www.waverider.com (shameless plug for my employer)
Range like this is generally directional, especially with unlicensed products. Usually requires line of sight as well.
You will not find a product that will give you a 3 or 4 mile radius, and any kind of bandwidth for under a grand. Not even for 10 grand. Especially unlicensed. Even if such a product were available for $100,000 (for the base station, at the ISP), they would already be all over the place.
The range can be extended greatly if you use a directional antenna. (one on each end) I have done this, and it works like a charm. THe ratings they give are for their little crap omnidirectional antennas, that have almost no gain. A directional yagi will give you great directonal gain, and allow you to do what you want. If oyu aren't comfortable with it, explain it to a radio technician who can make the appropriate custom cables for you.
To make an example... one pair of cards, rated at 600 feet, with the appropriate antennaes turned into a 17Km link from a mountain top to a cabin. Not bad for a few hundred bucks in wireless lan cards, and some good radio antennaes.
Also.. running cat5 cable between buildings is not such a good idea, you run the risk of ground loops and burnt wiring. Better to use 10BaseFL (cheap plastic optical cable) if you want to do it this way.
The problem here is not with the radiation, but the definition of 'Microwave'. 'Microwave' is a generic term used to describe basically *everything* from about 2Ghz (maybe even 1Ghz.. I forget) to about 30 Ghz (where you get into millimeter wave). This spectrum covers a *huge* range of radio properties... it's not like you are desribing some tiny band.. like LF, HF, VHF, UHF, etc... That said, you are correct. Many Wireless LAN devices operate in the 2.4Ghz ISM band. Microwave ovens typically work at 2.45Ghz.
The main difference, of course, is power.
Proxim RangeLan II, 2.4Ghz ISM, approx. 100mW. Microwave oven, 2.45Ghz: Approx. 600 W.
So.. your microwave oven uses the same frequencies, roughly.. but at 6000 times higher power.
Also.. all that junk about microwave ovens heating water molecules by using 'specific resonant frequencies' is bunk. They do it by applying large amounts of power, period.
Now.. to address your latency issues... My friend, the latency for wireless is no different than through copper. Radio waves through air travel *faster* than signal through copper (not that it would be measurable without sophisticated equipment, or large distances). There is no latency associated with wireless. People do voice over satellite.. what.. do you think that's not latency? that's 1/4 second up, 1/4 second down, and the saem in revers.. 1 second RTT simply to geostationary orbit and back. And it uses microwave.. just the same.
Hmm. Perhaps you are a troll? Perhaps we need to play q3.. I'll use my wireless internet connection, (2.4Ghz ISM DSSS product) and you use whatever you want, and I'll still win:)
Having used both Proxim Rangelan II, and several versions of Lucent WaveLan (all pcmcia cards) in linux, I didn't have to many problems.
Neither has full source, you need a binary-only module (or in the case of the proxim driver, a library that you link against, I believe built from the Proxim reference source.) The Proxim driver was a bit bitchy in it's early days, but I'm told it works very well now.
Another note... most wireless LAN solutions have some kind of 'base station' or 'access point' they expect you to buy. If all you have is a few PC's, and it's for the home hacker, you generally do not need this. The cards themselves can communicate with each other just fine. The base station usually serves as the bridge (possibly router) between your wired and wireless networks, sometimes with added features like supporitng multiple transcievers on multiple channels.
Another trick with wireless LAN cards.. if you replace the omnidirectional antenna they give you with a good directional antenna, you can massively extend the range. I have seen Proxim Rangelan II cards bridge distances of about 15 Km and still be within regulations. This also works if you have a wall you need to penetrate that you can't quite manage without. (depends on the materials, though..). Also.. most wireless LAN cards, by regulation, must use a non-standard connector. Usually, it's a standard connector with the mating parts switched around. (this is to prevent joe average from hookingn his little card up to his linear amplifier and causing WW-III).
Hmm. I could go on for a while.. perhaps I should start a Wireless LAN HAcking FAQ?
About the same amount it costs to make anything else of the same size. The cost is based on R&D, and the fact that they don't sell nearly as many. When everyone is buying wireless network cards, they'll be dirt cheap.
We shouldn't, and I'm not debating that. What I am debating is.. If you *know* what you are doing is illegal, Open Source is not a shield. What Jon did in the DeCSS fiasco, he thought he was allowed to do, and at best, it's a grey-area thing right now. He did not set out to commit a crime. If you are stating that you want to reverse-enginner something, and you believe what you are going to do is illegal, and you want to challenge that in court, that's up to you.
And you know what's missing from the law? Retribution for misuse of the law. By one right, Jon was accused of some heavy crime, and was arrested for it. By the same token, if it turns out there was no heavy crime, and any part of the clam was bad..... someone should pay.
Corporate people do not simply 'like' to spend money, they just don't *care* if they have to spend money or not.
If you come and say 'we have a tool that does the job, and we back it 100%, and we have a huge support team'... yes they expect you are charging for that support. If you aren't, how are you affording to provide the level of service they expect? They don't use Motif because it's expensive, they use it because it's a standard.
And this will definately change as gtk and the like grow.
This won't help if the author lives in the US. The US Govt will still say 'americans found it, americans can get ahold of it, and this guy is an american, therefore, he must abide by american law'
Why? Code is code, period. All software should be free. Who cares if it's in binary.. it's *STILL* instructions that are understood by a computer, and I have every moral right in the world to read those instructions and translate them into whatever language I want.
I think it's more along the lines of this... Light is *not* a constant speed, it is only a constant for a given energy density of space.
When light travels through air, or water, it slows down (albeit not by much). I Think the theory goes that if you make it pass through a gas with a very high density.. it slows down even more.. and a BEC (Bose-Einstein Condensate) I believe can be used to create a gas or other transparent material with a very high energy density (BEC, if I recall, is basically a whole bunch of atomic nuclei stuck together acting like one large atom.. something like that). If this density is high enough, and the material is trasparent, in theory the speed of light throug the material could be slowed extremely. You are right, though.. they will make a whirlpool spinning at near light speed because they have slowed the speed of light;)
The instruction set is x86, yes. The chip is not pin compatable, and requires it's own unique blend of support chips, I would imagine (as any processor does).
The function of BIOS is like a mini HAL(Hardware Abstraction Layer)to deal with firing up the motherboard components in the right order, setting interrupts, and providing boot code to the CPU. This process is different for every brand of motherboard, and every chip out there. BIOS presents a standard interface to the OS itself.
Yes, the code morphing software loads before the BIOS. IT has to.. the BIOS is written in x86. But then the BIOS has to take care of the rest of the motherboard.
First, I totally support DeCSS and the like. ON that note.. I must point something out.
Who ever said we couldn't write a player for linux? Who is the 'they' that didn't write one? *ANY* developer can apply and get appropriate keys. Yes, it probably costs money.. but how much? Certainly, this puts it outside the realm of true open source.... but to say that 'they' won't allow a player for linux, or to insinuate it, is wrong. there is no 'they'.
Re:Is Censorship/control ALWAYS bad?
on
China and the MPA
·
· Score: 2
Yes. And Censorship would not have stopped this. Those who started it should be held responsible. And people, the public, have to learn to decide for themselves whether information is good or not.
ONe problem with technical support email is that it gets SWAMPED. IT is *SO* easy to send mail, people send mail all the time without thinking. If they actually had to write a letter, or talk coherently on the phone, they would work a bit harder to solve their own problems first.
A similar effect happens with the public.. they get email, and don't think about how easy it coul dhave been for it to be a hoax.. they assume some kind of 'effort' was needed to inform them about a riot.
The Truth in Advertising and the FDA regulations are not censorship. They do not prevent you from saying your bit. They simply state that if you *lie* or *misrepresent* what you are advertising/claiming, you can be held legally responsible. This is not censorship, this is how soceity shoudl function. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences of that speech.
Re:Is Censorship/control ALWAYS bad?
on
China and the MPA
·
· Score: 1
Yes. And Censorship would not have stopped this. Those who started it should be held responsible. And people, the public, have to learn to decide for themselves whether information is good or not.
ONe problem with technical support email is that it gets SWAMPED. IT is *SO* easy to send mail, people send mail all the time without thinking. If they actually had to write a letter, or talk coherently on the phone, they would work a bit harder to solve their own problems first.
A similar effect happens with the public.. they get email, and don't think about how easy it coul dhave been for it to be a hoax.. they assume some kind of 'effort' was needed to inform them about a riot.
Universities are *PRIVATE* networks, they are free to run their network any way they see fit.
If the government enstates controls, we sidestep them. If they block a port, we pick a new one. If they block a protocol, we tunnel inside another one. If they make the whole network innefficient, we build a new one. That's how it works. That's how we got what we have today.
It's one thing to say they can use technical solutions.. but those solutions have to exist! And they DON'T! And many companies, you can bet, have spent ENORMOUS amounts of money to find them, only to come up blank.
Remember...and this is the important part.. the Internet is a network of networks, a collection of public & private networks.. it's power comes from the common use of protocols and cooperation.
The government cannot tell me what to do with my network. They cannot tell you what to do with yours, and they cannot tell us both what to do when we hook them together.
Yes, they can create a chilling atmosphere. Yes, they can make you scared... and Yes, those of us on the net will continue to easily and effortlessly sidestep whatever regulations they try to put in place.
If they try to stop reverse engineering, it will go underground.. heck, tha's where us hacker/geeks have been our whole lives anyway, isn't it? They bust FTP? They bust HTML? Use something else. It's easy to do...
In the end, the technology and those who embrace it *will* win.
Well.. if the issue is bandwidth usage at the university internet gateway, then the university should take measures to regulate it's use, not by blocking certain destinations, but by either capping the bandiwdth, or having some sort of bandwidth-usage regulation, regardless of content.
The difference, is that serious domains was making money auctioning bulk product (linux domains) that get their value solely because of Linus' trademark. This is exactly what trademark law is supposed to prevent.
One person selling something to someone else because of the name is fine.. someone else really wants it. However, having a *business* based on making money *solely* off someone elses trademark is bad.
Because even the canadian channels rebroadcast americna programming, and because iCrave does not have a mechanism that allows them to comply with this court order. (no way to effectively prevent americans from watching their channels.) The easiest way for them to comply with the court order (as they seem to have decided to comply), would be to turn the site off, until such time as they find a better method of identifying viewers as canadian.
Slashdot Mirror
100 Meter band?
Most 802.11 cards I've seen are 900Mhz (918 orwhatever ISM band is..) or 2.4Ghz (ISM again).
2.4Ghz is about 15 cm.. not 100 Meter...no?
Linux, with kernel bridging should do the trick.
www.waverider.com (shameless plug for my employer)
Range like this is generally directional, especially with unlicensed products. Usually requires line of sight as well.
You will not find a product that will give you a 3 or 4 mile radius, and any kind of bandwidth for under a grand. Not even for 10 grand. Especially unlicensed.
Even if such a product were available for $100,000 (for the base station, at the ISP), they would already be all over the place.
The range can be extended greatly if you use a directional antenna. (one on each end) I have done this, and it works like a charm.
THe ratings they give are for their little crap omnidirectional antennas, that have almost no gain.
A directional yagi will give you great directonal gain, and allow you to do what you want. If oyu aren't comfortable with it, explain it to a radio technician who can make the appropriate custom cables for you.
To make an example... one pair of cards, rated at 600 feet, with the appropriate antennaes turned into a 17Km link from a mountain top to a cabin. Not bad for a few hundred bucks in wireless lan cards, and some good radio antennaes.
Also.. running cat5 cable between buildings is not such a good idea, you run the risk of ground loops and burnt wiring. Better to use 10BaseFL (cheap plastic optical cable) if you want to do it this way.
The problem here is not with the radiation, but the definition of 'Microwave'.
:)
'Microwave' is a generic term used to describe basically *everything* from about 2Ghz (maybe even 1Ghz.. I forget) to about 30 Ghz (where you get into millimeter wave).
This spectrum covers a *huge* range of radio properties... it's not like you are desribing some tiny band.. like LF, HF, VHF, UHF, etc...
That said, you are correct.
Many Wireless LAN devices operate in the 2.4Ghz ISM band.
Microwave ovens typically work at 2.45Ghz.
The main difference, of course, is power.
Proxim RangeLan II, 2.4Ghz ISM, approx. 100mW.
Microwave oven, 2.45Ghz: Approx. 600 W.
So.. your microwave oven uses the same frequencies, roughly.. but at 6000 times higher power.
Also.. all that junk about microwave ovens heating water molecules by using 'specific resonant frequencies' is bunk. They do it by applying large amounts of power, period.
Now.. to address your latency issues...
My friend, the latency for wireless is no different than through copper. Radio waves through air travel *faster* than signal through copper (not that it would be measurable without sophisticated equipment, or large distances).
There is no latency associated with wireless.
People do voice over satellite.. what.. do you think that's not latency? that's 1/4 second up, 1/4 second down, and the saem in revers.. 1 second RTT simply to geostationary orbit and back. And it uses microwave.. just the same.
Hmm. Perhaps you are a troll?
Perhaps we need to play q3.. I'll use my wireless internet connection, (2.4Ghz ISM DSSS product) and you use whatever you want, and I'll still win
Microwave works
Having used both Proxim Rangelan II, and several versions of Lucent WaveLan (all pcmcia cards) in linux, I didn't have to many problems.
Neither has full source, you need a binary-only module (or in the case of the proxim driver, a library that you link against, I believe built from the Proxim reference source.) The Proxim driver was a bit bitchy in it's early days, but I'm told it works very well now.
Another note... most wireless LAN solutions have some kind of 'base station' or 'access point' they expect you to buy. If all you have is a few PC's, and it's for the home hacker, you generally do not need this. The cards themselves can communicate with each other just fine. The base station usually serves as the bridge (possibly router) between your wired and wireless networks, sometimes with added features like supporitng multiple transcievers on multiple channels.
Another trick with wireless LAN cards.. if you replace the omnidirectional antenna they give you with a good directional antenna, you can massively extend the range. I have seen Proxim Rangelan II cards bridge distances of about 15 Km and still be within regulations. This also works if you have a wall you need to penetrate that you can't quite manage without. (depends on the materials, though..).
Also.. most wireless LAN cards, by regulation, must use a non-standard connector. Usually, it's a standard connector with the mating parts switched around. (this is to prevent joe average from hookingn his little card up to his linear amplifier and causing WW-III).
Hmm. I could go on for a while.. perhaps I should start a Wireless LAN HAcking FAQ?
About the same amount it costs to make anything else of the same size.
The cost is based on R&D, and the fact that they don't sell nearly as many. When everyone is buying wireless network cards, they'll be dirt cheap.
Yes. The community should support what is ethically right.
I guess I read the question more along the lines of 'I know what I am doing is blatantly illegal. How can Open Source protect me?'.
We shouldn't, and I'm not debating that.
What I am debating is.. If you *know* what you are doing is illegal, Open Source is not a shield.
What Jon did in the DeCSS fiasco, he thought he was allowed to do, and at best, it's a grey-area thing right now. He did not set out to commit a crime.
If you are stating that you want to reverse-enginner something, and you believe what you are going to do is illegal, and you want to challenge that in court, that's up to you.
And you know what's missing from the law? Retribution for misuse of the law. By one right, Jon was accused of some heavy crime, and was arrested for it. By the same token, if it turns out there was no heavy crime, and any part of the clam was bad..... someone should pay.
Corporate people do not simply 'like' to spend money, they just don't *care* if they have to spend money or not.
If you come and say 'we have a tool that does the job, and we back it 100%, and we have a huge support team'... yes they expect you are charging for that support. If you aren't, how are you affording to provide the level of service they expect?
They don't use Motif because it's expensive, they use it because it's a standard.
And this will definately change as gtk and the like grow.
This won't help if the author lives in the US.
The US Govt will still say 'americans found it, americans can get ahold of it, and this guy is an american, therefore, he must abide by american law'
Why? Code is code, period.
All software should be free.
Who cares if it's in binary.. it's *STILL* instructions that are understood by a computer, and I have every moral right in the world to read those instructions and translate them into whatever language I want.
I'm not judging you in any way, but something seems very clear to me.
If what you are doing is illegal, why should you be able to simply use 'open source' as a shield?
I think it's more along the lines of this...
;)
Light is *not* a constant speed, it is only a constant for a given energy density of space.
When light travels through air, or water, it slows down (albeit not by much).
I Think the theory goes that if you make it pass through a gas with a very high density.. it slows down even more.. and a BEC (Bose-Einstein Condensate) I believe can be used to create a gas or other transparent material with a very high energy density (BEC, if I recall, is basically a whole bunch of atomic nuclei stuck together acting like one large atom.. something like that).
If this density is high enough, and the material is trasparent, in theory the speed of light throug the material could be slowed extremely.
You are right, though.. they will make a whirlpool spinning at near light speed because they have slowed the speed of light
The instruction set is x86, yes.
The chip is not pin compatable, and requires it's own unique blend of support chips, I would imagine (as any processor does).
The function of BIOS is like a mini HAL(Hardware Abstraction Layer)to deal with firing up the motherboard components in the right order, setting interrupts, and providing boot code to the CPU. This process is different for every brand of motherboard, and every chip out there. BIOS presents a standard interface to the OS itself.
Yes, the code morphing software loads before the BIOS. IT has to.. the BIOS is written in x86. But then the BIOS has to take care of the rest of the motherboard.
First, I totally support DeCSS and the like.
ON that note.. I must point something out.
Who ever said we couldn't write a player for linux? Who is the 'they' that didn't write one? *ANY* developer can apply and get appropriate keys. Yes, it probably costs money.. but how much? Certainly, this puts it outside the realm of true open source....
but to say that 'they' won't allow a player for linux, or to insinuate it, is wrong. there is no 'they'.
Yes. And Censorship would not have stopped this. Those who started it should be held responsible.
And people, the public, have to learn to decide for themselves whether information is good or not.
ONe problem with technical support email is that it gets SWAMPED. IT is *SO* easy to send mail, people send mail all the time without thinking. If they actually had to write a letter, or talk coherently on the phone, they would work a bit harder to solve their own problems first.
A similar effect happens with the public.. they get email, and don't think about how easy it coul dhave been for it to be a hoax.. they assume some kind of 'effort' was needed to inform them about a riot.
The Truth in Advertising and the FDA regulations are not censorship. They do not prevent you from saying your bit. They simply state that if you *lie* or *misrepresent* what you are advertising/claiming, you can be held legally responsible. This is not censorship, this is how soceity shoudl function. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences of that speech.
Yes. And Censorship would not have stopped this. Those who started it should be held responsible.
And people, the public, have to learn to decide for themselves whether information is good or not.
ONe problem with technical support email is that it gets SWAMPED. IT is *SO* easy to send mail, people send mail all the time without thinking. If they actually had to write a letter, or talk coherently on the phone, they would work a bit harder to solve their own problems first.
A similar effect happens with the public.. they get email, and don't think about how easy it coul dhave been for it to be a hoax.. they assume some kind of 'effort' was needed to inform them about a riot.
Universities are *PRIVATE* networks, they are free to run their network any way they see fit.
.and this is the important part.. the Internet is a network of networks, a collection of public & private networks.. it's power comes from the common use of protocols and cooperation.
If the government enstates controls, we sidestep them.
If they block a port, we pick a new one.
If they block a protocol, we tunnel inside another one.
If they make the whole network innefficient, we build a new one.
That's how it works. That's how we got what we have today.
It's one thing to say they can use technical solutions.. but those solutions have to exist! And they DON'T! And many companies, you can bet, have spent ENORMOUS amounts of money to find them, only to come up blank.
Remember..
The government cannot tell me what to do with my network. They cannot tell you what to do with yours, and they cannot tell us both what to do when we hook them together.
Yes, they can create a chilling atmosphere. Yes, they can make you scared... and Yes, those of us on the net will continue to easily and effortlessly sidestep whatever regulations they try to put in place.
If they try to stop reverse engineering, it will go underground.. heck, tha's where us hacker/geeks have been our whole lives anyway, isn't it? They bust FTP? They bust HTML? Use something else. It's easy to do...
In the end, the technology and those who embrace it *will* win.
This is news? Gimme a break.
Slashdot is beginning to insult my intelligence.
Well..
if the issue is bandwidth usage at the university internet gateway, then the university should take measures to regulate it's use, not by blocking certain destinations, but by either capping the bandiwdth, or having some sort of bandwidth-usage regulation, regardless of content.
The difference, is that serious domains was making money auctioning bulk product (linux domains) that get their value solely because of Linus' trademark. This is exactly what trademark law is supposed to prevent.
One person selling something to someone else because of the name is fine.. someone else really wants it. However, having a *business* based on making money *solely* off someone elses trademark is bad.
Because even the canadian channels rebroadcast americna programming, and because iCrave does not have a mechanism that allows them to comply with this court order. (no way to effectively prevent americans from watching their channels.) The easiest way for them to comply with the court order (as they seem to have decided to comply), would be to turn the site off, until such time as they find a better method of identifying viewers as canadian.
Thank you for the correction. And it most definately *is* a court order.
But the headline 'iCrave loses battle' is terribly misleading!