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MIT Wireless Campus Tracking Users

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the no-possible-misuse-here dept.

* * Beatles-Beatles writes to tell us the Associated Press has an interesting article about MIT's newly upgraded wireless network. The new network not only allows internet connectivity, but allows people to view how many people are logged on at a particular location. If the user has opted to make their information public the network will even allow you to see personal information on each user that is logged in.

3 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. Dupes by nother_nix_hacker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think the reason I don't like dupes is that when I see one it reminds me I spend way too much time on this site.

  2. Dupe! by zaguar · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Insert witty comment regarding /.'s propensity for duplication (linking to yesterday's story), comment of subscribers value for money, and finally finishing with another witty comment

    Suggested Moderation: +5, Insightful

    --
    "Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
  3. This is actually pretty cool. by Alioth · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is actually pretty cool.

    You know what I miss about computing from the early-mid90s? Back then there was a *community* that came with the Internet. Take for example, our university server, csd. Boring name, but you logged in and typed 'who' and there were usually at least 100 other users on the system right at that moment. None of them spammers, all of them showing real names (so no males masquerading as females). I made a point to always have 'mesg y' in my .profile so random people could use 'talk'. I also made sure I had a publically viewable .plan. It was cool to occasionally get an incoming message from some random person. Sure - you can do that now on IM networks, but the only people likely to message you are spammers. An IM network doesn't have a community. Our Sun server, on the other hand did. Getting a talk request meant you usually got to know someone new who was worth meeting or hanging out with.

    Also, not many people had laptops. Most of us instead of lurking in our dorm rooms would go to the communal terminal or Unix workstation room - so there was physical community that went along with it, which dorm room ethernet and broadband has probably ended.

    That's what I miss these days. You just don't get these little communities on timesharing systems. Computing is much duller for it.

    But perhaps systems like this one, with a wireless equivalent of Unix's 'who' command and 'mesg y' will bring some of this community back.

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