: Separate networks.
      If you got the money for cisco gear, you can afford a pix and a good router.

    2. Re:Administration nightmare by slamb · · Score: 2, Informative
      I run a College network, and the thought of any Tom, Dick or Harry being able to wander in and use my network for pretty much anything would be enough to give me nightmares for a month. Can you imagine the potential security issues there, or virus outbreaks? Cold shower time...

      But they can already, most likely. Where are your Ethernet ports? If someone just plugs a laptop into one, what will happen? (On most networks, the DHCP server will issue the laptop an address and the "intruder" can go about his/her business merrily. To actually prevent random people from using the network, you'd have to actually authenticate the people whenever they use it, probably with a VPN. Remember, MAC addresses can be spoofed easily.) How is this different with a wireless network, aside from not needing to find an Ethernet port?

      To really achieve security, you need a segmented network with firewalls between that don't trust anyone more than necessary for them to do their work. And if you're worried about traffic being captured, encryption. (Either a VPN or application-level encryption like SSH and SSL.) I don't really understand how wired or wireless changes that.

    3. Re:Administration nightmare by Mr-Fish · · Score: 2, Informative

      This year was the first year we've had two vlans in our residence halls - one for the residential network & one for wireless access points in the residence halls. Unfortuneatly, XP has made it really easy for students to bridge the two networks together and wreak havoc for us. Tracking down the bridging machines is a nightmare.

      We're currently 3com core (cb9k) to edge (3300s & 4400s), but doing a fork lift Cisco core replacement this winter. Hopefully life will get better when we replace the core, but this has been the roughest semester start we've seen yet.

      Unfortuneatly I'm primarily the Linux guy & not the network guy... I don't know of an easy way to track these monkeys with our current equipment. Any brilliant ideas?

    4. Re:Administration nightmare by teidou · · Score: 1
      Sorry, this sounds aggressive; it is not meant to be. (Please) assume the message is meant charitably...

      Can you imagine the potential security issues there,

      I'm sure there are security issues, but can you name some actual issues? The issues I can think of are no different than what you see with *any* anonymous internet use. For administrators, I see a need to be sure campus machines are relatively secure: Don't you already do that? Would it resolve the issues if the wireless network sat outside the campus firewall?

      For the users of the network, I see no issues. The University I work at also bans wireless routers. Please educate me: Why, Really?

      or virus outbreaks?

      As opposed to the total lack of viruses we are seeing now? Several thousand users are going to be very happy with this wireless network. What's the problem? Do you think you will be liable if one of them releases a virus there instead of over at Starbucks?

    5. Re:Administration nightmare by eggboard · · Score: 1

      I exchanged email with the CIO at Case Western, and he said they're using both VLANs to segregate traffic and packet shapers to prevent abuse. They've also certainly got a variety of other mechanisms in place to prevent this kind of nonsense.

      If you restrict inbound ports, filter traffic, shape packets, and don't offer services besides a pipe, you can certainly deal with anonymous community users.

      --
      Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
    6. Re:Administration nightmare by LurkerXXX · · Score: 2, Informative

      At CWRU you have to register your MAC address for your wired network cards in order to get a IP address on the regular LAN. Otherwise you get an IP in a different range with limited access. With wireless, you are on a separate network and must VPN in to the regular campus network LAN.

    7. Re:Administration nightmare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the network your on if your just using wireless without authenticating through our vpn servers is actually a completely separate network with a whole separate IP scheme and no access to any of the internal stuff. it basically is only really good for web browsing. If a student wants to use it for something more all they'd have to do is log on.

      also, the press release if you actually read the whole things says it IS the biggest in the country, and maybe the world. the statistics for outside the us i think are a lot more vague. i know for instance though that the president of drexel was just at a wireless conference here at Case and was hanging out with our CIO so i doubt if we're pulling one over, it's on them.

    8. Re:Administration nightmare by canuck57 · · Score: 1

      Why not have the secure stuff use IPSec and QoS the routers? Let the open air have the excess. With QoS you can give priority to the IPSec tunneled packets and let both worlds live.

      As for viruses, anyone placing an unprotected machine like Microsoft Windows on the Internet live, well - is naive at best. It would not hurt the students to get a computer security lesson before they become managers.

      With IPSec on Wireless, you actually are likely more secure than a wired network as someone who plugs in a WAP on the wire will be disappointed.

  23. While this sounds all awesome 'n stuff... by philStyle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At least as of now, when they say 'faculty, students, staff, and visitors to the campus', they really mean it. Presently, if you want to actually USE the wireless, you have got to VPN into the system. Until then, your computer will just recognize that there IS an access point, but you sure can't surf the net unless you've got an account with CWRU.
    So maybe this isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Until i hear that anyone with a laptop can actually use the access points without going and talking to the school for access, i'm a little skeptical. It's still sweet tho, 'specially if you live on campus.

    1. Re:While this sounds all awesome 'n stuff... by Yr0 · · Score: -1

      ha ha ha
      I will H4XOR j0000000
      lolololololo

      --








      I R00z j00!!!!!
    2. Re:While this sounds all awesome 'n stuff... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      This is exactly how I'm going to handle security on my upcoming wireless network. I have an AP and I'm putting a PC in my car. The AP currently goes right into my switch (for testing) but I'm going to point it at another interface on my linux gateway and block all non-VPN packets. I'll probably also look into running a transparent proxy on that interface so I can tell anyone who tries to access anything though it to screw off.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  24. Paint the town red! by inphinity · · Score: 1
    Hmmm... So CWRU plans to cover the whole city with a blanket wifi coverage? And it's going to be free? And it will be in Cleveland?

    Hmmm... Call me a skeptic, but I seem to remember when Apple said .mac would be free forever too. Plus, just thinking about the security issues involved with such a large scale rollout make my gut wrench (and it's a pretty big gut...)

    1. Re:Paint the town red! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (and it's a pretty big gut...)

      On slashdot, that goes without saying.

    2. Re:Paint the town red! by sidecut · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Nope -- just University Circle. It's less than ten square miles. Still -- mighty impressive, especially if they get places that are technically off-campus like bars and coffee shops. Hell, even some off-campus housing might be in range! The old "hippy street" there might be wi-fi accessible. Ironic, sitting outside on your balcony in your bare feet drinking herbal tea and writing an anti-capitalist screed, all the while hooked up via free wi-fi.

    3. Re:Paint the town red! by LurkerXXX · · Score: 1

      Sorry, Coventry ("hippy street") is almost certainly out of range of any of the access points. You will have to continue to use a 56k modem to push out your anti-capitalist screed.

    4. Re:Paint the town red! by matuscak · · Score: 1

      I'd guess the "hippy street" is a reference to Hessler, not Coventry. Hessler should be right in the middle of the coverage area.

    5. Re:Paint the town red! by sidecut · · Score: 1

      You're right -- it's Hessler. It's changed so much the previous poster apparently didn't even know it had once been a hippy street. Well, there's still the street fair. Other than that, who would know?

    6. Re:Paint the town red! by matuscak · · Score: 1

      Heh. I guess I should wander by there some time and see what its morphed into.

  25. Re:CDPD -- wireless, always on, approx $CA 40/mont by jacquesm · · Score: 1
    interesting, thank you !


    I'm looking in to mulitple phone lines and multi-channel ppp tunneling to Toronto (where my servers are hosted), then hit the net from there.

    DSL is a couple of years away at least here (rural (very rural :) northern Ontario), I can get about 20 Kbit/sec out of a phone line so 5 or so of them should do it. This is strictly business use (ww.com, camarades.com and the wwgrapevine.com) so I'm not too concerned about the per month cost if it is not something exorbitant.


    The most frustrating part of all of this is that there is a perfectly good fiber running a couple of miles from here !

    --
    MP3 Search Engine
  26. Gloat, gloat! by sidecut · · Score: 2, Informative
    How cool is that?! I live two miles from that campus, my alma mater.

    I often work from home on my company-provided laptop. It's been my dream to work from a Starbucks or, in the case of Case, the locally-owned, thirty-year-old Arabica coffee shop. Hell, there's even a bar on Case campus I could probably work from!

    NOTE: This is not at all an informative post. I'm just gloating. >:-)

  27. What.....banned software? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/net/policy/banned-sw.ht ml

    At least the topo maps are guarded...

    1. Re:What.....banned software? by puck71 · · Score: 1

      I can understand why they don't want most of that...but banning NetBEUI?? WTF? That's the best way to windows share over a LAN...I guess they like having gigabit ethernet but not being able to share files over it (netbios also banned). Weird.

  28. Would never happen at Ohio State by Cerlyn · · Score: 4, Informative

    It is interesting to see CWRU do this, as Ohio State likely would never dare try this. At Ohio State, all systems connected to the network must authenticate their users. If a system is unable to do so, the network switches typically force users onto a logon server in order to verify whom they are.

    This is a result of OSU's network policy (PDF file - see item #13). There are a few exceptions, but for the most part this is true.

    OSU's wireless 802.11 service requires users to login, and pay for some sort of dialup plan. Even the $1.95/month one counts.

    1. Re:Would never happen at Ohio State by buckinm · · Score: 1

      I think the sheer physical size of OSU would make it pretty impossible. Case Western isn't half the size of OSU...

      --
      This isn't any ordinary darkness. It's advanced darkness.
  29. Drexel's network is not public by Cerlyn · · Score: 2, Informative

    The implication here is that CWRU's network is publically accessible. At last check, Drexel's network was *not* publically accessible (MAC locked, IIRC).

    Of course, things may have changed and I could be wrong...

  30. The spam from cwru hath begun.. by grub · · Score: 2, Funny

    This just arrived:
    From: "Bennett Sims" <b_sims_ux@po.cwru.edu>
    X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12a)
    Subject: Check it out!
    Eerie coincidence? I think not! :)
    --
    Trolling is a art,
    1. Re:The spam from cwru hath begun.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you're going to fake a spam header, at least take the time to learn how CWRU generates email addresses, 'cause the one you put there is invalid.

    2. Re:The spam from cwru hath begun.. by grub · · Score: 1

      That is *exactly* what I cut and pasted from Mutt. Want the complete headers? I'll gladly paste them for you, AC.

      --
      Trolling is a art,
    3. Re:The spam from cwru hath begun.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      they haven't even turned on the anonymous wireless access yet so i think it'll just have to be a coincedence. also our email servers are authenticated so to actually send through the case email servers you do have to have a valid case id and all. which admitedly is a whole ton of students and allumns (who keep their addresses for life) but still its no more of a problem because of wireless.

    4. Re:The spam from cwru hath begun.. by Weaselmancer · · Score: 1

      Eerie coincidence? I think not! :)

      No no no... Erie is in PA, about a half an hour away. Wifi doesn't go that far. ;^)

      Weaselmancer

      --
      Weaselmancer
      rediculous.
    5. Re:The spam from cwru hath begun.. by grub · · Score: 1
      It isn't actually from that university, just the return address (likely forged) is. Note where it really originated.
      From b_sims_ux@po.cwru.edu Sat Aug 30 11:16:48 2003
      Return-Path: <b_sims_ux@po.cwru.edu>
      Received: from planet-interkom.de (26.Red-80-34-63.pooles.rima-tde.net [80.34.63.26])
      by mail.grub.net (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id h7UGGjjQ036125
      for <grub@grub.net>; Sat, 30 Aug 2003 11:16:47 -0500 (CDT)
      MIME-Version: 1.0
      From: "Bennett Sims" <b_sims_ux@po.cwru.edu>
      Message-ID: <1062310637.5921@po.cwru.edu>
      X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12a)
      Subject: Check it out!
      Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 06:17:17 +0000
      To: grub@grub.net
      Content-Type: text/html
      Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
      Status: RO
      Content-Length: 1659
      Lines: 55

      [-- text/html is unsupported (use 'v' to view this part) --]
      --
      Trolling is a art,
    6. Re:The spam from cwru hath begun.. by llamaluvr · · Score: 1

      At CWRU, we can have email aliases if we'd like to.

      --
      Insightful: 76, Off-Topic: 379, Flamebait: 24, Funny: 152, Interesting: 201, Underrated: 55, Troll: 9, Total: 896
  31. Way to go Case!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds pretty sweet. Good show for my alma mater!!!

    Case Western has always been on the cutting edge of network technology. Back in 1994 when I started, they had fiber connecting EVERYWHERE on campus. I had fiber running straight out of my dorm wall into a tranceiver on my then-new PowerMac 7100. Every classroom, commons area, office, etc. had the same access. (although, all I really used it for was network gaming -- hehe)

    It was (as far as I know), the most cutting edge campus network in the world. They've upped the ante this time. It's good to know my $700 a month in student loan payments is going towards *something* useful...

  32. Insert lake on fire joke... by kotj.mf · · Score: 1

    As a lifetime resident of Cincinnati, all I've got to say is:

    Don't you realize that some people could be looking at pornography on their laptops now???!!! And they might even be Democrats !!! Somebody oughta be arrested!!!

    :sighs:

    Yet another score for Cleveland in the ongoing struggle. Better bars, better bands, better baseball, better weather, and a significantly smaller proportion of troglodytes among the population. At least we've got race riots, and, uh... Larry Flynt. Though we're trying to put him in jail. Again.

    Y'all got any room up there?

    --
    hang brain.
    1. Re:Insert lake on fire joke... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Your river never caught fire though, did it?

      But we do have better sports teams up here, or at least we're more enthusiastic about them even when they lose.

  33. The State of Employment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    First they came for the menial jobs. I never spoke out because I didn't have a menial job.
    Then they came for the unskilled laborer jobs. I never spoke out because I wasn't an unskilled laborer.
    Then they came for the skilled labor jobs. I never spoke out because I wasn't a skilled laborer.
    Then they came for the call center jobs. I never spoke out because I didn't work in a call center.
    Then they came for the middle management / clerical jobs. I never spoke out because that wasn't my job either.
    Then they came for the programmer's jobs. And there was no-one left in employment who wanted to help me.

    FACT: This country is being hollowed out from the inside by filthy subhuman animals. An invasion of scum, often illegally entering the country, who are crawling their way into good jobs. Why? Because they are wanting to take everything over. We all know to what effect that 'positive discrimination' has altered employment practises. Now, instead of the most valuable person for the job, companies are obliged to employ rancid, workshy immigrants.

    Of course, the animals want to get into good companies, so they in turn can influence management decisions to outsource further jobs to their cousins overseas. Thus destroying an entire nation.

    From the lowliest Janitor to the highest executive, foreigners MUST be eliminated from our corporations.

    THEY BREED FASTER THAN OURSELVES BECAUSE THEIR LIVES ARE WORTH LESS.

  34. Talk about vision, smell, sound polution.... by xintegerx · · Score: 1

    Instead of free wireless internet access for all, how about free weights for all? All this does is benefit fat asses house-sitting their computers outside. "Going outside to take a breath of fresh air" will mean sitting on one's ass outside all day.

    On one side, fat nerds will stay outside longer than before, but this time using their computer exclusively, instead of just talking a walk in the park. Good development? No.

    On the other hand, the rest of us will have to put up with the eyesore of these people outside thanks to free wireless internet. Next, sound polution from the speakers. Thirdly, smell polution from these same people. Talk about a triple threat!

    --

    Cover your eyes and click this link!
  35. THIS IS DICK! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    I sent this story in YESTERDAY when it first broke and it was much better too!

    HyperColor Underware writes "In a bit lighter news from recent days' norm of RIAA, SCO, viruses, and Microsoft, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio is creating a gigantic Wi-Fi hotspot, hopefully encompassing all of Greater Cleveland. CrainTech News: "CWRU is calling the wireless Internet access one of the largest public wireless services in the world. The service will be available via 1,230 Cisco Aironet 1200 wireless access points spread throughout the campus and University Circle area." This is fresh on the heels of Cleveland's PlayHouse Square opening up WiFi around yesterday - Cleveland's Free Times reports."

    There were two links!!!

    SCREW YOU SLASHDOT!

  36. doesn't look that way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can't make the link you posted load, nor did a search of their site turn up any notice of such a ban. I did find this link which is a web page on their site with direct links to several music services including kazaa.

  37. NOT free to public by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This service is not free to the public. You must have a CWRU (now officiall called Case) network ID to join the Cisco VPN.

    1. Re:NOT free to public by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      not true at all. read the actual press release, not the couple sentences of it that are on here.

      http://www.case.edu/its/news/2003/publicwireless .h tm

      as of september first they're opening it up to anyone, just keeping it on a separate IP scheme so all of our internal resources that authenticate by IP are still secure.

  38. Cross-linkage by heironymouscoward · · Score: 1

    Just for interest, how does CWRU handle this problem (preceding /. story. I presume that 1,200 staff, students, and random strangers constitutes quite a serious home-grown network...?

    I suspect a large part of the answer is to treat mobile users as "foreign" and put them all on an external segment of the network where they simply can't do much damage except possibly to each other.

    Does anyone have more information?

    --
    Ceci n'est pas une signature
  39. I *STILL* have not forgiven CWRU... by Mhrmnhrm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... for taking down the Cleveland FreeNet (CFN). The grand-daddy of all freenets, it was taken down something like 2 years ago this month, ostensibly because they couldn't continue to maintain the dialup banks, or some such rubbish. The CWRU cash fund is supposedly something in the billions (though this may just be heresay), and I can't imagine that CFN really sucked that many resources out. SO... while this is all fine and dandy for the CWRU students/faculty tromping around the museums, the rest of us Clevelanders remain in the lurch with no real community site anymore.

    --
    I suspect that one of these choices is incorrect. Correct.
    1. Re:I *STILL* have not forgiven CWRU... by gniv · · Score: 1
      The CWRU cash fund is supposedly something in the billions (though this may just be heresay),

      No need for hearsay. They say so themselves. It was $1.5 billion in 2000.

    2. Re:I *STILL* have not forgiven CWRU... by sinnergy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      While I feel your pain, CFN did have some serious issues, the biggest of which was the fact that the codebase was insecure, the least of which was the fact that staffing issues within ITS prevented it from being properly maintained.

      Besides, and I think you could agree, in the end it really became a pretty seedy place with more and more 1337 kiddies joining in that really had no business being there. A great influx of people that really didn't care about the "community" trashed many of the SIGs and caused the IRC server to revert into a wasteland (albeit a wasteland I miss dearly, hence the reason for starting up my own IRC server at Case (the address isn't that hard to find and is well populated by Case people, alumni and other interested parties)). The MUC, it's successor, was no better.

      So while I do yearn for the "good old days" so often, after actually meeting and becoming friends with some of the people that ran it, I understand a lot of the reasons why it simply had to go. It was a bitter pill to swallow and I understand now that the issue wasn't a black or white one... it was very gray indeed.

    3. Re:I *STILL* have not forgiven CWRU... by kongjie · · Score: 1
      University funds may be in the billions but that still doesn't mean that an institution can spend wildly on each and every project. Once principles start being eaten up instead of income from funds, the future of programs, departments and infrastructure can be endangered.

      The variety of expenses involved in running a university and the range of fluctuation of those costs means that budgets have to be conservative to guarantee that tuitions will only rise by modest amounts while services supplied remains constant.

    4. Re:I *STILL* have not forgiven CWRU... by Mhrmnhrm · · Score: 1

      if you wouldn't mind greatly, i'd be interested in the new irc server... i miss oxo, ca, nightmeyr, raist, the picnics, and all the other fun stuff that used to be.

      And yeah, you're right... the install they had was more insecure than windows. but I can't believe that it was so badly written that turning it open-source and letting everyone else clean it up wasn't a realistic option (unless Tom Grudner had some sort of patent/license attached that prevented it). Ah well... lordulkesh cat yahoo daht communists. That's my email :)

      --
      I suspect that one of these choices is incorrect. Correct.
    5. Re:I *STILL* have not forgiven CWRU... by sinnergy · · Score: 1

      Contact me via my email address and I will reply with the appropriate information. The people you lsited I don't think hang out... the groups are now very different. However, there are a number of decent people on. It started a few years ago with just myself and two of my friends on campus who were all employees. Now the network (it's a collection of 3 servers, 2 on campus, 1 off) that, currently has about 50 people. Sometimes we hit a lot more, point being when Halder went around the PB Lewis building and started capping people.

      In any case, let me know and I'll give you tha hookup, as it were.

      And now that I'm about to post I see your email in message. Oh well, I'll hit submit anyway

    6. Re:I *STILL* have not forgiven CWRU... by jstott · · Score: 1
      The CWRU cash fund is supposedly something in the billions (though this may just be heresay), and I can't imagine that CFN really sucked that many resources out. SO...

      That's the endowment (it passed the $1B mark in the mid- to late-90's when I was in grad school there).

      On the other hand, as anyone who's been to the school know, this has nothing to do with public access, nothing to do with student access, and everything to do with marking to prospective students. This is, after all, the university that upgraded its entire network (with great fanfare and major user-level headaches) to ATM to the desktop, and then put a firewall up with a pair of 10Mb/s network cards through which all university traffic had to pass in between our OC-3 network connection and the on-campus ATM network since that's all the IT folks could get money for that sesmester (firewalls don't generate headlines, ATM does).

      -JS

      --
      Vanity of vanities, all is vanity...
  40. Blame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    THE SNIPER Whooooo!

  41. I agree. Anglos, GET OUT!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And take your Black slaves back with you. This country belongs to the Indian Nation.

  42. Case Bashing by DrLudicrous · · Score: 1
    I just want to reply to some of the people bashing Case as not caring about its students, spending money on name recognition, etc. While there may be some truth to these claims, they are being wildly exaggerated. I graduated from CWRU 3 years ago, and found my professors there to be extremely caring, and still maintain contact with them and ask them for advice. They have helped immensely with establishing my career path (I'm currently in grad school). There may still be a need for better teaching professors, but this is a result of Case being a primarily research-oriented institution for decades.

    As for the tuition gripe, yes it is true that tuition has gone up, and that some of that money has been spent on trying to better the school and increase its name recognition. But tuition has gone up across the board, so the CWRU increases are nothing special- I'm willing to bet that they were less than the Ohio State tuition bumbs percentagewise. Secondly, the money spent on name recognition and the like seems to be working- here is this wireless network construction on Slashdot's frontpage.

    So all in all, while Case will have its detractors, I think it is an up and coming institution. Trying to break new ground does not come cheap, and success is not guaranteed, but the spoils of achievement are well worth the risk.

    1. Re:Case Bashing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I graduated from CWRU 3 years ago, and found my professors there to be extremely caring

      You must've been a humanities major. I'm in physics, and the folks in Rock barely realize they're teaching courses half the time.

    2. Re:Case Bashing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh... you must not have come back to visit recently. Why don't you come over and I will give you a tour of my dorm, and then one of PBL. I'll let you judge.

    3. Re:Case Bashing by DrLudicrous · · Score: 1

      I'm in physics, as a matter of fact. My favorite profs were Chottiner, Mathur, Kash, and Singer.

    4. Re:Case Bashing by nule.org · · Score: 1

      Let's see, lied to by deans. Refusal to accept transfer credits because of "improperly filled out forms" (even when the transfer credits were taken on the advice of a dean AND that dean helped me fill out the forms). No chance of appeals because Dean Robinson "is the appeals board", and gives not a rats ass about students.

      Awesome school. Wasted three years of my life and tens of thousands of dollars out of my own pocket there just to be told sorry - you are going to have to lose over 50 credits from CSU. Now I'm back at CSU and bored out of my mind. Still two years from a degree and a great deal poorer.

      No one there cares about students (least of all undergrads). That school deserves every bad thing that happens to it.

      I'm glad you had a good experience there.

  43. Freenet by Nissyen · · Score: 1

    It's like the Cleveland Freenet is rising again.

    -ae506

    --
    Idol Star Astronomer
  44. They don't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    They modify the phones for out-bound calls only, or in the worst cases, simply shut the phones down.

  45. No way... by metulj · · Score: 1

    ...would I be involved with this. CWRU better have a trunkful of lawyers and/or a Microsoft "We ain't responsible" EULA. We have an "open" network at my university, but you have to register your machine. Cloned MAC addrs are the only threat and if you are some little shit who sets a static IP, we have a nifty little script that pings IPs, and bans you on the router. As for security, there is none. Better used encrypted means. That is the user's problem.

  46. Biggest in the world ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    like the world series ?

    get over yourselves yanks the largest public wifi is in S.Korea

    but then "the world" is just your little bubble so i guess its understandable when 70% of Americans dont even own a passport let alone have travelled abroad

  47. CWRU=Cleveland Freenet back in the 90's... by SirDaShadow · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Does anyone remember back in the day when they used to give away free accounts? They weren't shell accounts, but you could do email, news and IRC. This was back in 1990, and basically that's how I got my feet wet on the internet. Good ol' times I reckon...

  48. full press release text by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the full press release text is here. don't ask any more questions that are in the rest of the press release.

    http://www.case.edu/its/news/2003/publicwireless .h tm

  49. OK Everyone. Here's how it's really going to work by sinnergy · · Score: 4, Informative

    I am not intimiately involved with the project, as I work in the EECS department at Case and not ITS. However, I do know a lot of people that *do* work within ITS and keep myself informed enough to know that most of what's being spouted here is inaccurate at the least and FUD at worst.

    In any case (no pun intended), here's what's going down.

    Case currently has deployed 600 at last count (a few months ago) Cisco WAPs with 802.11b. By the end of the project, almost 1200 WAPs will be deployed campus wide. When Cisco starts shipping the 802.11g radios for the Aironets, all of the radios in all of the APs are going to get upgraded to g.

    OK. That's done.

    Next, currently it is REQUIRED that anyone wanting to use the WAPs must authenticate to a Cisco VPN server and gain access to campus network services as if they were physically on the network. HOWEVER, starting September 1st, ANYONE will be able to use another SSID on any WAP to gain access to the network AS IF they were outside of the CWRU firewall. ANYONE. Script kiddies, goofballs, terrorists... your mother... anyone. Also with that, though, are some SERIOUS controls and, I would assume, monitoring of the traffic. The first big control is bandwidth throttling. No, you wouldn't be able to park (if you could find parking at least) outside of a building and snarf down kazaa bullshit (besides, Kazaa is mostly throttled for everyone anyway. P2P is such a waste of resources, but I digress). So don't think you're going to be able to pull down at 4 to 5 Mbps on the "guest" network. What you WILL be able to do is check mail, browse the web and do activity and most "normal" people would be able to do. If you want to do high bandwidth wireless applications, you'd have to use the VPN.

    So, while this is authoritative I believe I can speak with some certainty that what I have said above is correct and true.

    Also, I want to state that my words here are not necessarily the official views of my employer, Case Western Reserve University and are my own based upon publically published information.

  50. Re:OK Everyone. Here's how it's really going to wo by sinnergy · · Score: 1

    Oops. s/authoritative/not authoritative/

    Sorry about that. *blush*

  51. not so useful by DT76 · · Score: 1

    As nice as it sounds, I think this is just another of Case's money sinks, like the (indescribably ugly) Peter B. Lewis building. ( http://weatherhead.cwru.edu/lewis/ ) They have updated the recommended systems ( http://www.cwru.edu/support/guide/info/specs.html ) to include wireless cards, but from my experience, most people will go with desktop models. When I was there, I wouldn't have been able to use it, and neither would most of the people I knew. Like many examples of high-tech gadgetry, it sounds great until you stop to consider how few students or faculty are actually going to use the service.

    1. Re:not so useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Especially with the fiber gigabit network at Case. Wireless is great and all, but when it's only 1% of the speed you can get with a wired connection....
      You do the math ;)

  52. World's Largest? What rubbish. by The+Cydonian · · Score: 1

    Everyone knows that Nanyang Technological University in Singapore is the world's largest wireless network campus in the world, even though it's beta noir, and long time rival, National University of Singapore has implemented a wireless network waaay before those crummers even thought heard about 802.11b. :-)

    --
    More than mere navel gazing.
  53. Not the largest "free" -or- "Public" Wifi network. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Once again, the fine members of the Slashdot community have misconstrued an article. The quoted article clearly says "free", yet the Slashdot blurb says "public". The largest "Public" Wifi network is T-Mobile's HotSpot. The largest "free" Wifi network, to my knowledge, is Purdues. The quoted article toots it own horn, while pointing out the ignorance of the overly excitable academic community at large.

    Don't get me wrong, I think its a great idea, and should continue to evolve.. but lets get the facts straight!

  54. Europeans built America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Typical that ragheads want to destroy it.

  55. Decline of Slashdot by darkmeridian · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    What's happening to Slashdot moderators? Some guy posts off-topic about Pringle cans and gets a five.

    PRINGLE CANS!

    Maybe I can write about Tostitos... ; )

    --
    A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
  56. CWRU's cash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yes, they have over two billions dollars.

    and they are a horrible institution. (i went to school there) tutition is outrageous, and students are treated as an unfortunate side-effect of being a money-grubbing whore-house. don't go there. ever.

  57. ahhhh by brian0918 · · Score: 1

    so that's why our tuition shot up to $24,000 a year.. so that Case (formerly CWRU) could make the slashdot headlines. (estimated cost of attendance is ~$34,000 btw)

  58. Re:OK Everyone. Here's how it's really going to wo by Jmstuckman · · Score: 1

    This will be great for CWRU wireless PDA users that can't run VPN software on their PDA. There's no good VPN software for Palm OS (Handspring) that works with the CWRU VPN right now.

  59. Computing at Case by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    When I went to Case, they had one computer for the whole campus, and it only had 0.25 MIPS and a 2400 baud serial line to Erie, Pennsylvania. We had to write in ALGOL. Using punched cards and magnetic tapes made of steel. When the campus upgraded to a new computer (1.25 MIPS), we had to pay for CPU time at $0.30 per second. We even had to buy our own cards.

    But I'm glad to hear it called Case again. The "federation" with Western Reverse University was a disaster. Case was a first-rank engineering school once, up with Caltech and MIT, and they totally blew it. Case was the only school ever dropped from the ARPANET for poor performance.