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Where's Your Nearest Wireless Access Point? 88

Posted by CmdrTaco from the now-thats-a-clever-idea dept.
bgp4 writes "The Global Access Wireless Database (GAWD) is a search engine that allows you to find your nearest wireless access point. It also allows you to search for access points based on provider such as PersonalTelco or Seattle Wireless. The catch here is all the access points are added by the community. If you are invovlved in a wireless project, feel free to enter the information on your AP's into GAWD. Even if you're not in a project, if you know of an access point somewhere (good examples are locations in airports, bus stops, locations on the BART, etc) feel free to enter them as well. The more AP's that are in GAWD, the more useful it will be to everyone. GAWD is still under active development. If you have any feedback or ideas for improvements, please let us know." Its still a little new since it doesn't have any significant amounts of data yet, but this is a really cool idea. Especially when everyone leaves unencrypted 802.11 lans hanging around their houses and you can simply ping your way to infinite bandwidth *grin*
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Where's Your Nearest Wireless Access Point? More

Where's Your Nearest Wireless Access Point?

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  • So lets get thisright... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You search the internet for a nearby wireless access point.

    You connect your computer to the internet.

    You are now capable of searching.

  • Re:Damn. We just had this idea (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So did these guys... http://consume.net ... and they've got loads more participants.
  • ...the Antarctica entry. "M/HVV" indeed! :)

    ---
  • Not bad growth in a few hours.
  • Why in God's name would I want someone to:

    a) use up my LAN bandwidth,

    Exactly how slow is your LAN? And how fast is your WAN, that it could saturate your LAN's bandwidth?

    b) use up my cable connection bandwidth and

    It's called traffic shaping... As the person setting this up, there are plenty of ways for you to limit the amount of bandwidth available to anyone utilizing your resources.

    c) most importantly, gain access to my LAN?

    Here's another area for which a technical solution already exists... The Firewall.

    It's pretty clear to me, from the kind of inane questions that you are asking, that you wouldn't be interested in providing public access to the internet utilizing the resources at your disposal. That doesn't make you a bad person. You are paying for it... It's yours to do with as you will.

    My question for you is: Why are you posting at all?

    Slashdot used to be a better place... When someone reads a story that they didn't care about, or didn't agree with, they simply hit the 'back' button, and went on to the next.

    Now, it seems like every loser with a keyboard and a couple of minutes feels some sense of moral obligation to respond to every story that comes down the pike, whether they have a vested interest or not.

    Thanks for fucking up what used to be a really useful source of entertainment and information.

    To get back on topic, I think this database is a good idea, and will serve a useful purpose. As soon as my broadband connection goes in (within the next couple months, if I believe the lies told me by my local providors), I'll be adding my location to the database.

    I will limit the amount of bandwidth available to transients... I will be certain that my LAN remains safely hidden from those transient connections... And I'll be sure to notify the Sheriff's office of anybody who parks in my driveway for weeks on end.

  • cool. (Score:1)

    by Bwana ( 2384 )

    Looks like I got one near me. (Jupiter,FL/Digicom/802.11) Not that I'll really utilize it in the near future but cool nonetheless.

    The acronym GAWD rox btw. :)

    "Electric Relaxation" - ATCQ
    - Bwana

  • The database needs to indicate FHSS, DHSS, or Other (fill in other). Also, some notation of the system's range would be nice.
  • I would absolutely /love/ to see self-driving vehicles... I would definately pay an extra 5k for a car that could drive itself (perhaps more if it could get gas and an oil change/maintenance by itself). Driving long distances, or being stuck in traffic just plain sucks. I personally don't see this technology coming to light in the near future, but damn.... I REALLY want it bad!!!

    -Andy
  • I was kinda thinking the same thing... let's just hope there is at least one of two options available:

    1.) the ability to d/l the database into some proggy that can be run offline ( a gps / map interface would be really nice too.) [ Which brings up the interesting topic of position location via nearest Access Point. Similar to how they navigate boats via FM radio (when they have to... before GPS). Just have all of those AP submit a PRECISE long/lat. Then your PC could identify what networks are around, do some nice trig. and BAM... you know where you are!!]
    2.) the ability to check the info with a net enabled cell phone.
  • I agree that busses are more effecient/economic/etc., they are not always the answer that one seeks. For example, around campus (U of Florida) and most of the town, I can ride the bus free by flashing my student ID. The busses run routes all throughout the major parts of town (mall, grocery stores, etc), to most of the local apartments, and even provide late-night service on the weekend towards the downtown area (where all the clubs/bars are).

    But If I want to go visit my family (about 150 miles south) or friends at local colleges, I cant just hop a bus and go see them. It's just not convienient. While bus service /is/ available (grayhound, et.al), it's still fairly pricey enough that my [high-gas-milage] car is more economical. Plus, It's a hassle to have to wait for a bus. I want to be able to leave at my leisure and take a break when I feel so inclined.

    I'm just saying that a car that could chauffeur me to my destinations so that I could avoid the stress/bore of driving and get to my destination while doing things that more efficiently make use of my time. I could do homework, write some GPLed code, etc.

    I'm just saying that I would enjoy this technology.

    -Andy
  • I quote you:

    "Your suggestion is like showing the hacker the front door, locked, and jiggling the keys in your hand. I'd prefer to have the door hard to find, or impossible to find."

    And respond:

    I believe that allowing free, anonymous access to the Internet via unused bandwidth on your broadband connection is just that. No doorway into your network for hackers, just a doorway to the rest of the Internet for someone who wants to remain anonymous. Or someone who needs to get online from the street, their car, their bicycle, headgear, or whatever.

    I'm by no means a communist, but if I'm paying for "unlimited, always on" connection, I might as well give some of it away, especially at times when I don't need it. (like 90% of the time.) And if it allows some hacker to get on the internet anonymously, so be it.

  • Yeah, cause the Feds are way to stupid to figure out that it may be the NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR leeching off the connection.

  • I have (just last night) two D-Link DWL-500 cards set up and running under the wvlan_cs PCMCIA driver. Alot of the new cheap 802.11 cards are just re-badged Lucent chips, so the wvlan_cs driver works for them! Check out the PCMCIA drivers page [sourceforge.net] for up-to-date info on supported wireless cards.


    Oh, the DWL-500's are just PCI adapters for the DWL-650 which is the PCMCIA card. You can get ISA/PCMCIA adaptors pretty cheap from all sorts of places.

  • These already exist. They're called busses. Not only do you not need to drive them or do any maintenance yourself, it's actually much cheaper than a car. They're also much more space and fuel efficient than single occupancy vehicles.

    Unfortunately, most people have been programmed by big business to think that it is necessary to use their very own vehicle. Preferably one as large fuel inefficient as possible.
    ~
  • So...

    Just how do you deal with "drive by spammers," or crackers using your network to attack other internet sites? Are you just hoping noone will?

    (This is a serious question -- I'd like to get involved and contribute a couple of APs to the world, but only if I have some kind of tracability/accountability to make sure what I add is an asset to the network, not a liability.)

  • Okay,

    This would imply that wireless connections are made "by arrangement" as opposed to someone doing a search and discovering that I'm the closest node to their bus stop.

    I'd be happy to arrange semi-permanent connectivity with anyone who wants to, but I'd also be very interested if anyone has a way to share with the bus-stop user as well.

  • I would think that you would want to start with the encryption on the cards themselves. The Lucent Gold cards do 128bit or something close like 112 bit encryption on the card.
  • I use the Lucent WaveLAN Silvers. They're pretty good and support for them is in FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Linux.
  • It's not intentional. The pull down list is only populated with states/countries that folks have entered data for. If/when someone enters an AP for Tennesse, then you'll see it in the pull-down list.
  • WTF?

    Afghanistan has wireless. I can only imagine who is using it. OSS (yes, those aging agents), KGB, Mossad.. whatever.

    Surprised?
  • ...capable of adding a pop?
  • People, don't complain about the size of the database, and don't you dare say that Slashdot should have held back posting this until there were a few hundred points indexed. This place is community-supported. So after this article was posted on Slashdot, the number of access points started going up immediately. Look through the idiotic comments on this...there are a few saying 16, then 19, then 22. Hell, at this time there is even one in North Dakota listed. Being mentioned on Slashdot's front page is the genesis of any community-supported nerd-oriented database like this. So if you know of an access point, go there and check if it's listed and, if it's not, add it yourself. If you don't know of a nearby access point, check if any are listed every once in awhile, because sooner or later somebody will get to adding one near you...there's one a few blocks from me, even, and I'm only a hundred miles or so from the Geographical Middle of Nowhere (and North America ;).
  • I think this is another case of /. helping out something they think is neat. The DB sucks because no-one has entered in information. No-one has entered in information because no-one has heard of it. No-one has heard of it because the DB sucks.

    /. does a story about it, and maybe enough people will contribute to make it cool.

    *shrug* Maybe this is good, maybe not.

    W
  • ... and, now that we have the printing press, people spend all their time indoors reading RUBBISH NOVELS instead of socialising. So we should certainly not encourage the cheap publication of books. Um, and now we have the telephone, so people go and visit each other less frequently. Let's not encourage that either.

    And, who are you to say that the internet doesn't enhance people's lives? Tell that to all the people who can look at a website to see pictures of their grandchildren, and the housebound people who talk to their friends on the internet, and the people with obscure interests who can finally talk to similar people on USENET.

  • Since Taco brought it up on this thread, what's the best way to do this? Lucent makes a device that has AAA using Radius and individual accounts. Is this the way to go? Or is there some sort of standard available for authentication/encryption on the market yet?
  • I guess you have the same problem with books? You sound like someone from the 1800's sweating the machine age.
  • It is interesting that so many people are joking about the number of access points that are in the database. From one of the first posts to the more recent ones the list has grown from 10 AP's to 22. How many web sites did Altavista/Yahoo/Etc. search when it first came out Vs. how many now? Just wait, the list will grow.
  • I see no problem with the statement in the subject line.

    Three days ago I bought two 802.11b cards. Sure it's just Ad-Hoc mode, but others can join seamlessly. (Acces Points are way more expensive than the still expensive pcmcia cards. Grumble.)

    So I firewall my OpenBSD box against attacks from the internet, at the same time I firewall my wireless LAN heavily allowing only dhcp, dns, http proxy, and local mail/chat stuff.

    My own wireless client now can run netfilter against attacks from the other wireless users and have an IPsec vpn, so I can fully access the router/server box.

    Voila, a secure network. Meet new people, make new friends. Given the short range of my setup I am bound to meet them. Still, the range is enough to surf at the local pub around the corner ;-)

    Marcus

  • > 802.11b networks currently require no license. Sure would be nice if people researched things before posting meaningless comments on /.

    Are you refering to you specifically ?

    I am talking about the license under which the *entered*data* is avalaible. Read carefully: "how the database is licensed.". I even talk about the cddb fiasco (ie: everyone entering the author/title of their CDs, just to discover later that cddb.com claims the database is copyrighted and no longer free to use)

    So to paraphrase you:

    The entry form (or other part of the site) currently don't display the license onto which the database is avalaible. Sure would be nice if people researched things before posting meaningless comments on /.

    Cheers,

    --fred
  • Looks like this is the 'wi(4) - Lucent Technologies WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11 PCMCIA driver'

    According to the FreeBSD man page, there are two models, base (up to 2 Mbps)and Turbo (Up to 6Mps). The product exists in PCMCI and ISA (which is and PCMCIA in a ISA-PCMCIA bridge).

    ITOH, according to the wavelan web site, the current models (orinoco) are 11Mbps, and use either 64 or 128 bits encryption. They sell the ISA bridge too. Looks like it'll gonna cost me about 400$... Mmm.

    Thanks for the answer,

    Cheers,

    --fred
  • > Alot of the new cheap 802.11 cards are just re-badged Lucent chips, so the wvlan_cs driver works for them!
    > Oh, the DWL-500's are just PCI adapters for the DWL-650 which is the PCMCIA card

    _That_ was the kind of info I was looking for. And with the URL. Thanks a lot.

    Cheers,

    --fred
  • Me and a couple of friends at work just had the idea of starting up a company to set up wireless networks for apartments locally here. The idea was to get everybody hooked up under wireless access points giving us unlimited bandwidth as long as you are within 1/4 mile of any apartment in the city eventually.

    On a related note (and why we were thinking this) the airport here in Austin already has a wireless network for the terminal that you can just bring a card into and be hooked up. There are plans to cover the entire downtown area with a similar network within 5 years or so. Personally I think that this would be great. Give every taxpaying citizen of the city a passord (like the library) and charge people outside of the city 20 or 25 bucks a year to connect to this. The idea for the city is to try to entice large corporations to come in and they wont have to add that much to the infrastructure and be completely connected on their own little subnet. The taxes the corps pay will be more than enough to add another ocr-3 line to cover the added bandwidth.

  • Oh, wait. I'd need to know where the nearest access point was to do that. D'ohh.
    No, you download the database beforehand, and store it on your wireless device. Or you keep at least a subset of the database on your device.
  • Internet usage actually declined in December, for the first time ever.
    This according to a story in yesterday's New York Times. [nytimes.com]
  • Does GPRS count at all? What about 3G access? Won't these technologies make other forms of wireless access obsolete? From what Cisco tell me, 3G mobile phones will be able to give me 2Mbits/s when I'm stationary, and I imagine that when the telcos get their act together, the coverage for 3G and the global roaming possibilities would be of far greater utility than hundreds of different access points from disparate providers...

    Bring on Palm XIII with integrated 3G mobile technology, running Linux 3.0 :)

    rr

  • Certainly in Australia, any commercial organisation doing this kind of thing would need a Carrier licence from the Australian Communications Authority [aca.gov.au]... these are not cheap, and not common, but there is strict regulation on what can be carried on the airwaves here...

    rr

  • I can search 22 access points!! Wow, I think it might have been a good idea to wait until there were at least a few hundred in the database, but 22?!?!
  • Sounds like Mr. Greyfox has cell phone envy. If you cannot get a cell phone because your credit is so bad, there is the option of getting one of those pre-paid plans. Visit your local 7-Eleven and pick one up for yourself.
  • When I searched (for Bergen, my hometown in Norway 8-), I got a SQL-statement instead of the expected 404 (location not found):

    SELECT access_point_id,locality,city,state_prov,country,p rovider,protocol,ispublic,encryption FROM access_point WHERE UPPER(locality) LIKE '%BERGEN%' ORDER BY locality,access_point_id

    Is that a good thing? And BTW, this is my first post on /. ever! Wow!
  • The trouble with using a 3G network (apart from the delay until it really gets going) is the cost - in the UK it cost each network operator about 5 billion UK pounds to buy the license, so they're unlikely to provide really cheap access.
  • http://www.air.net.au [air.net.au]
    No sign of any network in Melbourne as yet, but ask around, and you might get lucky.
  • Like I need a search engine to index 19 access points.

    --
  • Not to mention how unlucky I am in the pahllic area...yet I refuse to use one of those money traps.
  • "Now I can use my wireless connection to search GAWD to set up my wireless connection which will then allow me to search GAWD to set up my wireless connection which will then allow me to search GAWD to set up my wireless connection which will then allow me to search GAWD to set up my wireless connection which will then allow me to search GAWD to set up my wireless connection which will then allow me to search GAWD to set up my wireless connection which will then allow me to search GAWD to..."
  • I went there and I didnt see a listing for TN in the search engine. I wonder if that was intentional...


    -Love all computers...
  • Similar thoughts are expressed on today's Suck.com [suck.com]. Wireless internet... what a crock of shit.
  • Hi, ThohT. I've visited your site several times and am impressed with its content and your service offerings. A question I have for you is, how can you financially support your network? Please understand that I'm not wanting to sound like a smartass; I'm simply trying to understand how it'll stay operational without funds.

    I'm sincerely impressed with the various community wireless networks that are around (yours, http://www.pdxwireless.org [pdxwireless.org], http://www.sbay.org [sbay.org], http://www.sflan.com [sflan.com], http://www.seattlewireless.org [seattlewireless.org], etc.) and would love to gain a better understanding about their operations. I'm also in the process of starting a fixed wireless service and would really like to gain a community feeling (almost a "cult" feel to it) around it, if I can.

    But, I also want to make enough to support the network and not lose my shirt in the process.

    Any advice you might offer would be most appreciated.

    Thx much!

  • Yeah, that's a good suggestion, drwho. You might want to contact the site owner and suggest it to them, if you feel like it and haven't already. There's a big difference between FHSS and DSSS gear. It would suck to find out that an AP exists in an area only to dig deeper and find out that it's not capable of servicing a customer because of its use of DSSS or that it's too far away.
  • This will be especially useful for fixed wireless access providers, particularly for those offering service in urban and rural areas where traditional broadband access isn't offered or feasible.
  • then you simply add more AP's to a cell...
  • Not off topic at all since it's dealing with AP's. Depends on the AP itself, but it also depends on LOS (line of sight), terrain, etc. Some equipment can work up to a 15 mile radius around the AP while others only work up to one or two miles. There is still other equipment that can allow a P2P solution up to 60 to 70 miles.
  • That Suck article discusses WAP which is for PDA's and mobile phones. Completely different technology, entirely. This topic represents fixed wireless access which is very useful for people who live too far away from a CO and can't get DSL service or they live in the middle of nowhere where neither DSL nor cable modems exists.
  • The GAWD search does not offer any information about Michigan or 35 other states.
  • I'm currently in the process of implementing an IP telephony solution at work. In discussing new technologies with one of our consultants, I asked how far away we were from being able to carry around wireless IP phones. He said that Cisco is already working on (or has acquired someone that is working on) integrating 802.11b with cellular/PCS phones. From what he was saying, within a year or so, you'll be able to get cell phones that will double as wireless IP phones while on your WLAN campus. Cool stuff.

    Also, Ann Arborites are putting together a city-wide WLAN. If you're in Ann Arbor, and you're interested in participating, subscribe to this egroup [yahoo.com].
  • 2Mbps is 3G marketing hype - you can only get that rate if you happen to be the only person using the base station you are on. I doubt any 3G operators will actually offer that service anyway. On a mature 3g network, expect 384 Kbps at best. Also you'll have to wait for the networks to roll out which will take quite a long time - In America they're still not even sure which area of the spectrum they are going to use.

  • Personally I think cell phones are a phallic representation used primairly by people who either don't have one or think theirs is too small.

    If that's the case, how come one's status increases as the size of one's cell phone decreases?

  • Certainly in Australia, any commercial organisation doing this kind of thing would need a Carrier licence

    You sure about that? The 2.4Ghz channel has already been given blanket approval (in Australia as well as dozens of other nations) for low-power usage. Granted, Australia does have particularly onerous communications regulations (can you say Austel, anyone?) but this may not be subject to even those.

  • You could solve that. Enter some data. It's not as if they drove around the country in a van full of laptops, charting the latitude and longitude of each point at which they could bring up Slashdot.org. They're counting on people to put in the information. It's called cooperation.

  • How so, I get portscanned x number of times a day, if my wireless interface gets portscanned at least I know they are within 1000(give or take) feet of my house :)
  • What better way to get more AP's in the database then by posting it in slashdot...?
  • Oh, please.

    Anybody want to take bets on how long it takes an article writer to put up this headline:

    "Global Access Wireless Databases. Is it GAWD-awful?"

    The possibilities of puns on this acronym are truly endless.

  • The fact is that the more connectivity we have, the less connectivity we have - as people are encouraged to make more and more use of computers and telecommunications, they make less and less human contact.

    Is that so? Funny, I look at my icq list and I see about 160 contacts.

    I live in a VERY small town, and there isn't alot to do here, or a lot of people to talk to, consequently, I chat online.

    I mainly use the Internet to talk to people. Less human contact? Yeah, right.

    Trolls should go away now. Bye.

  • The site is an excellent idea. I founded a community wireless group in Chicago called Softroad [softroad.com]. Our goal is to allow free "Internetwork" access to some 600,000 individuals by the end of the year. Free. Wireless groups, ourselves, need to be networked. This is an excellent start towards those ends.
  • ...It could be that people aren't merely tired of the internet - they could just be more informed about what sites they want to go to, wasting less time surfing. As people use a tool more often, they become more efficient at using it - seems like the article could have mentioned that in its speculation.
  • Now too much connectivity is responsible for the breakdown of marriages?

    Connectivity is like any number of other technological advances in that it can be abused. But to make such sweeping statements as this is absurd. I have an always-on internet connection, but that doesn't mean I'm always at my computer. When I got it, I didn't stop going out with my friends, nor did I become incapable of carrying on a conversation outside of IRC.

    When I go on vacation, I leave my pager at home. My email can wait until I get back. The technology is under my control, not vice versa. And my marriage is doing quite well, thank you.

    Sorry, Chicken Little, but the sky is not falling.

  • Cool, After talking to consume.net over in England, our intrepid head of the propoganda team, aka ipl31, threw a box up with good bandwidth to network all the community wireless groups. It's over here, Freenetworks [freenetworks.org]. Of course it's running slashcode, so everyone would feel at home. :-)
  • Hey, You can start with just the encryption settings that came with the card, it's almost harder to disable the encryption settings than to put them in with just default 128 bit. :-) After that, it's just like protecting any other network. Just because it's wireless, doesn't mean it's a wide open door. All of the other technologies/tricks still apply, ie authentication, firewalls, vpns, acls, etc. Think of it just as you would implementing a regular LAN. Personally, I'm working up the documentation for FreesWan servers on the SeattleWireless network, but we have no demands that you use a preferred set up, it's more of a guideline. If you run a node, enforce it as you like. However, don't think that the other people working with you won't notice if your node starts becoming a hot point of activity. :-)

    Sorry this reply is brief and shallow, but I'm at work atm. :-)

  • Good greif. How many "regular LANs" do you allow any idiot off the street to plug into? Well, sparky, if you're browsing the internet from your lan, I'd say just about everyone out there. You know something I don't here? :-)
  • whatever fool, you are the one that is posting on /. remember...
  • Yep, Cisco bought Aironet out and are phasing out the 4500/4800 lines of cards. However, they're making a new line now that is directly compatible with the 4500/4800 drivers and so forth, so look for lots of support for these in the future. I don't have the model numbers of Cisco's new cards right off hand, but keep an eye out. If you see a PCMCIA Cisco 802.11 card, then you'll know that's the one. :)

    ---
  • If you're upset at the lack of access points, help the cause and ADD ONE! My best friend and I both have one, and my office has a couple. While the office one is encrypted (and thus, unavailable) I'll add mine as soon as I find out what standard settings to give it.

    Wireless won't take off unless the SSIDs and Channel info is set to some standard. But once it does ... whee!

    By the way ... wireless has come a long way since Ricochet. It's fast enough now (and hceap enough) where I've set up every computer in the apartment to use Wireless. As soon as Bluetooth allows me to have wireless keyboards and mice, we should start getting rid of that cord glut.

    • Think of it just as you would implementing a regular LAN.
    Good greif. How many "regular LANs" do you allow any idiot off the street to plug into? Most cards don't have 128bit encryption -- some have very little at all. And I'd bet most wireless LANs are running with the default security settings. With a radio signal, unlike an ethernet wire, there's no wall behind which you can hide.

    If your unwired laptop can do something, someone else's can too. Even if you make the access point itself a secured point in your network, you still have to get through it.
  • What goes on inside my network and what goes on between my network and some other network are totally different things.

    Listening to what goes on within the wired confines of my apartment is much more difficult than listening to the RF from a group of wireless LAN cards. I can protect the wired network both in terms of physical access and "internet" access [firewalls, unroutable protocols, etc.] Doing the same thing for a RADIO network is much more difficult... I cannot stop everyone from coming with 1000ft of my apartment nor can I turn every machine in the radio lan into a fortified castle complete with shark infested mote.

  • This engine currently searches 16 access points.

    A stunning amount of data. I'm sure a few of those are nearby, I'm on the outskirts of Grand Rapids, Michigan, which as we all know is the center of the technology universe.

    Lemme see... I'm surprised. There's one in Chicago. At least it's under 1000 miles from me.

    From the writeup it sounded like it'd be useful to know which bus stops were in range... at this stage, the database helps you see whether you're in the right country or state. Maybe repost this once they hit several hundred, several thousand?

  • Why in God's name would I want someone to a) use up my LAN bandwidth, b) use up my cable connection bandwidth and c) most importantly, gain access to my LAN?

    So that when you are outside of your LAN (You do get outside don't you?) you can have wireless access for 'free' from other like minded individuals. Case in point, I live in Brixton (London) and work from home. Most of the time I'm around the area, however I quite often have have meetings in the 'City' and would like to be connected when I am there. Consume.net (A free 802.11 network) will allow me to do that. And I don't mind someone using my bandwidth when I don't need it all 24/7. It is a mutually benefical(sp?) arrangement. Simple.
  • I now this is off-topic, but I happilly trade useless karma against good advice.

    I am in the market for a couple of 802.11 wireless board. I have only ISA (or VLB!) ports avalaible for the base station (an old 486 DX4/100), to a laptop (PCMCIA).

    Both hosts are FreeBSD. I'd like to support a good vendor (ie: one that plays well with open source, release its specs, etc).

    Looks like boards with drivers are:

    an(4) - Aironet Communications 4500/4800 wireless network adapter driver
    wi(4) - Lucent Technologies WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11 PCMCIA driver

    and

    ray: Raytheon Raylink 802.11 wireless NICs, OEM as Webgear Aviator 2.4GHz

    Any pointer/advice ? Can those boards be mix/matched easily, or are there problems if vendors differs ?

    Cheers,

    --fred
  • I have a wireless LAN in my house right now, encrypted. Why in God's name would I want someone to a) use up my LAN bandwidth, b) use up my cable connection bandwidth and c) most importantly, gain access to my LAN?

    Didn't CmdrTaco post an article a few weeks ago about "locking down your boxes"? What's the difference between locking down our boxes and locking down our LANs? I don't want Rob to use my LAN unless I let him.

    Another hacker paradox. Lock our boxes. Free bandwidth for all.

  • First off, I'm going to ignore the fact that your user info states you haven't posted more than 3 messages in the last month or so. Even though, in my mind, the whole purpose of Slashdot is to discuss; whether or not you understand the material or not is secondary -- you learn.

    I don't know who appointed you as self-regulator of Slashdot. Perhaps you consider yourself one due to your low user ID. I, myself, talk to Rob and Hemos reguarly, so I don't understand what you would know that I don't.

    I consider my purpose here twofold. One, to learn what others have to say. Two, to incite conversation. I do that poorly sometimes, but from the responses I get, the majority of talk is positive.

    As for this wireless issue, yes I can reconfigure my firewall to limit bandwidth to outside users. But why? Your suggestion is like showing the hacker the front door, locked, and jiggling the keys in your hand. I'd prefer to have the door hard to find, or impossible to find.

    Just because you are one of the few who was the first on Slashdot doesn't necessarily make you intelligent.

  • I envy the guy who came up with this thought.

    Like all great ideas, it is obvious once you state it and explain it well.

    Of course, you realize that someone will announce a patent on this in a year or two

    (Unless AltaVista decides that their previous patents cover this as well)

    All that aside, I would encourage people to contribute to this.

  • He means the license on the database itself. Specifically, who owns the rights, etc. Sure would be nice if people undersood what they were replying to before posting meaningless replies on /.
  • ...a serach engine with nearly dozens of wireless access points!

    Ok, ok. Granted, this news item came with the "but remember, it's brand spankin' new, hence currently useful to about 500 people" disclaimer, but still. Front page?

    That said, it's a really cool service. Next time I'm out and about and need to find a wireless access point, all I need to do is fire up my wireless internet and query this search engine and...

    Oh, wait. I'd need to know where the nearest access point was to do that. D'ohh.

    information wants to be expensive...nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time.

  • "Hey, you wanna crack MSN again?" "Man, they're on to ya. You're gonna be gettin' a visit from the Feds real soon now." "Nah, the Larson's next door got wireless. I'm all over that shit. When the feds show up, it ain't gonna be me they're bustin."
  • A man at the mercy of a high bandwidth internet connection is not a pretty sight. The eyes become wild and red aroung the rims; the hair becomes greasy and unkempt; bathing becomes an impossibility lest the poor techno-freak have to deal with something as analogue as water.
    So far fixed internet connections have kept such people locked away in their bedrooms where they belong, but soon wireless connectivity will bring these zombie hoardes on to our buses, into our churches, into our SHOPPING MALLS.... BRAINS!!!

  • Re:Internet overload (Score:3)

    by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Monday January 29, 2001 @05:30AM (#473645) Journal
    We do not need wireless access
    Unless, of course, you live in an area without wired access. If you live on the wrong side of the freeway in some areas it can cost thousands of dollars to get a phone line strung just 1/2 mile (1 kilometer). If cell phones are available there they are a much less costly solution. I know, different type of wireless, but it needs to be discussed, maybe I'll post it to K5 [kuro5hin.org].

  • No Kidding... (Score:3)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Monday January 29, 2001 @05:29AM (#473646) Homepage Journal
    As if the SUV driving dipshits need any more of an excuse not to pay attention to the road. They're already veering all over the place while they play with their cell phones (Personally I think cell phones are a phallic representation used primairly by people who either don't have one or think theirs is too small.) Imagine how bad it'll get when those idiots can surf the web from their vehicle on a regular basis.

    On the plus side, I suspect this will lead to much more rapid development of a self driving vehicle. Once that is designed, it will quickly become mandatory. It'd solve a lot of problems, though it'd see a lot of resistance here in the States, too.

  • Signal to Noise (Score:3)

    by tagplazen ( 310628 ) on Monday January 29, 2001 @06:36AM (#473647) Homepage
    I personally work on SeattleWireless, and as such I think GAWD is a great idea. However, there are things that start bothering you.

    The people that jump on going "it's only got so and so number of points". Who cares? It was just announced, give it time.

    The people that love bragging about how insecure access points are. Who cares if you can log in to someones network? Does that make you any better than a script kiddy bragging about how many shell accounts he has? Is 802.11 any different than securing any other xmission technology? Nope. So before bragging about the clueless users, why don't you help to educate them? Remember, at least a script kiddy has know how to dl a script to gather their accounts. :-)

    To the luddite. Why don't you get involved with a similar project, user group, etc. etc. Then you'd see that you actually get more face to face time than you do sitting in front of a monitor writing screeds about how technology is disenfranchising the proletariat.

    Okay, I've vented (and lost the first version of this due to fat fingers), but it just drives me nuts that every open source type of project you get into, for every one person that helps out and contributes, you get ten that sit around and tell you why you'll fail, and when it works, they get to tell you how it's flawed, politically unworkable, yadda yadda yadda. So Shmoo and any other groups that are contributing, they'll always get respect for taking the time away from rl in order to work on projects for other people. Thanks guys.

  • Before entering data (Score:4)

    by f5426 ( 144654 ) on Monday January 29, 2001 @05:55AM (#473648)
    I'd like to see the license. I am surprised that, afert the cddb fiasco anyone is still ready to enter information into on-line without checking before how the database is licensed.

    Cheers,

    --fred

  • Security nightmare (Score:4)

    by osgeek ( 239988 ) on Monday January 29, 2001 @05:12AM (#473649) Homepage Journal
    People leaving 802.11 networks completely unsecured would make a lot of problems on the Internet even worse.

    Can you say "Drive by Spamming"? I thought you could.

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