125-Mile WiFi Connection
Jason Striegel writes "Team iFibre Redwire smashed the WiFi distance record, successfully linking a distance of over 125 miles at this year's DefCon WiFi Shootout. They maintained a full 11Mbit unamplified connection for 3 hours using Z-com 300mw PCMCIA cards, surplus satellite dishes, Linux, and a great deal of hacker ingenuity. The best part: yesterday afternoon they said that they expect this rig would work at distances of over 300 miles. Here's additional team info, a couple pictures of one of their rigs, and some more technical details." I still wish I could find truly out-of-the-box Linux-friendly USB adapters, so I could get some tiny fraction of this distance, cheap.
At whatthehack there was someone telling about how he managed a 500 km connection (which is 311 miles says google)...
Perhaps this could mean real internet connections for some Cuban citizens again. It's close enough to Florida, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic to make it feasable.
Not many would be able to make use of it, of course, but every bit helps when you're living under a government such as that.