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Open Networking 112

Posted by CmdrTaco from the free-as-in-bandwidth? dept.
New10k writes "Here is a feature article on guys in Seattle, San Francisco and elsewhere who are bringing the Open Source ethic to the idea of an available to all wireless Internet. Includes a short explanation of telco vs. free methods of providing access." I know folks who do this already, just not with permission (roam around cities with sniffers and find networks that aren't locked down ;)
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Open Networking

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  • Re:Not through walls? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's nice to see that the author thinks that 802.11b cannot go through walls. Patently untrue. Yes, the protocol itself is completely independent of the transmission method (for example you can send ATM cells over fiber, or copper, or even wireless conceivably). What the author probably meant is that the UHF 2.4Ghz signals that the protocol is transmitted on will not propogate through dense obstacles. In a home network in a wood frame house this is not a problem since the wood/fiberglass insulation in a home does not interfere with the signal. However in the outdoor context that this article addresses the steel infrstructures and other metallic and concrete obstacles there will indeed block all but line of site transmissions at 2.4Ghz. For greater reception you generally must move to lower frequencies, but doing so means you have to use a larger chunk of the frequency band to push the same amount of data (and it means you are outside the frequency band allowed for 802.11)

  • The *real* problem (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The real problem with 2.4 Ghz is simple. It is not that the bandwidth will be simply saturated. It is that there is simply too much of it out there to maintain clear communication channels over time.
    It is not just LAN and point to point network equipment in this range. There are 2.4 Ghz video cameras, cordless phones, and, yes, your microwave oven. Try it. Set a laptop or a PC with a 2.4 Ghz (microwave) network adapter in the proximity of a microwave oven. Start a data stream. Start heating some food or water. Watch your performance degrade.
    Even the same type of equipment in neighboring areas will interfere, not just a little bit. It can take a system off-line. A single client with a weak/poor connection to a central access point will degrade performance to the entire cell. Watch your investment dollars. Have fun anyway.
  • what are you talking about?

    $160 for an 802.11b card.

    Your local network speed will be much higher than DSL or cable.
  • the $800 price is for someone who wants to set up an actual repeater node and grow the network. If all you want to be is a user, it's about $160 with no recurrent fee.

    How much does that DSL modem cost? Now how much does it cost for the service?
  • Not sure how many people would want to pay for service that deteriorates when it rains

    Yea, that sucks with satellite TV too ... at the moments when you feel like watching a bit of TV, like when it's cold, windy and rainy outside, the TV goes out too .. bloody thing.

    If the internet connection was out too it'd be pretty damn terrible! :D

    --
  • The idea of a ubiquitous network where you can get 'online' and be assured routing of your info is great -- however the grass roots bit will probably fail.

    Perhaps, the better way to pull this would be a subscription-based thing. $5/month for that constant connection.

    This does allow for all kinds of lifestyle reflection. In addition to being yet another way to find you, it'd allow for point of view cameras all over, even a virtual overlay a la CyberGeneration.

    Anyway -- I'm done.

  • Apple's airport base station internals are Lucent, too. here's an article about how to upgrade the encryption it uses:

    http://www.msrl.com/airport-gold/

    One cool thing is that you can also use the newer Apple computers as base stations. So if you have a desktop & a laptop, you can use the desktop as a base station & then get wireless web surfing around your house with the laptop sharing the desktop's connection.
  • I have been interested in starting up
    one of these in central NJ for a while now.
    Is anyone interested? I could definatly act
    as a node although I have squat for net bandwidth.

    Mike
  • I'm sorry, but I cannot buy this. These devices use spread-spectrum technology: they don't stay on any channel but for some number of microseconds. they then shift to a another channel, and that next channel is selected based on an algorithm which is seeded by the SSID. You can't just brute force it that easily.

    I think I'm still looking for someone who can *demonstrate* that it is easy, instead of just claiming that it's so.

    A.
  • http://www.enterasys.com/technologies/wireless/
  • I belive that the reason you can only use 104 bits is because the encryption uses the mac address as part of the key (cannot remember where I read that, sorry).
  • once again, people post a new topic instead of noticing this has already been mentioned in a previous comment.

  • Aren't there regulations governing the use of the 2.4 GHz frequencies? Isn't it illegal to use them unlicensed? I'm not a HAM operator but I am working toward my license and I was just wondering about the stipulations on this.
  • <BLOCKQUOTE>....and this is how the FCC operates. Fortunately their budget is relatively small,
    </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>

    But now that there are Evil Hackets and net.paedophiles involved we must <B>Protect The Children.</B>
    <P>
    Expect appropriate budget allocations.
    <P>(See also "war on drugs")
  • Basically, you can find our planning so far
    <A HREF="http://www.seattlewireless.net"> here </A> ifn' you were too quick to read the story, follow links etc. Granted that's only for the Seattle one, but there's links to the others too.

    I'd really like to see this guy with the sniffer. It hinges on a lot of different things.

    1) That's there's more people using 802.11 than I actually thought.

    2) That the users went out of their way to subvert the basic encryption features on 802.11 cards.

    Neither one of these would surprise me, but I can't really see it being to the point where it would actually pay back the time spent cruising around the city looking for it. Then again, if you have nothing better to do.... :-).

    Just because it's wireless doesn't mean you have to throw security out the window. Can you give me a good reason why FreesWan wouldn't work just because it's going over an 802.11 connection instead of a land line? Plus, with recent releases of PGPNet, you don't have to worry as much about which OS you're using to connect to the FreesWan servers in the first place.

    I think at the first meeting of Seattle Wireless it was expressed best, "If we get it to work, great. If we don't get it to work, still cool, cause we got to learn a lot of new things, meet new people interested in this, and drink some beer." I'll let other people argue whether or not that beer was free. :-)

  • here at columbia university in new york, we have a public wireless network, although it only covers the main quad of campus, it's open to all, which is a suprising move for columbia, which tends to shy away from innovation when it comes to these sorts of things.
  • I live close to the wireless part in San Francisco (Richmond district near the Presidio), but they don't tell you how far away you can be to reach their stuff. Does anyone have any info on distance, and strenght? Don't want to invest $800 if it won't work at my house.

  • For more public wireless links check out:
    www.seattlewireless.net/
    www.teleport.com/~samc/psuwireless/

    And at burning man with sat link:
    www.eugeneweb.com/~bm/ibm.html

    I think all of these are 802.11 based.
  • So, can you (or anyone) just arbitrarily sniff on an unencrypted RF network without knowing anything about the network (like the SSID, for instance)? If so, how?

    Yes.

    I have a home 2.4GHz wireless network. I live in a fairly large (416 unit) apartment in downtown Saint Louis.

    Every time the linux-wlan [linux-wlan.com] package starts, it lists all the other wireless networks it can see. When I first set the package up, I noticed on Channel 6 that there was an SSID listed named "dave". Low and behold, configure anything on my network to SSID "dave" and I have full access to this guy's network. He lives downstairs somewhere, from what I can tell.

    Now, granted, I'm not trying to break in to this guy's network. I'm just saying that for a total of a $115 investment (Pentium 166 I obtained for free + Zoomair 2.4GHz card) I am able to see what 2.4GHz wireless networks are within my reach. If I had a laptop with Linux, I can roam around and find out even more I'm sure.
  • For over 10 years, Dave Hughes has been traveling the world, wiring Indian reservations and Russian towns and all sorts of places. He calls his community networking service Old Colorado [oldcolo.com]. And he's been pushing the FCC for years to open up some spectrum. Understands the value of multimedia too.
  • You can configure an Airport fine using FreeBase [sourceforge.net]. Windows only unfortunately, but I suppose you're more likely to have a box that will run Windows than a spare Mac.

  • Woah. I.. really really like this. I think I like this more than my Palm. In any case, I imagine that I will be picking one up as well. It'll make DnD games a lot more interesting :)
  • Is anyone living in New York City doing this? If so, I'd like to help.
  • The Symphony bridge I have set up uses signal hopping...it chances frequencies every few seconds just like the Borg's personal shields ("They have adapted"). It only accomodates a few people, though. You'd need a much more expensive RangeLAN if you want a wide range and lots of access capability.
  • Hahahaha... I did the exact same thing! I used a 555 timer to clock a 4020 binary counter and fed its first 10 output bits to a Stanley keychain garage door opener circuit board. I just desoldered the microswitches and connected the outputs of the 4020 directly to the board where the microswitches were. It worked beautifully. It took about 3 minutes to go through all 1024 codes. My friend and I used to drive around residential neighborhoods for hours just shootin' the shit and opening people's garages. There were some neighborhoods where we'd get 4 or 5 to open in one 3-minute run.

    The funniest incident by far was when a guy's garage opened which clearly hadn't been opened in a long while. There were boxes piled high against the door which all spilled out onto his driveway. This was at about 1:00am and we were on foot, and it took all our will power to keep from laughing very loudly as we quickly walked away. We walked back to my car and drove past the place on our way out of the neighborhood and saw a guy outside in his bathrobe picking up boxes. We probably should have felt guilty, but we just laughed even harder. He must have thought aliens had abducted his garage door.

    As far as wireless networks and security go, I'm interested in using the Cisco Aironet products for a project like this. They have a "system ID" for security purposes (I think it's a 24-bit value) which at least provides a basic level of security, but I don't think that would be quite enough. I also don't know what the deal is with 802.11b network cards as far as whether it's possible to put them into promiscuous mode and/or change their MAC address. I've heard rumors that one or both of those things aren't possible with some cards, which would definitely improve security substantially.

  • Talking about insecurity, I think that sniffing might be usefull for saving on bandwidth. Just think of how many people are looking at a pecitular site at any one time, or would love to download a high quality version of the latest Fan Sub'd Anime movie (insert favorite series here).

    Heck, why not have one user download a file and everybody else hop on for the ride? User A downloads the file on their large connection, and shares it wirelessly to users B C D etc. This would save on both the ISP's bandwidth and the servers bandwidth, and on bandwidth on the internet in gerneral.

    This could be taken even one step further, as communities could have general proxy servers that could act as area wide internet cache's, @Home does this already for all of there users (you can bypass it if you want to go through the trouble to get an extra 10kps or so, and knock 5ms or 10ms off of your ping) and works resonably well. The automatic mirroring of certin pages (Slashdot.org and all links on the main news page would be nice for starters, I still can't get through to those darn pictures of Jupiter!) and contant caches of other pages, such as www.newgrounds.com could help the local community save alot of bandwidth. You even use a distrubuted networking setup and have the cached data spread pseudo-randomly about the computers of volenteers (have some extra HD space to donate to the community as a whole, well then, sign on up!)

  • but 20Mbps still seems very optimistic with any kind of hardware

    This very morning I visited a company called NERA [www.nera.no] who make equipment for doing precisely what we are discussing (internet over radio links). Their top of the range point-to-point systems will do 155 Mb/s.

    This sort of thing is not cheap and certainly not affordable for home use, but I was not suggesting that people could easily implement even 20 Mb/s links. I was just pointing out that available RF bandwidth is not the limiting factor.

  • Specifically where in Central NJ? Depending on where you are in relation to me we could see if there are some college kids who want to get involved.
  • 802.11b supports 128b encryption (WEP)
  • but even 30kbps is usable for e-mail and light web use, turning the morning Caltrain or BART ride into productive time

    Heh. I'm only barely productive on Caltrain right now because I have no Internet access. Must...fight...temptation...

  • I see this thread getting off topic.. so this should make you content in my reasoning.

    OK, how many people are actually looking forward to the internet being split for a period of time and the complete flipflop of what you have been doing up to this point? .. c'mon.

    You will lose connectivity with sections of the known internet and the on-line world as we know it now will be split.

    Don't get me wrong the 'concept' of IPv6 is there, we just need to find a better way for this to be done.
    I really don't see our near future in IPv6.

    Just my humble opinion.

    .ph0x
  • Just as a quick note for a tack onto my other post..

    As a cyber-prophet(or whatever) I forsee that most of the Internet will be come similarly segregated nodes. joined together through a system of main-pipe gateways. and NAT-like address management.

    DECENTRALIZE!@%&^@%!&
    ;)

    .ph0x
  • Well I think that this is a great way to actually relieve the stress of todays networks. Think about it.. what would be faster?, an overworked network or multiple semi-segrigated bridged networks?

    I think the latter is the choice we need to go with. we could say screw you IPv6 and stay with IPv4 by segregating into smaller internal addressing schemes.

    .ph0x
  • "...say 'screw you IPv6 and stay with IPv4'..."
    And *why* would we want that? Why is it that you don't favor IPv6?
  • 802.11 supports something called WEP or Wired Equivilent Privacy, a 40 bit encryption system. To be an 802.11 product you've got to support this.
  • This uses spectrum called "ISM" (Industrial, Scientific, Medical) that is essentially unregulated worldwide. It's the same spectrum your 2.4GHz cordless phone uses. Lobbying or not, it'd be very nearly impossible to take back this spectrum.
  • Dude... We all did that one the day garage door openers got remotes... But what is real fun is when you can capture the channel frequency from someones built in car remote and change it on the fly effectively locking them out of their own garage.
  • Last time I looked, APR was still stuck in the dark ages, technology-wise. People were still running at 9600 bps, and you had to use explicit routing ("send this to A and from there to B and from there to C ..."). Unless vast technological strides have been made lately, I wouldn't even consider it usable for anything but email.
  • Slightly OT, but anyone else have an ELSA Airlancer MC-11 and got it too work under Linux? Its really a lucent Orinoco card but I can't get any drivers to work with the thing under Linux.
  • FCC regs cover things like power, and range of antenna. IANAH (I am not a HAM) so look into it further yourself. But there are plent of people who buy the better antennas, post them on their roof tops and point them where they'll be.

    I had an apt. in Tel-Aviv and pointed my antenna out my apt. window at my office in Ramat-Gan, or at Hayarkon Park, and could get decent signal, enough to browse /. of course, the office had ISDN, so wireless in the office was more to show off than serve a real point...

    My point here is, it does work, and if done right, falls right under the point where the FCC gets edgy.

    A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
  • Yup, you're right. My words of advice there were meant so that the person I was replying to didn't think they'd get out cheap by buying the apple card and using it in a pc laptop or desktop w/adapter. My thinkpad uses the buffalo/melco 802.11 card and my g4 has 10/100/1000 onboard, with the antenna for the 802.11 card... I figure there's not too many occasions where I need a big desktop tower to be wireless. (course that might have something to do with my spool of cat5 that my future wife wants me to get rid of...) :}

    A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
  • 800 dollars? what are you talking about?
    I have the techworks.com airstation and card (802.11b) and spent 140 on the card and 270 on the base station. if you're just interested in trying to cruise other's networks, just get the card.

    100 dollars if you buy the lucent silver orinoco in it's apple form. (apple form is without the antenna...choose wisely)

    A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
  • For those who havnt seen it have a look at this: Cybiko [cybiko.com] its a 900mhz networked 'pocket computer' with its own OS, free software (dloaded from net). VERY neat little toy - ive just ordered one for my niece - I want one for myself ;). They also make a SDK available for those who would want to hack it

    The device will set up an adhoc network consisting of these devices when they are in correct range (150 - 300 ft) Not enough range really - but certainly neat display for a child's toy.

    Very neat tech for less than $100. There is a 'mail in rebate' for a free add on module that makes the device an MP3 player as well..

    No im not getting paid for this - Ive just been reading alot of reviews etc trying to decide if it was appropriate for an Xmas gift this year...
  • Yeah, it will happen. The actual radio (in the case of a Lucent silver card, which is what Apple uses) is what tracks all the different connections. So it doesn't matter how fast a processor is being used with it, the radio itself is the limiting factor. The more clients you have, the slower the speeds. And as each packet has to be ACKed, functions that are highly interactive run slower.
  • This will always be a problem with packet-radio style technologies like this. Current wireless standards are pushing to a packet-radio style architecture, and they are grappling with this very problem. Currently, all voice traffic on a wireless link is scrambled... however, the trend is NOT to have mandatory layer-2 encryption for packet data. Rather, the general consensus is "if people want security, they better enable encryption themselves, 'cuz we won't". So, yeah, if you don't want your IRC sessions or telnet connections sniffed, either encrypt the sessions themselves, or set up an encrypted tunnel with a fixed host somewhere and tunnel all your traffic through that with the fixed host acting as a gateway/relay. SSH does this quite nicely, or you can go the way of IPSec (or TLS/SSL for TCP stuff).
  • Nullsmack's 3rd law.. if someone else is doing it, then it won't be illegal for long. Unless there is a completely illogical reason for it being illegal.. then it'll be illegal for a long time to come.

    (observe the consumer flogging that is occuring thanks to the DMCA)

    I actually got questioned like that when I wanted to buy a cellphone to "attempt" to modify for ham bands (I've heard of ppl doing this).. exact words went like this "What would you want with a cellphone without a service?" "To modify for amateur radio bands" "Isn't that illegal?"

    AFAIK, the 2.4ghz band is completely unlicensed.. witness the string of 2.4ghz cordless telephones, video transmitters and other AOL-leeches type of products being released.
    I predict that the 900mhz band will be free before the 2.4ghz band is (By then, we'll be buying 10ghz telephones and video senders.. with a 15mile radius that are constantly interfereing with each other... typically)
    -since when did 'MTV' stand for Real World Television instead of MUSIC television?
  • Here in Canada I pay 40 bucks (Canadian) a month for ADSL or Cable (I've used both). So at that rate, this scheme might pay for itself after 2 years, but in 2 years I'll probably have a faster and cheaper connection anyways.

    I run ADSL in Canada also. It's a bargain, but it doesn't help me with my notebook when I'm sitting in Chapters or the library or a hotel lobby. I'd love to be able to tap into stray RF networks around downtown rather than working offline.
  • I sure hope that the grassroots part doesn't fail. I see it as the key to success! It would be my hope that the network access is the "tip of the iceberg" There really isn't much to keep this technology from doing a lot more (like GPS location services, telephony and so on).

    From what I see, they key to success would be to keep the nodes small and local like digital cellular. If that isn't done things could get slow fast. Unfortunately, the last mile isn't the only component in the system.

    My concern is that even if this works for the last mile, how do you pay for the connection to the rest of the structure? It is currently commercial and is paid for by someone even if you are using a free ISP.

    There has seldom been good colabaration between for profit and anarchisic groups. How does this bridge get crossed? I don't have the foggiest.

  • Do a search on code hopping devices. Most new alarms and door openers use it to stop this type of hack. Each time a remote button is pushed, it uses a new code. Used code is rejected. This prevents captured code from working later. The receiver follows the code sequence of the remote. It uses lots more than 1024 combinations. This makes sequential scanning take a long time and sequential codes are rejected. No dip switches are used. The receiver has to learn the remote by entering a program mode on the receiver and reading the remotes current count. Remotes have both a fixed serial number and changing code. They are hashed together. This provides security and the ablility of the receiver to learn and track several remotes. It also prevents an off the shelf hacked remote from finding the right combo. It will always have the wrong serial number. Most remotes of the code hopping type have enough unique combinations to never repeat a sequence in a lifetime of normal use. Digital security has come to car alarms and garage door openers. There is still some older openers out there. Car alarms generaly are not very old and use the more secure stuff. Hacking the panic mode is just about impossible. Most openers can easly have the receiver replaced as an external item. This is an easy way to secure your garage. The old receiver makes a great remote for a wireless doorbell. (I did mine myself)
  • True, but just so you know, Apple's hardware contains the needed antennii (sp?), so the card's fine with them.
  • If we avoided subjects that have been previously discussed, we wouldn't have much to say, would we? I mean just because we've discussed Linux before doesn't mean we should no longer mention the word. This is a different topic because it's a different group of people. The only true repeated discussion would be one that is word for word the same, because every statement has a slant that makes it different. Some of us are interested in hearing news from all different perspectives.
  • I think the Open Source Ethic term (which I used to describe the article in my posting to Slashdot) applies NOT ONLY to the network bandwidth being free and open, BUT ALSO to the coalition of people working on it in the true hacker spirit of cooperation and sharing and exploration. AND ALSO, a lot of code will be needed before this goes beyond a few good hardware hacks and becomes The Next Big Thing -- there will be plenty of opportunity for good Open Source software to support this thing.

  • Re:What about the FCC? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Good points. I'm surprised none of you 'geeks' haven't mentioned Ricochet yet.

    Ricochet is going to cover 100 million people in the U.S. before the end of next year, and while it isn't as fast as 802.11, it is infinitely more reliable and designed by a company that has Paul Allen and WorldCom's blessing (and money).

    http://www.ricochet.com [ricochet.com] It's a wide-area LAN that uses hundreds of Microcellular Digital radios (usually attached to light poles)arrayed around a city in a checkerboard pattern, with Wired Access Points directing the mesh network traffic onto tthe wired internet. It uses the 915Mhz and 2.4Ghz bands of free, unlicensed spectrum, so it avoids the billions of dollars of spectrum costs that the cellcos are going to have to pay for 3G...and here's the best part - it is available today at 128kbps, going to 256 and then 384kbps within the next two years.

    Streaming media on a laptop, batman! I live in Santa Cruz and work in San Jose - but with my Ricochet modem (available in PC card form later this month) I can check my e-mail wirelessly from anywhere in the Bay Area - or Dallas - or Mahattan or anywhere else the network is eventually deployed. A co-worker of mine rode the ACE train from Fremont to work the other day, and stayed connected to the internet the whole time at 30-40kbps. The 128+kbps speeds (I've gotten as much as 250kbps at Stoddard's in Sunnyvale) are typical when you are stationary, but even 30kbps is usable for e-mail and light web use, turning the morning Caltrain or BART ride into productive time. It works with PCs and Macs, and with the USB support in the 2.4 kernel, porbably with Linux too (they've got a serial cable for the modem too, just in case).

    The service isn't cheap, with prices at around $70.00 per month, but I think that we'll see that dropping over the next few months. For the convenience (and soon the ubiquity) of Ricochet, it's a small price to pay - plus, no tiny cell phone screens to squint at.

    Some of you self-styled geeks should go check this out. It actually works and it is here today.

  • how would it work? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    would this be similar to current free ISPs and if so how would they generate a profit (through advertisement)?

  • Lucent Wavelan 802.11b Security - detailed (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ya'll, ok...the Lucent Wavelan Silver cards slide nicely into the Wavepoint basestation. We use these puppies as Points of Presence for a metro area business only Internet access solution, full 11MB wireless pipes into a backend with (2) OC3 pipes going up to the big boys...and yea..there are T1 backups and ISDN backups too... The client side demarc points are "very custom" kernel Linux Router Project boxes based in 486's, with Wavelan Silver cards stuck into the isa adapter card, got DMZs, private LAN and all the goodies in there. Anyways we implement network security using first and foremost really hard-to-guess names for the Wavepoint POPs with stupid hard admin passwords. In the Wavepoint there is a nice little setting for only allowing specific MAC (media access control)addresses to connect to the POP. (such as the mac address of the Wavelan Silver card in the client side router) In addition we encrypt the communication bi-directionally at some nifty high bitrate that I cannot remember off the top of my head. On a side note, the Wavelan cards are direct sequence and stick to one channel and that channel is fixed and thus easy to identify using the site survey tool (assuming you know the POP name or IP)...Note..the Breezecom products are frequency hopping and harder to thus get a link on, but they are WAY, and I mean WAY less dependable. That is my version of a warning to would be Breezecom users. Anyways, we actually make solid money with this stuff...if guys want to go solo..thats cool but make sure that you get the right antenna for the right job....and if you are gonna try and setup Points of presence in stead of direct shots...please, for your own sanity...use an array of directionals and not a Uni antenna. Way too much interference on client to Uni uplink usually as the Uni picks up everything in a 360 degree radius... limit your pain with directional arrays is the moral of this story. If you are gonna shoot long distances (15 to 20 miles) use as short a wire from antenna to wavelan card as possible ( db loss can be a pain on long runs) and use a pair of DB24 antennas with line amps. That would be my braindump of the day. enjoy. Oh yeah...add a beowolf cluster in there somewhere just to impress your friends.
  • For all you funky europeans with DECT cordless phones, make sure you change your security code on the base stations! It's the same deal as with the wireless LANs, except, DECT phones are far more common.

    Most (all?) base stations ship with a default security code of "00", which makes it easy to reassign a random base station, if you just so happen to be walking down the street with a DECT handset.

    Or something.

    Anyone played with data over DECT? I see that there are standards for data and DECT, and DECT to ISDN gateways, etc., but haven't really seen any products. Data over DECT could be fun...

    ...j
  • Is real data flowing over consume.net yet?

    If there was a node about 500 meters closer to me, I would be in range, but, well, until them. D'oh!

    ...j
  • 160$ fee for a 9600 baud connection. Keep in mind the current speed limitations. Noaw compare that to cable or DSL, at speeds tremedously greater then those available.

    Thats right.. Current network setups only give 9600 baud. Or, you can goto a screaming 56k for nearly a grand.. :-)
  • Not if you want RANGE..

    An 802.11b card cannot provide nearly enough range for what is being talked about here. And you also have another limiting factor at that point. You're now sharing bandwidth with *EVERYONE* using this free service.. :-)
  • pretty easy really. Most (if not all) 802.11b wireless products allow you tp specify that only certain MAC addresses can use it, so you can just mkae sure the MAC addresses of your wireless NICs are in the access list. You can also specify a network name rather than just allowing a card looking for "any" network to connect.
  • I thought Open Source was about having source code available. How does this apply to networking? You're going to require that the bandwidth be distributed with source?

    http://www.opensource.org/osd.html

  • 20Mbps seems a bit high. The highest experimental setup going a few yards at best, was 10Ghz and got 2-10Mbps.

    A usable network would be about 2-3 Mbps at 10Ghz to 24Ghz.

    I suppose you could take a larger spread with more xpensive equipment to get up to 20Mbps, but then you get more interference. The 2.4Ghz is already polluted from the sounds of the article. Its saving grace is that it doesnt carry very far, otherwise it would be extremely dirty.

    At any rate, im not an RF expert like you said, but 20Mbps still seems very optimistic with any kind of hardware.
  • How much of this is usable for a dedicated RF transport? the 2.4Ghz band is quite large, but you cant use a 5 Mhz spread for your networking.

    10Ghz microwave bands are nice for throughput, but what is the range for 10Ghz?
  • People were still running at 9600 bps, and you had to use explicit routing ("send this to A and from there to B and from there to C ...").

    Actually there is a HAM group in Columbia, SC that has dynamic routing configured for their packet network.

    I don't know the details, but it functions similar to an RF RIP protocol of some sort.

    They may have something about this online, i'll look...
  • The benefit of sharter ranger 900Mhz or 2.4Ghz networks is bandwidth.

    A typical 2.4Ghz network can handle over 1.2Mbps. Far beyond anything HAM bands can support.

    While packet radio has its place, high bandwidth RF needs high frequency transport.
  • The equivalent of war-dialing.

    There are a number of channel frequencies the devices operate at (within the 2.4Ghz or 900Mhz bands).

    Via software configuration you can choose one of hundreds of available 'channels' and pretend your a valid RF device.

    If you can communicate at all, you have found an active channel. If not, try the next.

    Proprietary devices which do not use any standard or common channel frequencies require the more expensive scanning equipment to pick out the signal.
  • Is that you cannot guarantee security on the net ANYWAY. Use encryption.

    That is fact, no matter what. You are transmitting data through networks you do not control, and have absolutely no power over.
  • According to the article, it's nowhere near a service. These guys literally climb around on rooftops. From the article:

    ---
    But building what Kahle calls "a citywide wireless LAN that grows from anarchistic cooperation" isn't as simple as contributing code to Linux. Participants must have not just time and patience, but also the soldering skills of an electrician, not to mention the ability to work on rooftops without falling. Ultimately, "it's all a bit dangerous," Stevens admits.
    ---

    I imagine at some point it WOULD end up as a service, but not until it matures. Not sure how many people would want to pay for service that deteriorates when it rains. There's also the hinderance of the signals not being able to pass through concrete.
  • > I suspect some heavy lobbying was involved...

    You are right. The FCC had a proposal to grant thousands of low power licenses and the NAB [nab.org] poured millions into quashing this. Right now a bill that will kill this is on an appropriations bill, waiting for Congress to resume.

    For more info see on the bill see this article [indymedia.org].

    For more on the media industry's lobbying to take away your airwaves see this report [publicintegrity.org] from the Center for Public Integrity.

  • You're right but it might be more accurate to say the spectrum will get bogged down. The 2.4GHZ band that these devices operate in is unregulated. If everyone sets up wireless networks from their house between the interference from each other and microwave ovens and whatever other devices operate in that chunk of spectrum, it will be unusable as a communications medium. So, it seems unlikely to me that these do it yourself networks can succeed on a wide scale given the small amount of spectrum we have available without some sort of regulation.

    Unfortunately the public mechanism that we have for arbitrating use of spectrum (the FCC) is under the thumb of the NAB [nab.org]. Witness what is happening with low power radio [mediaaccess.org]. The NAB pours millions into an effort to kill a proposal to grant thousands of low power radio licenses, that would bring diversity to the airwaves and permit the kind of civil society to flourish that these do it yourself networking projects have. If these projects become successful industry will in all likelihood manipulate the regulatory mechanism to quash any competition to their wireless services like MMDS [wdslconsortium.com].



    We need to learn from what has happened to low power radio and not get behind like we are in open access. We need to create mechanisms for civil society to self regulate public resources, with the stakeholders doing the regulation not the government. And we need to make sure we keep access to our spectrum and not let the NAB lock it up.

  • This is something I have wanted to try to do for quite awhile.

    I live in the Phoenix, Arizona area - specifically north of the east/west portion of Loop 101. My actual location makes it difficult to impossible to reach anything south and west (due to some mountains being in the way), but if anyone would like to help me set up a wireless (preferably optical!) net between houses - contact me or post to this thread. With enough nodes, dispersed properly, we could get around any obstacles of the nature...

    Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
  • Ok, I have a question. You say that for 'a few hundred bucks' I can buy a card that will allow me to tap into RF networks. Your link points to what appears to be a standard RF lan card.

    How do you determine the SSID of the signal you want to tap (without a $15,000 box)?

    Forgive me for playing the devil's advocate here, but people are fond of pointing out how easy it is to sniff wireless networks, but I've yet to see one person say 'I have done it and here is how'. One person said he sniffed his own network - but with a card set up for that net - well duh, no kidding.

    So, can you (or anyone) just arbitrarily sniff on an unencrypted RF network without knowing anything about the network (like the SSID, for instance)? If so, how?

    Inquiring minds...

    A.
  • The 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz bands are set aside under FCC Part 15 for unlicensed use. That's why little things like cordless phones and RF remote controls and cordless headphones usually operate at 900 or 2400 Mhz in the US. Title 15 does specify some power and interference limitations which I suspect that these guys are violating in a big way when they take their little unlicensed radio cards and hook them up to high gain antennas on top of their houses. There's a reason why they had such a hard time finding antenna adaptors, the radio manufacturers have to use non-standard connectors to comply with FCC regulations intended to prevent people from doing things like this.

    It's a bit of a cat and mouse game with industry and the FCC in this regard. Industry needs to have connectors mass produced to keep costs down, the FCC wants to insure that people don't hook up antennas to devices that cause them to violate regulations and cause problems. Thus the need for "Industry standard non-standard connectors"
    _____________

  • I do something similar to this at home - but use and Apple Airport plugged into my local ether - this works great with the linux drivers but requires a Mac somewhere on the same lan to configure it - I have it set up to only accept connections with fixed MAC addresses and to require that those machines know the actual name of the net.

    The only downside is that it's set up for NAT and now I can no long remote print because stupid LPR bitches that I'm no longer using a priviliged socket .... anyone got any ideas for a quick fix?

    Next step of course will be to find a way to get the local Cafe wired .....

  • No! I was just bitching about this last night! I am not going back to schluffing packets over a friggin 9600 baud link in an unlicensed band! Do you know how much that chafed?!?!

    No. Stick to small yagis, mabye a uni-quad and friggin 802.11.
  • Like all things "free" this service, although well intentioned, is expensive, mediocre, and unrealiable. Best of luck to them. We'll stick with our T1 and DSL.
  • It might be possible to use a lightweight accounting system based on the Digital Silk Road [agorics.com] to spread the load around and provide an incentive for people to add new nodes.
  • A typical 2.4Ghz network can handle over 1.2Mbps. Far beyond anything HAM bands can support.

    What a load of rubbish. HAM radio has a band at 2.4 GHZ with enough bandwidth for at least 20 Mbps (not to mention 3300-3500 MHz, 5650-5925 MHz etc etc), it even says in the article that these guys got their antennas from amateur radio suppliers. I agree that most amateur packet radio happens at painfully slow baud rates, but there are people doing much higher speed backbones.

    The point which I was trying to make is that a wireless LAN consists of two very different technologies. The computer bit (protocols, error checking, addressing etc) and the RF bit (modems (not the same problem as telephone modems), amplifiers, IP3 performance, antennas, propagation etc). The RF bit is every bit as complex as the computer bit. Being an expert in computers does not make you an expert in RF engineering. It is a seperate subject which takes just as long to study at University. HAM radio has spent very many years learning lessons about widely distributed radio LANs, it would be realy stupid to ignore that knowledge when its available free for the asking.

    I do research into future aircraft radio equipment and I often meet people who design wonderous inter-aircraft digital comms systems in the fond belief that the RF bit will be easy to add on at the end. They put it all together and prove once again that old adage that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing". Then they go white when I tell them how much its going to cost to fix it.

  • About 5 years ago me and a friend built a device that scans through the channels attached to garage door openers. It wasn't to big of a deal, just a brute force method, sending out radio signals on a range of channels as quick as possible. We hoped in the car and drove around the neighborhood with it, I haven't laughed that hard since, watching everybody's garage doors open. But seriously, if Net Admins think the "broadcast" nature of Ethernet Hubs causes security problems, wait until wireless takes hold. Hackers don't even have to plug into the network they just have to pull up a van next to the building. And what about DoS attacks? It's not difficult to build devices that can send out strong levels of noise on select channels, bringing a wireless network to it's knees. All issues that Network Admins will face in the future, just in case you thought your job was getting easy :) Jay
  • well, me and a few friends of mine have been in the planning stages for a project quite similar to this for a few months now.

    We just need to actually sit down and do it. We live in Florida nad theres not too mutch for reliable cheap high-speed connections so we figured that why not do it ourselves...

    This way we can also be a bit secured from the prying eyes of the outside world.

    As to how it can be done, we have speculated on several methods. One being to build a magnified antenna using a few items from Home Depot and Radio Shack - coupled with a cheap-o wireless NIC. I admit its a bit crude but you can get away with things like this here in the flatlands. :)

    We have also discussed several IP schemes and the possability of using our owne 'Inner-Upper-Top-Level Domains' as in we would use blahblah.xnet or whatever as a domain instead of .com or .net and so on...

    All in all it looks like we will be able to do it with very few problems, at least untill we decide we wanna turn it loose to the public.. but thats an issue to work on after the preliminary development stages.

    .ph0x
  • Sorry but I would like to state on the record that DSL is not reliable at all. If you are running a business off of dsl... I'm sorry.

    .ph0x
  • Well, isn't this a bit insecure in a way? The air isn't really secure - and what could you find out about your neighbour that uses telnet to connect to his new web hosting company?. This brings atleast that they have to use full encrypted ethernet/IPSEC doesn't it? Also, on IRC, who would like others to see your conversation?. On a sidenote, people who want a IRC server with full SSL support (client-server, server-server), check the url in my sig.
  • Most (if not all) 802.11b wireless products allow you tp specify that only certain MAC addresses can use it, so you can just mkae sure the MAC addresses of your wireless NICs are in the access list.

    Making only certain MACs privileged would still leave the network vulnerable to impersonation of those MACs, which would be visible to the sniffer. This is the same vulnerability that allows cell phones to be cloned. You'd need to encrypt everything to prevent this, in which case it wouldn't be necessary to allow only certain MACs (but it certainly wouldn't hurt anything).

  • I believe the "Open Source Ethic" refers to the network being open and free for all who wish to use it. This is a great idea, and I hope it takes off elsewhere.
  • It's "free" as in "Fair Use." And even that's not free; just remember what Sun did to you when you tried to release "Java(TM) Invaders." And also remember that Sun Microsystems threatened to sue when you use the "stylized Java(TM) logo" for the Java story topic [slashdot.org].

  • Re:"free" (Score:3)

    by deusx ( 8442 ) on Monday December 04, 2000 @01:34PM (#582764) Homepage
    I think this kind of misses the point. Ala Heinlein: TANSTAAFL, and everyone knows it. Of course hardware costs money, and of course running it costs money. This is a big-ole "DUH". Implementation is not free. That's not what "free as in beer" means. The beer recipe is downloadable gratis, but running the microbrewery is not.

    But "free as in beer" means that the Intellectual Property *is* free. That vapor about which everyone is so worked up, patenting, and suing over is free. The details are out there, for free, is non-proprietary, and open to comment and further development.

    The idea behind all this open network development is not so that you, or anyone for that matter, can get a cheaper lunch, it's so that those odd people out there who like burning themselves occasionally with solder might tweak with something that they're not going to get sued for reverse engeneering, folding, spindling, or mangling. Maybe, just maybe, an open development model might eventually come up with ways to make it as cheap or cheaper than commercial service... but that's not the point. That's a potential side effect of people who want to tweak.

    So if you don't want to muck around with wiring, schematics, frequencies, climbing up on your roof, network settings, etc... feel free to just buy service from your local carrier. That's why they exist. It's an easy choice.

    But the moment you want to start helping out that local carrier, or figure out how their tech works so that you can tweak it for your own benefit... forget about it. Their stuff is neither "free as in speech", nor "free as in beer".

  • The article didn't say that. (Score:3)

    by RebornData ( 25811 ) on Monday December 04, 2000 @01:16PM (#582765)
    The article said "Rain and walls also clog the pipes." This is different than saying 802.11b won't go through walls at all.

    I'm typing on my laptop using a Lucent 802.11b card now, and I can tell you that walls do "clog" 2.4GHz signals. My data rate drops from 11Mb/s to 2Mb/s if I walk out my back door and sit on my porch.

    These "community network" folks are pushing weak signals at distances they weren't designed for. Walls would do significant damage to their signal strength.

  • Re:Tragedy of the common? (Score:3)

    by Cloud 9 ( 42467 ) on Monday December 04, 2000 @12:00PM (#582766) Homepage Journal
    Without encryption, it would be like having a hub on my DSL modem that anybody driving by could plug in to...

    Man, it would take a very hand and nerves of steel to accomplish a feat such as that.... =]

  • Ahem ... look inside your Airport .... (Score:3)

    by taniwha ( 70410 ) on Monday December 04, 2000 @01:15PM (#582767) Homepage Journal
    there's the same WaveLan PCMCIA card that's in my Linux laptop .... 802.11 is something that Apple adopted, not something they invented .... like lots of other coold stuff (like CD Drives, bitmapped displays etc etc) Apple is a great early adopter but just because you first saw it from them don't assume that they thought up the idea .... (oh yeah I love my Apple Airport - makes a great/cheap 802.11 RF router for my Linux network)

  • Packet sniffer for JPEGs via 802.11 (Score:3)

    by epeus ( 84683 ) on Monday December 04, 2000 @01:26PM (#582768) Homepage Journal
    etherpeg.org [etherpeg.org] have source code for an applicaiton that sniffs JPEGs and GIFs from 802.11 nets and draws them on the screen - great fun in public areas running AirPort.

  • Not through walls? (Score:3)

    by wfaulk ( 135736 ) on Monday December 04, 2000 @10:08AM (#582769) Homepage
    It's nice to see that the author thinks that 802.11b cannot go through walls. Patently untrue.

    Also, this is not an Apple-developed system. I believe that it was pioneered by Lucent. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Apple's implementation is Lucent's.

  • Re:Sniffing/Security (Score:3)

    by Cannonball ( 168099 ) on Monday December 04, 2000 @10:10AM (#582770)
    Apple dealt with this problem by allowing people using their AirPort software to encrypt all transmissions over the network...I think it's 40bit encryption, but chances are that's good enough to deter most thugs. Not too bad.

  • Tragedy of the common? (Score:3)

    by John Jorsett ( 171560 ) on Monday December 04, 2000 @10:03AM (#582771)
    I wonder if widespread use of such technologies would lead to such overutilization that the network would get bogged down to the point of unusability. Call it the Gnutella effect. Anyone have an opinion?

    By the way, I'd like to hear more about cruising the streets with a sniffer looking for open networks. How's that done, and what does one do to 'lock down' the network? I've been thinking of putting in a wireless network, but I hadn't thought about this hazard.

  • Sounds Familiar... (Score:3)

    by BenBenBen ( 249969 ) on Monday December 04, 2000 @10:16AM (#582772)

    Here I go with a bit of karma-whoring (joke)

    Go here [consume.net] to read about a loose coalition of london people trying to set up a similar scheme.

    And go here [slashdot.org] to read all the comments from when this subject was last posted on /. just over a week ago.

    Ben^3 (wondering whether CmdrTaco et al have goldfish DNA)
  • HAM radio enthusiasts have been playing with long range wireless LAN for about 15 years or so. Its called packet radio and its what all the Amateur Radio stuff in your kernel source is for.

    It seems to me that rather than trying to take wireless LAN technology which is realy designed for short range in-building networking and fixing it to big external antennas (which is basically what these guys are going), it might be a better plan to take technology from the HAM community and adapt it to these unlicenced bands.

    The article is vague, but I very much doubt that these wireless LAN radios have the strong signal handling required to operate well when connected to a large external antenna.

    Summary: An interesting idea, but one that needs as much imput from radio expert as it does from computer experts. RF engineering is not as simple as it sounds once you start dealing with a lot of signal over a large area.

    G1DGL

  • "free" (Score:4)

    by swagr ( 244747 ) on Monday December 04, 2000 @10:09AM (#582774) Homepage
    "Free as in beer" software is not really "free as in beer". Someone has to pay for hardware, electricity, web hosting, whatever... So there is a cost, but it's so small that the creator is absorbing it, or perhaps ad banners or sponsors.

    This is hardly free either: "$800 to buy all the components needed to get hooked up". (that's US) + maintenance + time.

    Here in Canada I pay 40 bucks (Canadian) a month for ADSL or Cable (I've used both). My adsl connection will actually run 2 machines straight of the ADSL-modem (with a hub) (anyone with sympatico can do this).

    So at that rate, this scheme might pay for itself after 2 years, but in 2 years I'll probably have a faster and cheaper connection anyways.

  • What about the FCC? (Score:4)

    by megaduck ( 250895 ) <dvarvel@NOspaM.hotmail.com> on Monday December 04, 2000 @10:24AM (#582775) Journal
    Since this is obviously a big threat to large telecom providers like ATT, MCI, etc., I wonder if they will lobby the FCC to step in on their behalf. This kind of movement has happened before, most notably with micropower (around 1 watt) FM radio stations.
    A couple of years ago, I became interested in setting up my own radio station so I investigated the FCC requirements for getting a broadcasting license. It turns out that the application fee for getting your broadcast license is several thousand dollars and the associated paperwork takes a team of lawyers to complete properly. Not only that, but the FCC won't even CONSIDER giving you a license if you're broadcasting at less than 100 watts. The equipment for that level of power gets pretty expensive for the average citizen. IMHO, these requirements don't benefit the public at all, it just artificially restricts broadcasting on the public airwaves to the big companies that can afford the price of admission. I suspect some heavy lobbying was involved...
    I wonder if the large telecoms and their teams of lobbyists will try to get the FCC to step in on this...

  • 900Mhz / 2.4Ghz IP networks and security. (Score:5)

    by PureFiction ( 10256 ) on Monday December 04, 2000 @10:28AM (#582776)
    These types of RF networks have been in use by companies for quite a few years (i.e. manufacturing data collection)

    Like the TacoMan said, many of these networks aren't secured very well.

    Half a dozen manufacturing plants that I integrated RF data collection devices for did not use any type of authentication of encryption and relied solely on frequency channels to identify remote RF terminals.

    For a few hundred bucks, Intermec and others can provide you with ISA cards to tap into RF networks [intermec.com] and even PCMCIA cards that you can plug right into your laptop.

    These devices setup an IP connection that ties a psuedo terminal on a unix server to the ANSI/VT100/etc emulation terminal running on the data collection devices themselves.

    Some of the newer models provide a light weight web browser configured for various ports on a unix server to handle the data collection interface.

    Almost all (95%+) of the data collection applications that are attached to the other end of these RF terminals are running on critical enterprise servers so that they can be close to the databases they feed.

    It always baffled me that the IS tech's would be so lax on security simply because it was 'RF'.

    As a side note, eavesdropping on an RF network is orders of magnitude easier than typical networks (ethernet / ATM) and effectively impossible to identify. For a few hundred bucks anyone can make a RF 'tcpdump' with a laptop and RF PCMCIA card that will trap every single IP packet flying over the RF networks.

    So, the moral of this story is:
    RF entails much more security risk than typical networking. Beware when you implement an RF network, and keep security at the top of your to-do list.

  • Re:Tragedy of the common? (Score:5)

    by Seenhere ( 90736 ) on Monday December 04, 2000 @10:30AM (#582777) Homepage
    By the way, I'd like to hear more about cruising the streets with a sniffer looking for open networks. How's that done, and what does one do to 'lock down' the network?

    It depends on what wireless technology you're using, but here in my own private geek compound I run Orinoco (Lucent) Wavelan Gold [wavelan.com] wireless cards in 128-bit RC4 encryption mode.

    This is quite easy to set up under Linux using the wireless extensions [hp.com] to the standard pcmcia services [sourceforge.net]. You will have a switch branch in your wireless.opts file that looks something like

    # Default Lucent Wavelan IEEE
    # Note : wvlan_cs driver only,
    # and version 1.0.4+ for encryption support
    *,*,*,00:60:1D:*)
    INFO="Wavelan IEEE ad-hoc"
    ESSID="Secure Network"
    MODE="Ad-hoc"
    CHANNEL="3" #2.422GHz
    RATE="auto"
    KEY="1234-5648-9abc-def1-2345-6789-ab"
    ;;
    (No, that's not my actual key :). And note it's not the full 128 bits... the version of the drivers I have won't permit that, for some reason that I don't understand. But 104 bits is pretty good.)

    Anyway, you definitely want to "lock down" your network, unless you are into to providing a public access point. Without encryption, it would be like having a hub on my DSL modem that anybody driving by could plug in to...

    --Seen

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