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War Kayaking
ptorrone writes "As the summer approaches, we crawl out of our protective wired covered lairs to sometimes partake in outdoor activity. Last weekend, we went kayaking around Lake Union in Seattle, WA and of course, we couldn't help but bring along a lot of equipment and decided we'd hunt for open wireless spots, this friends- was "War Kayaking" we found a ton, charted it with GPS, Wifi finders and we'll show you how we did it for this week's HOW-TO Tuesday. We also shot a video in the kayak, be sure to check that out too."
This could become an Olympic Sport!
War Hiking
...
War SCUBA Diving
War Mountain Biking
War Snowboarding
War Golfing
War Rock CLimbing
What is your penile percentile?
We found a lot of spot to connect up to, some were really strong, some weak,
I suspect the SSID "dexter202" belongs either to a group of houseboats sharing a wireless LAN, or to a pharmaceutical company.
Sigs cause cancer.
Wow, you mean you can use a GPS on a Kayak? No way! I am going to start War-biking, War-wirewalking, War-firewalking, War-streetwalking, War-drinking, War-fucking (find all those important porn stores in seedy areas of downtown after War-streetwalking and War-drinking of course), War-Slashdotting (making a page load so slow because even though it shows the same thing as War-flying or War-driving people see "check out the video of us making you sea sick" and then flock to it), and of course, my personal favorite War-iPoding! Now you too can find all the iPods tucked away in BMWs and listen to the Universe from anywhere!
...war unicycling! ...war snorkeling! ...war base jumping!
sigh.
Yet another sign of technology running and ruining our lives.
When you paddled past Bill's house, did you find any open relays?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
we couldn't help but bring along a lot of equipment and decided we'd hunt for open wireless spots, this friends- was "War Kayaking" we found a ton :-) (that and getting stuck in the damn thing, upside-down)
You absolute nerds! Also, why didn't you just use the Smart ID Wifi detector? It's only $25, and therefore it trumps any pocket PC. Plus you don't risk as much if you get wet: something that tends to happen frequently when I Kayak.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
War Warring.
There were were fighting the Republican Guard when Private Morris picked up an open wireless hotspot on his HUD.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
Please????
WAREATING Take laptop into restaurant and see what WIFI you can pick. Then mayb eyou can find a place with both a good cheese steak sandwich and a decent internet connection. ahhhh paradise!
War-typing.
Quite a nice display of that, actually. =)
-Cyc
/.'s 10 Millionth
This just proves that people shouldn't be allowed to use WiFi unless they can password protect their networks.
Gotta Fire up the old GPS jammer again.
War Golfing has been around for years. Every time I go it's war with the tall grass, war with the trees, war with the sand traps and war with the whole damn course.
Evolution or ID?
Two networks with SSIDs of linksys and NETGEAR. How much do you want to bet we already know their admin passwords?
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Props on using satellite imagery for your overlay. I'm stick of Microsoft's gaudy maps, and I miss MapQuest's aerial views.
Nothing but the finest in meaningless drivel
> there's war driving... war chalking... now War Kayaking, and war orbiting? I can see where this is going...
War sex? Perv...
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Do they then warchalk their boats to remember where the hotspot was?
With a few plastic baggies filled up with the right stuff, you can make almost *anything* interesting.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I'm still waiting for war-base-jumping. You don't have a lot of time to scan for access points though.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
War skydiving
Right, so you throw the access point out of the plane, and whoever manages to find it, get close enough, and connect before hitting the ground wins.
Sounds like fun. =)GET THEM INSIDE THE VAULT!
Hmmm... Technically they're not kayaks, but it appears native Pacific Northwesterners and New Zealanders beat you to it with their war canoes.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Who gives a crap if there are open wi-fi spots on the water?
It's important for those who enjoy surf surfing.
Please donate your spare CPU cycles to help fight cancer and other diseases
The guys forgot to put some kind of floating device inside the baggies...
Their PDA maybe protected from splashes, but if they drop it in the water, they'll need to do some war-scubadiving to get it back.
Now squeel like a pig, boy!
Some ideas for using the latest buzzword, war-*:
war-diving: fumbling through kismet while tumbling through the air at 15,000 ftwar-gimping: using kismet/gps combo while in a wheelchair
war-muling: strapping your kismet running lappy on a mule while trudging through columbia
war-basing: giving a basehead your zaurus with kismet/gps addon card and letting it log the hotspots as it travels through countless hands and finally sits idle at a pawn shop after 22 hours
war-gerbiling: eh, don't need details here
and so forth...
I also reply below your current threshold.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I went war motorized paragliding along the east river in NYC. Got some interesting hits. I should post those logs at some point.
Sean.OutaHere()
But if you were on the water, how many of the WiFi network owner's pet names would you know? The point is that the sheer number of open networks, while fun to browse and borrow bandwidth from, is a general problem with inexperienced users getting advanced technology.
Everything should be secure.
My friends and I all went in kayaks and canoes and started to tip each other over in a full-scale war it seemed. You could see many kamikazes flying off their kayaks in order to bring down the large fleets of canoes coming our way. Those with the larger paddles often attacked from below and many people begin to recover their equipment after being detached making this last longer...
Of course, had we brought our Wi-Fi equipment we would have been screwed.
There's an outfit called Woosh Wireless in New Zealand that looks like it is already looking to serve the kayaking market, as demonstrated by their chief executive, Bob Smith.
Personally, I whitewater kayak so need two hands on the paddle at all times and would need some seriously waterproof, shock-resistant gear. :-)
Build a remote water-tight serial LCD read-out visible on the front deck, while the laptop, and non-IPX-7 equipment is behind a water-proof bulkhead behind the cockpit, (in a sealed water-cooled drybox for good measure). This way, you wouldn't have to do the laptop version of a "top hat" roll
(ie a "trick" roll where the paddler keeps an item dry by holding it out of the water and placing it on the now upright hull then grabbing it before rolling up completely.)
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www.fairtax.org
Lake Union is pretty lame. It's ringed by low-rise office buildings, a couple of marinas, and some old toxic industrial stuff. Lake Washington has some nicer spots, as does the Puget Sound, but even tiny Green Lake is more "amazing" than Lake Union.
Where is this outdoors you speak of?
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
i did in fact program the robots on my site to dance around, filmed it, documented it, shared the files. i don't really have fashion advice for anyone, i just document stuff i happen to like when i used to travel, i'm broke, in fact i'd kill to get to zero as opposed to in debt, so i don't think wealthy is an accurate term. i use "we" since it's the voice of the site. as far as getting a life...i'm willing to bet that i'm having a lot of fun and spending my time doing stuff i like as opposed to going out of my way to poke at someone :-] but i suppose that could be fun to some folks too.
I agree, don't try and occupy yourself all the time. Sometimes doing something simple with your full attention is just plain beautiful.
OTOH, at least they went kayaking. Outside. Credit where credit is due.
I agree with you on the one hand, but on the other: let him paddle his own canoe. In my case, my girlfriend and I are planning a long bike trip next year; I'm debating the merits of picking up a small wireless system with which to 1) document the trip and 2) 'borrow' internet connections for the checking of email & the like. Seeing the system this dude uses for kayaking is somewhat thought-provoking.
Time to start war drinking -- visiting bars with Wi-Fi access. I wonder truly how many variations on this theme we can come-up with...
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Seriously, folks, don't go around connecting to any old AP just because it's open unless the first thing you do is set up an SSH tunnel to somewhere and use it to redirect your traffic.
In another topic, I'm amazed that no one has set up fake T-Mobile or WayPort APs in cities just to grab CC numbers. It would be *so* easy.
John.
Who cares about wifi spots out on the river? I don't jump in my kayak to go browse the web or check my email. I specifically engage in athletic and recreational activity to get away from all that crap.
Honestly, this kind of thing is getting to be pretty sad. It reminds me of the commercial from Motomaster advertising their portable power supply (like a UPS for the outdoors.) It shows a family somewhere in the middle of a forest with appliances plugged in, and a kid on his friggin laptop playing games. I find myself asking "why did they leave home in the first place?"
"we couldn't help but bring along a lot of equipment and decided we'd hunt for open wireless spots"
Why not!? Leave your damn cell phones, PDAs, laptops and assorted other junk at home. Do you really need all that to enjoy the great outdoors? Does it enhance the experience in some way? I'd have a hard time believing anyone who told me as much. Sure, you can take video and thousands of pictures and show all your friends - maybe even do it live with all the hotspots - but you know what? People get so busy trying to "capture" the moment that they forget to enjoy it while they're there. Aside from which, telling a story and leaving it to your friends' imaginations is far more exciting.
I realize I've deviated slightly from the topic. The point I'm trying to make is that I think a lot of people really need to unplug and discover the world outside of electronics. Leaving all that stuff at home is what really enhances the experience. All you need is yourself and your kayak.
-kidlinux.
Doesn't anyone else find this even remotely saddening. That you can unplug for a weekend? Man...got to get away from the Matrix every once in a good while.
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
Summer in the northern hemisphere = winter in the southern. That's why the best place for my Christmas vacation is Autralia!
What is your penile percentile?
The same weekend was the Fremont Solstice Parade and fair. http://www.scn.org/fremont/fac/solstice.htm
There is a canoe rental down the street from
me that only charges 2 dollars per hour to
canoe on a lake.
War Dialing was cool
War Driving was nostalgic
War Flying was cute
War Biking, Skateboarding, Parasailing, Hang-gliding, sky-diving, monster-truck driving, walking, chalking, talking, and even steven hawking were just kind of uninteresting.
Now if a soldier in Iraq wants to mount an iPaq, Solar panel, GPS, and WiFi card on his helmet and call it War-War'ing, that *might* be cool enough to come full circle and be sweet again.
Until then, its off to Defcon and try to get a twentyseventhousandmillion mile 802.11b signal going.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
I detected a horde of access points along the way and am working on writing up a summary of what I found (vendor breakdown, how many had WEP enabled, how many had default SSID's, etc. )
I'm hoping to get it online fairly soon.
Holy shit, can't anyone unplug for a bit? It feels good to be technology free for a week or two at a time (that includes cell)! -d
Gone!
Bah, ignore the "only use technology when you're at work" trolls. They don't understand that some of use love to mix our technology with other hobbies. Perhaps they don't have the capability to do more than one thing at a time?
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
The 'we' thing bugs me too, Phil. Your 'how to' sessions on Engadget are interesting, but your use of the Royal We is kind of irritating. YOU did those things, Phil. Not 'we'.
You do appear to be having a lot of fun, but no wonder you're broke, you have a (if you don't mind me saying) LUDICROUS amount of gadgets. How many iPods does one man need? How many mobile phones? Where do you find the time to do all this stuff? Why do you always pull the same face in all your photographs?
I think we should be told.
Now wash your hands.
You can actually see my wife and friend's (co-owned) business on that map, which is on Eastlake. At least their access point didn't show up on your map though. Either because they are too far away (most likely) or because you don't show sites that use WEP.
Another misuse of technology: Intel surfboards
:)
What next? War Fishing? War Hunting? War Serial-Mudering?
Great! War Kayaking 301 should cover both the wireless networking /security requirement AND the general requirement for a PE class. Beats the crap outta running laps.
the "we" thing, okay- i understand that feedback, but that's the voice of the site, i'll see if it makes sense to change it for the how tos. thanks for the kind words on the how-tos, folks seem to like them. right now, i have 3 ipods and 4-5 phones, as i upgrade, i keep them and use them for other things, i might be ebaying some for $. as far as time to do all this stuff, i don't really sleep that much and right now, i'm taking some time off to enjoy life. and lastly "pulling the same face" wow, well- i can't change the way i look. hope this clears stuff up.
War'getting_a_life and leaving the electronics at home every now and then.
"Jim, this river is wonderful. Have you ever,..you know,....done it in a kayak. Not now Tracy the signal just went up to 79%."
You aren't going to find many hillbillies right next to Seattle.
Its a pretty interesting idea, and they mention downloading music and then broadcasting it.. that would be pretty cool. But honestly when your outdoors and away in the woods, at least around here, there's no chance in hell anyone has wireless. You bring beer, fishing pool, tents, food, boat or some variant and a woman if it so pleases you. No electronics, just an ample supply of beer is the key.
:)
By around here, I meant Ontario, Canada.
No, this is
Laika kind of commanded a space ship. Kind of.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
War skydiving
Yeah, it's about time someone did a 3 dimensional WiFi map. I want to know how high above a signal i can be!!!
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
Bring our own wi-fi hardware vs. just using internet cafes & the like. Pros: having our own hardware for image storage, email composition, etc. Cons: stealing bandwidth, having to be worried about valuable equipment, maintenance hassle.
I could see the full geek-out implementation involving solar charging and a bike cam either mounted on the handle bars or on a pole on the trailer. Maybe GPS tracking. Setting this up & keeping it running for a multi-month 4 to 5 thousand mile plus ride through canada & the US could be a royal pain in the ass, but could also be a very cool way to document the trip. The question: is it worth it?
I'm a skipper (captain) of my own boat, a deckhand or even a first mate on other boats where I'm hired.
I wouldn't mind the tide and navigation buoys having wifi access. That would be nice. Perhaps the greatest strength for Wifi or 802.11? in general would be over the ocean horizon because of the great line-of-sight possibilities. It will not be long until we see floating RFID Wifi WarBouys, solar-powered for Wifi-to-Satelite network access, traveling like little automated submarines around in the depths of the ocean.
I am always around Catalina island, as well as San Nicholas, San Clemente, and Santa Barbara islands; I'll claim First Buoy in the name of Petopia!
On what authority do you make that negative assertion? I submit to you that it is logically inconsistent for you to make that assertion.
:)
Disagree? Email or post a reply!
Anomaly
BTW - I agree that there are many places on the planet more interesting than Seattle.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
You must be new here....
Seriously, I completely agree with the parent poster. I thought the whole point of outdoor leisure activities was to get away from laptops, cell phones, pagers, television, etc.
I scuba dive, and it is a whole other world down there. A world with no cell phones, internet etc. where no one even knows exactly where you are. Well no one but your dive buddy, and even that's doubtful given his poor underwater navigation skills...
--If 50,000 people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
i don't have a shift key on this current device.
now what they need to do is modify the kyak to serve web content... then they'd have some thing
war criming!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
be in nature.
I know, it's a weird thought, but war-hiking, war-kayaking, war-spelunking, and so on are essentially removing you from the environment you're ostensibly in. Think of it this way: If you are in an art museum talking on your cell phone to a friend, are you really able to immerse yourself in the art? If you're out on the water or in the forest, or climbing a rock formation, and you're too attached to the network, you lose the experience of being out in nature.
I'm sure it was fun to go war-kayaking, and it's an interesting technology exercise. But I also wonder if it's becoming so difficult for geeks to pull ourselves out of the network that we're losing our ability to appreciate and enjoy the physical world that surrounds us.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
When the SSID starts with USS, you might want to stop right there and check your e-mail at another friendly WLAN.
Just think of the wififofum radar screen. Now imagine a screen just like that onboard that US Navy Destroyer. You and your kayak are the target. For invading the captains secret porn WLAN.
And they will have railguns soon.
Bring expensive hardware on a vehicle prone to flipping over when surrounded by water. I tip my hat to these risktakers.
Using your gadgets to unintrusively enhance your activities to is what it's all about. REPLACING your activities with a gadget is what people get all up in arms about.
Last week I was sure I saw U.S. President Bush war mongering...
Groan, boo, hiss, I know.
Jerks wouldn't know how to code their way into such a situation.
Non-jerks, OTOH....
Amber
Wind Beneath Thy Wings
who here first thought someone had devised a kayak with ramming spikes, side cannons, and the kayakers armed with lances?
It's called a hand roll. You don't need a paddle to roll grass-hopper. It's all in the hip-flick. (The other hand sculling helps too).
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www.fairtax.org
Good to see they gave you paddle floats (that is what's under the fore bungees, right?) and a pump.
If you're going to be fiddling with things in a kayak, you might want a paddle leash - tie about 6' of plain old camping cord to the bungee just ahead of you and to a velcro strap (west marine etc) around the shaft.
Next time cut some real cellulose kitchen sponges in half and toss one in each of those baggies... Baggies are convenient (hope someday I don't have to explain the pile of them in the glove box at a traffic stop) but they aren't foolproof and the sponge will soak up small leaks and let the bags float if ^H^H when you drop them overboard. Ask my Garmin 12 about that...
That way AFTER you get back on the boat and empty it, you can paddle around and collect the gear.
Else you'll be fishing for the bag$ of goodie$ while the wind has fun with your ride home...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I wonder if in bringing so much of our technology with us as we explore nature, we're failing to appreciate what is around us. As a kayaker you probably appreciate nature quite a bit. Maybe you don't. Maybe I don't appreciate it enough. I don't know. But what will happen if we keep bringing our leisure technology with us, even to the most remote corners of the globe? How will it affect our relationship with nature, if there really is nowhere to go that isn't permeated with technology?
Car camping is already an entrenched part of American culture. People drive their huge vehicles into a state park, get out the lawn chairs, hook up the TV, and turn an outdoor environment into an extended living room.
I'm not saying that your war-kayaking experiment was anything like this. But I think that the extension of the communications grid into environments that used to be relatively free of overt technology should cause us to think about its long-term effect.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Yeah? Well I went war-pub crawling last week, and one time I was lost at sea after a plane crash, so I went war-shipwrecking with my trusty pda!
Next week, I plan to have myself buried alive to go war-graving.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
This patent will never hold up. The Iroquois can claim prior art to "War Kayaking" from centuries ago.
Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
Is it logically inconsistent of me to claim that there is no invisible pink unicorn? On what authority would I make such a negative assertion?
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati
Lack of evidence seems to suggest a lack of existence of your theoretical unicorn.
The order and precision in the universe, along with the complexity of life and biological systems tends to suggest some contribution of an intelligent designer.
The question is whether you will investigate the evidenc for a designer with an open mind. I believe that the likelihood of an invisible pink unicorn is low given the evidence. Got any evidence to suggest that it *does* exist?
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Is there any evidence that would be sufficient to change your position on that issue, or is the nonexistance of a god merely a point of faith for you?
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I don't think we're really disagreeing that much on this... We should never be "slaves to technology". I also agree that there's a time to put the "toys and tools" away, and just enjoy what's there in front of you.
Still, it doesn't take a whole afternoon to appreciate the beauty of a waterfall or natural spring you hiked to get to, or a huge cliff you reached. You might spend the good part of the day trying to reach one of those things, and that's great. But many camping trips are more about finding a nice, quiet spot to pitch a tent and relaxing. In that scenario, I see nothing inherently wrong with firing up a laptop computer or PDA and catching up on a few things, if you feel like doing so.
I guess my point is, there seem to be some "nature freaks" out there with a decidedly anti-technology outlook, who act like you're commiting a crime if you show up with electronics to a campground. Sorry folks, but maybe I can be *more* relaxed after I've checked my messages and wrote back to a few friends.