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5 Cool Wireless Reseach Projects

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the welcome-to-sunday-morning dept.

Bob B writes "Including an effort by MIT researchers to exploit dense urban networks of existing Wi-Fi access points to create municipal wireless networks rather than relying on EarthLink and cities to fund and build such wireless projects. Secure tunneling is the secret sauce for making it work and not making wireless AP owners liable for miscreants who might use the bandwidth, the researchers say."

50 comments

  1. The summary text... by SuperBanana · · Score: 0, Troll

    ...is a great example of why TCP/IP has re-transmission. Now if only they'd implement duplicate story rejection...

    --
    Please help metamoderate.
    1. Re:The summary text... by fyngyrz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If a story looks like a dup to me, I just don't read it. On the other hand, slashdot's completely broken moderation forces me to read everything, unless I want to miss some really good posts. So if they were going to fix anything, I'd say moderation is where to put the effort, priority #1.

      As for the story, someone has to provide access to the net. Distributing it so that people get it from wifi puts the load - and the bill - on the people with the connections. As long as the Internet pipes are a commercial traffic system, unlike the highways, which are taxpayer funded (via the gas taxes, to some degree) traffic systems, "free" access always devolves upon one set of private individuals, for the benefit of others. That's fine if you feel like donating, but as we know from the history of downloading music, the ratio of freeloaders to voluntary payers is horrific and the payers take the majority of the load.

      I'm of the mind that like the highways, data "highways" have turned out to be essential to commerce, education and communications - and because of this, the government should manage them with an equally-shared tax among the citizens; and since unlike the highways, the intertubes don't wear out proportional to traffic, bandwidth should not be a significant factor. Our (meaning, the US) network structure should be rebuilt to carry about a million times what it carries now anyway, and removing it from the private sector seems like a good time to get that done. Probably cost a few days of "Iraq war equivalent funding." (that's hand waving, but surely, we could afford it.)

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    2. Re:The summary text... by BlueParrot · · Score: 1

      As for the story, someone has to provide access to the net.


      Why? No, really, why? If the number of people using wifi this way gets large enough you effectively have a p2p network on the physical layer. The only place you need a traditional ISP is for connections outside the city, and this is where the fun part comes in. You then don't have to live in the ISP's coverage area. Any company with a large quantity of bandwidth (Google, IBM ... ) could start acting like an ISP by hooking into the wireless network and renting you shells to ssh into. This is why you should expect AT&T and Verizon et al, to oppose this. It would absolutely destroy their monopoly. Then start to consider what happens when people start routing things through the 3G net, etc...

      Really, we have just seen the start of this. The telcos will get pissed thou...
    3. Re:The summary text... by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      Why? No, really, why?

      ...because 99.9999% of the things you want to get to are not in the local area — no matter where you are — if you're like 99.9999% of the rest of the people on the net. I don't even get my news from a US outlet, because they can't be trusted on the one hand, and because they would rather cover Britney Spears news than actual world events or even national US events. What am I going to do for news with only a local network?

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    4. Re:The summary text... by eufreka · · Score: 1

      this model was demonstrated YEARS ago...in a land far away.http://www.stockholmopen.net/index.php but no one will listen, even today. a muni wifi network does NOT have to offer free INTERNET access...it just has to provide ubiquitous access to commercial ISPs...http://software.stockholmopen.net/stockholmopen_1.shtml#SEC1 the muni network provides a single infrastructure and sells access not to users but to the ISPs, which then resell it to their customers. so the local cable co pays the city $3/mo per user of the wifi net and then sells citywide wifi INTERNET access to their existing customers for an additional $7/mo for example... meanwhile, the city offers direct access to muni services, non-profits, support for underserved populations and even subsidized INTERNET access to targeted populations, city departments, etc. how stupid can people (and business) be?

  2. ISP EULAs by nurb432 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This might ( most likely does ) violate most any ISP's eula. That also has to be dealt with as they want their cut too.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    1. Re:ISP EULAs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      http://itsmeusvita.blogspot.com/2007/03/legal-problems-with-municipal-wireless.html

      http://itsmeusvita.blogspot.com/2006/12/is-it-illegal-to-use-someones-open-wifi.html

    2. Re:ISP EULAs by LeafOnTheWind · · Score: 1

      According to one of the MIT professors that I talked to when I went there, MIT, as one of the founding members of the internet, retains Tier 1 status - so they actually have more independence and power than most ISPs ;)

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tier_1_carrier

    3. Re:ISP EULAs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmm... let's be realistic. Most academic papers have no bearing on reality, not that they should. Frankly, some of these papers are adding to the hype that may never come true. Just let it go...

    4. Re:ISP EULAs by Hidyman · · Score: 1

      The wiki article you linked would seem to disagree with what you say.

      --
      You can't take the sky from me ...
    5. Re:ISP EULAs by LeafOnTheWind · · Score: 1

      They are arguing the merits of being Tier 1 vs Tier 2 or another node - the point is that MIT is in effect their own service provider and doesn't have to answer to an ISP - which are mostly Tier 3s, or what some call "resellers." (Obviously there's some debate over the practical status, but I think you missed the point that MIT is independent and thus not subject to a "EULA".)

    6. Re:ISP EULAs by LeafOnTheWind · · Score: 1

      I take it back - they are not listed. The guy I spoke to must have been smokin' something. I wonder what he meant.... Maybe I2?

    7. Re:ISP EULAs by LeafOnTheWind · · Score: 1

      Heh, sorry for posting so many times: a follow-up. A couple traceroutes show that I'm being bounced directly from Level3 to MIT. If there are no other middle-men (none as I can see) that would make MIT a Tier 2 network which, as far as I can tell, would allow them to lease their backbone to whomever they want, but IANAL. http://www.level3.com/legal/acceptable_use_policy.html They do prohibit illegal activity, which could be a problem in public wifi.

    8. Re:ISP EULAs by abb3w · · Score: 1

      This might ( most likely does ) violate most any ISP's eula.

      The last time I checked my Embarq (formerly Sprint) DSL TOS and AUP, it not only didn't violate it, it discussed a few requirements for when you shared your access. (Namely, that your end-users also not $%^& up the network hardware upstream from you.) YMMV.

      --
      //Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
  3. Municipal Wireless using existing (private) APs by compumike · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The first project they discuss is using everyone's existing access points to effectively form a municipal wifi network. The paper linked from the article talks a lot about the security concerns, etc. It's an interesting concept, and I've thought about trying to use the fairly dense wifi network access outdoors in an effort to move data (GPS, etc) between my vehicle and my home.

    However, based on my experience with wifi, there seem to be one major problem here: interference effects. I already have problems that I can see about 6 different access points from my desk... on four different networks and SSIDs. The 802.11 spec only allows for three non-overlapping channels (in the US frequency bands, anyway). This problem gets worse as the capacity utilization factor approaches 100%, as it's more and more likely that two packets will happen to collide. This might be a huge problem for this kind of large-scale wifi, as 802.11b/g isn't really designed to operate well when you can see so many APs at once.

    In any case, I wonder if they're also overestimating the infrastructure deployment costs. One of the most amazing things to me was how, within a decade, everyone suddenly had wireless in their home and workplace. In fact, in urban areas, it wouldn't surprise me if there were 1 private access point for every 10 or 20 people. People aren't afraid to pay to get cool technology -- although it's a bit different when the government does it.

    --
    Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

    1. Re:Municipal Wireless using existing (private) APs by UltraMathMan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Seconded, I volunteer at a small elementary school with a one to one laptop program just a couple blocks from a major university, and interference effects are becoming more and more of a problem. Last I counted I could see something like 15-20 APs in one of the classrooms, and while sitting on the school's wireless network in that room you are guaranteed to lose all signal at least once an hour. This is obviously a problem, but moreover a dropped connection when using one of the network based programs (such as FASTT Math) results in the user being knocked out of that program, right now I don't see this technology being employed easily in a wifi dense setting until this problem of interference is dealt with.

      --
      Registered Linux User #423733
    2. Re:Municipal Wireless using existing (private) APs by RGRistroph · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't think that carrying out a full-coverage municipal wi-fi project requires adding access points where there are already access points. That was kind of the point of the article. New access points would be added were there are currently none, possibly. Existing access points would be used where they are available, and traffic tunneled over them in an encrypted form, for social and legal reasons.

      I think that this structure should help, not hurt, the access point clashing that goes on in highly dense urban areas. In certain office buildings in particular, there are just too many separate businesses that each want to run their own encryption-protected access point within the physical radius. With this scheme, some of those access points might go away, replaced by using the one local muni-wifi point, with the business willing to do it because they are confident in it's encryption.

      Another solution, would be to open up more bandwidth to the 802.11x protocols. That seems unlikely to happen from a political point of view. Maybe if some sort of software radio module became widely available, people could just take some unused spectrum. Encryption and tunneling to share what is already there seems more likely.

    3. Re:Municipal Wireless using existing (private) APs by mpeg4codec · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's an interesting concept, and I've thought about trying to use the fairly dense wifi network access outdoors in an effort to move data (GPS, etc) between my vehicle and my home.
      You may be interested in this gentleman's setup. It's somewhat light on details, but it proves that it definitely can be done.
    4. Re:Municipal Wireless using existing (private) APs by IhuntCIA · · Score: 1

      Another solution, would be to open up more bandwidth to the 802.11x protocols. Looks like 802.11n is the new one that maybe could satisfy the need for the bandwidth, and maybe slightly better range.
      However that won't solve the main problem, interference effects, as parent noted.
    5. Re:Municipal Wireless using existing (private) APs by randyjg · · Score: 1

      THere is plenty of highly effective interference mitigation techniques, time domain correlation and transform domain excision, for example. I have no idea why current wifi doesn't use these techniques to their fullest. Still, interference is an issue only because it is not being adressed, not because it is insoluable.

      As for ISP bandwidth, technically, if you have a CDN (via satellite downlink) the amount of bandwidth actually needed is minimal. Thats because if you are dealing with these neighborhood internets, most of the bandwidth would be carried between local nodes, and never hit the wider, carrier based internet.

      The curent interest in neighborhood internets had been considerably stoked by the collapse of major municipal internet deals, and whats happening in WIMAX. THere is a lot of (clandestine) political support for this, many elected officials are seriously concerned at Comcast's hold over communications with their constituents, and, in many communities, a little less exposire to outsiders is something they would prefer.

      NBC is currently available over the internet, and soon, all major channels will be. With the advent of Vongo, Itunes, Vonage, Skype, etc etc, there will be little need for a Comcast (or any telco's) presence in these neightborhood internets, Comcasts role (and business revenues) will be subsumed by the neighborhood internet itself...and the immense revenues associated with it. For about $15-$20 a month, you can get the equivalent of comcasts $100 triple play (phone, TV, Internet) and all that money STAYS in the neightborhood, provideing an enormous increse in the efficiencies of local economies and lowered taxes.

      For example, the one of the first shopping centers ever built, Lincoln Village, in Chicago, has 941,262 residents with an average income of $69,362 within a five mile radius. That same five mile radius could be covered by a single neighborhood internet easily. Lets do the calculation.

      Google's Maraki mini's cost $50 and covers a 150 foot radius. http://meraki.com/oursolution/hardware/mini/meraki_mini_guide.pdf
      THey have all the desired qualities (interference mitigating, next generation mesh network, Hosted NOC available, etc. http://meraki.com/oursolution/hardware/mini/meraki_mini_guide.pdf

      Lets see how much the hardware cost would be. (God, I hope there are no mistakes, I am doing this math in my head as I type)

      Circle packing problems are difficult, and in the presence of unreliability, rather imprecise; the ad hoc networks research is full of articles on how to calculate this. So lets just assume a fudge factor, and that a Meraki minikit can handle 250 square foot area, or about the size of a two large ranch homea in the area with 20% overlap onto neighbors. It is also about the distance between three street lights in the area, so, even if residents won't cooperate, it is known that the city will make any infrastructure available for free (Chicago has already put that on the table for Sprint, etc. They would do far more for a 501(c) with revenue sharing and local employment and business development like I am planning.)

      And lets assume, instead of a five mile radius, we have a square ten miles on a side, or about a hundred square miles. With 5280 feet in a mile that is 528,000 square feet 528000/250 = 2112 mini merakits, at $50 each (presumably, for that amount, we could get them a lot cheaper... Some far east manufacturers could produce them for about $5 each, if you didn't mind killing a lot of child laborers in the process) Lets assume we have a significant failure rate, so lets say, 2500 mini merakits. SO, roughly, $20,00 dollars and since it takes less than an hour to install a Merakit (more like 5 minutes, plug it in an let er run) 2500 man hours at $50/hour. (Yeah, I know it's overpaying, but its money FOR THE NEIGHBORHOOD. If you let each homeow

  4. Reseach projects... by jalet · · Score: 5, Funny

    Are they related to spelling checkers ?

    --
    Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
  5. Re:Reseach? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That, or the paragraph should end with "the reseachers say".

  6. ISP EULAs by CustomDesigned · · Score: 1
    This is only true for bottom tier discount service. Most reputable ISPs have higher grade plans that allow doing anything you want with the bandwidth - including sharing it. For instance, I currently use Cox cable budget plan, which in fact prohibits sharing, public servers, etc. However, for another $25 / mo (last I checked 2 years ago), I can get the "home business" plan with a static IP, no ports blocked, no monthly usage limits (except those implicit in the cable modem instantaneous bandwidth cap and the fact that the cable is shared with neighbors), and consequently no prohibitions against sharing or running public servers.

    Laptops in our home use openvpn on top of wireless. But I run WPA also and restrict internet access from the WAP, because I don't want the RIAA to blame me for some bozo in the street downloading Britney crapola. If I didn't have to worry about the MAFIAA, and had a public service I wanted to run to help justify the ISP plan upgrade, I would gladly run my WAP unsecured. Judging from the earlier story about MAFIAA treatment of universities with unsecured access, this seems unlikely to happen.

  7. Downside? by thatskinnyguy · · Score: 1

    If someone was leaching all of my bandwidth to the point of me not being able to get my email with something like BitTorrent, I would be absolutely pissed!

    --
    The game.
    1. Re:Downside? by antifoidulus · · Score: 5, Funny

      Dude, if you are checking your email with bittorrent, you are doing it wrong.

      --
      Monstar L
    2. Re:Downside? by psychicsword · · Score: 1

      What you haven't tried the new P2P email it is all the rage with today's youth. It goes directly trough the government using the bitorrent protocol. They even forward it to your desired destination. They even take the time to throttle it for you because you don't want to use too much bandwidth on emails now do you?

    3. Re:Downside? by Warbothong · · Score: 1

      That seems to be the only argument against sharing bandwidth. The problem with it is that you're ALREADY sharing your bandwidth, since your ISP will have sold the bandwidth you have payed for to many many other people. Thus, the only real difference between sharing a Wifi network and not sharing it is that in one scenario your ISP (which is shafting you) gets payed again and again for the same tubes.

    4. Re:Downside? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jay Marris, is that you?

    5. Re:Downside? by corychristison · · Score: 1

      Today's youth still uses e-mail? I was under the impression that Facebook, MySpace, etc. were the latest things...
      Facebook on Bittorrent, eh? Sounds like an interesting project! Anyone interested?

    6. Re:Downside? by Shadow-isoHunt · · Score: 1

      His inbox simply has *that much* porn.

      --
      www.isoHunt.com
    7. Re:Downside? by LingNoi · · Score: 1

      I have a good friend that uses facebook to talk to me. It's fking annoying as I have an email saying "so and so sent you a message" and then I have to go to the website to read what they said.. ugh.. Talk about having to jump through hoops.

  8. Obligatory by Inquisitor911 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    In Soviet Russia, Wireless researches you!

  9. reseach [sic] by ikebuma · · Score: 1

    6. wireless spellcheck

  10. Re:you Fail I7! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...is this a Turing test?

  11. "Secure Tunnelling?" by LM741N · · Score: 2, Funny

    Isn't that how the gophers communicated so efficiently in Caddyshack?

  12. FON wireless by subitophoto · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sharing wireless look what these guys have done. http://www.fon.com/en/

    1. Re:FON wireless by sciurus0 · · Score: 2, Informative

      For a noncommercial version, try coova. They release firmware based on OpenWRT that's makes running a hotspot relatively easy. More importantly, they run a service called AAA, which I think is basically a public RADIUS server. Set any wifi router that supports WPA/WPA2 Enterprise to use it and anyone with a coova.org account can log in. It even supports OpenID!

    2. Re:FON wireless by dogs4ar · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Finally, someone who gets it! I'm sick of all of these whiners who say "I can see 10 or 20 wireless AP's within range of my system, and it's killing me!" Gee, imagine all of those AP's converted into one mesh network. You'd only see 1.

      That's right, 1 network to rule them all. If that's too paranoid for you, break it up into 3 overlapping networks. Call them NBC, ABC, and CBS for historical reasons. I don't care. Don't assume that if this model gets implemented any time soon, though, that you are going to see a proliferation of AP's. No, that's not why we want this (and believe me a lot of us want this).

      The reason we want a municipal wifi MESH network is for redundancy, emergency services, and to wean our cities off of the cable/dsl duopoly. Also, a lot of you here are whinging about your ISP's and their terms of service. Get this, every one of you. If this model is put in place there will be NO ISP, unless you count the City of (Where-you-happen-to-live) here. Alright? A mesh is just that. No one controls it. It's the ultimate p2p network, and it scares the crap out of the telcos and cablecos because they lose control, pure and simple.

      Please, if you are going to post something in response to an article about "Mesh" networks, read something about them. My favorite sites are www.saschameinrath.com, which talks about a working mesh network in the Champaign-Urbana area, as well as www.wetmachine.com, which is a political rant site about how the FCC is screwing us all (OK, the second one is just for fun).

      For those of you whining that "evil people will use my bandwidth to download pr0n or talk to terr'ists, and I might be held liable..." you are uninformed about the law. Even if someone uses the part of your network that is nominally "yours" to send messages to your favorite band of evil-doers, you have no liability. You are covered under section 230, Title 47. The communications medium is not responsible for the actions of the people at either end of the line.

      Let's take this "the medium is evil, because it is used by evil people" to its logical extreme. Are privately owned automobiles illegal? Why not? I can run moonshine in them, or use them to rob banks. How horrible. Cars must be banned. Also, there was an event which took place, oh, I don't know some time in September, in which bad things happened to people inside of buildings and airplanes. I don't see the world attempting to ban either of those things. Of course, the obvious solution to all of our technological problems is to ban technology, and go back to the lifestyle of nomadic hunter-gatherers, but good luck getting the Supreme Court to support you in that argument. We may as well ban oxygen because it is used by evil people to breathe.

      My final point is this: mesh is the future, and it is inevitable. Who is going to construct the next generation internet? The incumbents? Give me a break. They're too busy rent-seeking on the crap they have sell us now.

      Change happens during a crisis, and if you have been paying attention, you will have noticed that crises happen more and more frequently around here. Also, you may know, unless you have contradictory information, that the fastest way to set up an emergency communication network is by putting up a mesh network. You get your emergency services up and running faster with hippies and WRT54g's, as opposed to corporate suits in their slick vans and PR people.

      And once people have gotten used to living in their post-warzone, post-hurricane, post-earthquake disaster area with a fast p2p network --(remember, the telcos and cablecos are going to limit you to the speed they think you can handle. You are going to be going as fast as the spec says you can go, which is currently 54mbps, with plain old 802.11g) do you really think all of these folks are going to want to go back to corporate mediated comms?

      The only real problems left to solve, for the people who are interested, are security (VPN tunnelling) and ha

  13. troll? by SuperBanana · · Score: 1

    Christ, can't anyone take a joke? The summary reads like they completely left out a sentence or three.

    --
    Please help metamoderate.
  14. Spelling -or- You're doing it wrong! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    5 Cool Wireless Research Projects -- Hey look, there's supposed to be an extra R in there!

    Spelling, bitches!

  15. So.. What do I need to do? by Kludge · · Score: 1

    So I leave my wifi open, but I only allow outgoing secure OpenVPN connections?
    Is that the idea?

  16. Article Spelling by billhuey · · Score: 0, Redundant


    For all of the comments in this article, I see nothing mention about the mispelling of "Research" in the title of the article.

  17. spell check please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What the hell is a reseach project?

  18. why do i want to open my AP? by atarione · · Score: 1

    what is in it for me?

    NOTHING...???

    have a bunch of moochers sapping my bandwidth

    opening my network to possible security risks

    quite possibly get deprovisioned for breaking my ISP's EULA

    run the risk that one of the moochers was d/l'ing child pr0n or was Al-queda and then spend much time trying to explain it was not me...NO REALLY

    it is a neat idea... but the downsides for the people you need in order to make it work... seem to really be unsurmountable.

    plus besides convincing them to do it... (even if you could get enough people to do it)... you'd have to walk hundreds thousands? of noobs thru setting up their AP's for it.

    it sounds like they might need new equipment or customer firmware also in order for the security part

    not going to happen.

    which is sad... but it aint going to work.... WiFi may not really be the best solution for ubiquitous metropolitan internet access.

    it is pretty good for what it was designed for (indoor) home/soho networks..(small) but trying to cover a city with it is just not practical..like handing someone a pair of pliers and telling them to go drive nails...

    --
    actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
  19. Summary of TFpdf by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Host APs: Allow any guest, but only let them make ssh tunnels (presumably to their home internet connection).

    *yawn*

    Wake me up when someone comes up with a solution where not everybody needs to have a wired connection somewhere.

  20. First Responders - Data sharing in Emergencies by Furmy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The paper describes outfitting such devices as the handheld computers used by first responders with elements dubbed a "device root key" and a "storage root hash" to enable temporary access to information.

    I think this idea needs to be pursued. Having immediate but temporary access to need-to-know info such as medical history, contact phone numbers, and even a programmable access card for building (apt or condo) access to respond to 911 calls would be excellent.

    The temporary, secure design would reduce the risk (or just the fear) of having first responders abuse the info (i.e. using a 'universal' key card to access a building during a non-emergency. As a first responder I know time would be saved if I could enter a building during a call without needing to enter buzz codes, etc, but I don't want to have the responsibility of universal access.

    Expanding the system to share location/status of first responders/patients/threats/etc, along with live-updated info from the control centre would be very valuable.

  21. Re:you Fail I7! by LingNoi · · Score: 1

    Reading this is making my brain work overtime to try and decipher its meaning.

    It's like a one of those Nintendo DS brain training games except it hurts your head.