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What To Do With Old 802.11b Equipment?
CyberSlugGump writes "I am trying to declutter, and I have come across my cheap, off-brand, consumer-grade 802.11b wireless routers, PCMCIA cards, and USB adapters. The routers would still be good as 4-port 100Mb switches, and the other devices have at least 32-bit Windows XP drivers available. However, lack of security beyond WEP and the age of the equipment makes me wonder if it is worth any time putting it to use."
Simple
Just like any other crap, bundle it all up and put it on ebay. The alternative is landfill.
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
... a AMD Athlon XP 2800+, 1GB RAM running Ubuntu 8.10 back then... Haven't gotten any news since).
-- you actually managed to give away equipment without getting tech support calls about it every week for the next 5 years? Please provide more details.
who's moderating the meta-moderators?
You could use one of the old wireless routers to provide free & anonymous Internet access to others by routing all the traffic through TOR.
1. Disable any encryption & access restriction like MAC filters
2. Plug it into a separate ethernet port of a server / machine that's running 24/7
3. Route all the traffic through TOR
4. Throttle its traffic (QOS)
When your neighbor's Internet breaks down some day, they will be thankful for the free, albeit slow, Access Point of yours. Thanks to TOR, you don't have to fear any consequences for any mischief that's conducted over your AP.
simply donate MONEY to an organization that is involved in these things.
Yeah, because we all know that money goes directly to the people you want to help... (yes, there are some good charities but the vast majority puts most of the money in administrative fees or gets hung up somewhere)
Look at me, the rich person, doing nothing about their hunger, but giving them my trash I'm too cheap to recycle!"
This attitude is the reason why most people don't donate to the homeless or charities, if I have excess stuff that is working, someone can probably use it that isn't me. If I have money, I can use it because most of us don't have much of it at the moment.
Plus, there are a lot of countries where the people are just poor, not starving, but just poor and really, old computer equipment could probably help them escape poverty. I know I got my start in computers by playing with old hardware then figuring out what made them work and changing it, chances are someone poor can do that too.
Anytime you have "free" equipment, if you don't have a plan in place to replace/repair it when it breaks, it's not worth having - because you will end up depending on the equipment, which will be a disaster when it fails (and you have no money to fix it).
Just learn how to salvage. The majority of my desktops were built from old parts found for $.50 at a garage sale, an old HDD there, an optical drive here, etc. just wipe whatever OS is on there and replace it with a suitable replacement. Puppy Linux is always a good bet.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.