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Wireless Clouds for Good and Ill 125

Posted by michael from the slashdot-needs-a-wireless-topic dept.
dr_delete sent in a story about Athens, Georgia joining the ranks of municipalities creating free public wireless networks. In a counterpoint to that, we have the Pentagon cracking down on wireless devices, trying to control information leakage. And Newsforge has a story about starting your own wireless ISP. Nifty stuff.
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Wireless Clouds for Good and Ill More

Wireless Clouds for Good and Ill

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  • Wireless Clouds, eh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by LordYUK ( 552359 ) <jeffwright821.gmail@com> on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @11:07AM (#3986745)
    hmm, I havent ever seen a cloud tethered to anything, so I reckon we've had wireless clouds for a while now.

  • Good and 3? (Score:2, Informative)

    by TonyZahn ( 534930 )
    Y'know, ILL doesn't really work well in that font...

    Just saying...

  • In the UK .. (Score:2, Informative)

    by SpatchMonkey ( 300000 )
    .. there is an active effort underway to build a national wireless network. It's over at consume.net [slashdot.org]. Unfortunately the uptake seems rather slow with too many people just interested and not active.

  • Warchalking (Score:3, Informative)

    by Andy Smith ( 55346 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @11:12AM (#3986788)
    The BBC had a good story last week about warchalking [bbc.co.uk] which is a grass-roots effort to track down wireless networks so anyone can use them. Unfortunately the warchalking web site [warchalking.org] is no longer being updated because the owner, Matt Jones, wants to sell the domain and hand the project over to someone else.
  • Which is how I orignally read that. Hooray for proofreading how headlines will appear!

  • For Good and 3? (Score:4, Funny)

    by RumGunner ( 457733 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @11:17AM (#3986829) Homepage
    Is that the number of secure wireless networks?

  • Fidonet. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by f00Dave ( 251755 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @11:18AM (#3986834) Homepage
    Anyone remember when a small group of people, disaffected with CompuSpend and other BBS corps got together and formed their own distributed network, based on private citizen's telco services? Wondering if the same thing will happen with medium-to-wide area networks? I mean, now that the 802.whateveritwas hack-thing is out there (you know, the one that lets you do wireless over medium-area distances), how long before people shuck off the "shackles" of their ISP and start forming small Winternet groups?

    (Oh god, I might have just coined something. Quick! Alert Wired! =] )

    The logistics of gluing small (urban?) 'clouds' together comes down to boundary-routing. Now, if only there was an 802.somethingelse hack that let these 'clouds' contact each other over inter-city distances, the Winternet wouldn't depend on Spring or Bellnexxia or whoever is backboning, today.

    Cross your fingers. ;-)

    • Re:Fidonet. (Score:2, Informative)

      by ejdmoo ( 193585 )
      "Now, if only there was an 802.somethingelse hack that let these 'clouds' contact each other over inter-city distances"

      That is partially possible. I recently bought two Intel wireless access points where one can act as a repeater. I have a wired network in my house, but it only is at the extent of my office. I wanted to get to the back yard, so I put one AP (access point) in my office, that covers the front of the house. Then, all I did (after *extensive* configuration/headaches) is plug the other AP in to power in the kitchen and put it on top of the cabinets, and voiala! If I'm on the porch, I talk to AP2 who talks to AP1 who talks to my router. :) Looking here [intel.com] you can see the purdy pictures that show you what I'm talking about. The one setback: you cannot do more than 4 hops (I'm doing 1 hop...2 APs), but you could theoretically have one central AP, then multiple APs that only have one hop back to it, but go in different directions.
      • Well, sure, that's sort of the essence of an urban-area WiFi 'cloud' (using that 802.whatever hack for large hops). What I'd like to see, though, is something that let *some* people hop REALLY huge distances, broadband. That would let 'clouds' link up to form the Winternet. No carrier fees for bandwidth (since I said 'broadband'), but someone would have to pay for the hardware, uptime, configuration, etc. The nice thing about FidoNet was (is?) that it was distributed, and the 'costs' were borne by all the users....

        So, like another poster said: what if every municipality used tax money to maintain the inter-cloud links? Well ... that's a mess I'm not going to get into, today. ;-D
        • What I'd like to see, though, is something that let *some* people hop REALLY huge distances, broadband. That would let 'clouds' link up
          Kind-of like gif, l2tp, cipe, pptp, [...]
          No carrier fees for bandwidth (since I said 'broadband')
          There are always carrier fees for bandwidth unless you're building your own backbone. If you're not paying for the bandwidth you're using directly yourself, it's being subsidised by someone else (like lighter users of the same ISP).
          • There are always carrier fees for bandwidth unless you're building your own backbone. If you're not paying for the bandwidth you're using directly yourself, it's being subsidised by someone else (like lighter users of the same ISP).

            Well, to quote myself: "What I'd like to see, though, is something that let *some* people hop REALLY huge distances, broadband." So yes, build our ownn backbone. Somewhere in the back of my head was the idea that all those HAM ops could find a magic broadband bullet that would let them gateway between 'clouds'. Assuming they paid their own power and hardware bills, it would be free ... for everyone else.

            Of course, with great diversity would come great Free Market Pressure and the whole paying-for-bandwidth thing would just vanish. Instead, we'd be paying a nebulous group of amature and professional types for their time and costs.

            Hell, it worked for FidoNet, which was my original point....

            Now, if there was some way to have EVERYONE be a part of some global broadband network, then everyone would pay their OWN way in hardware and power costs (this 'cloud' business extended out from urban zones to continental or planetary zones). That would be the ultimate, but physics just won't give in that easily. Yet. Maybe. ;-)
            • Well, you could set up local clouds/nodes, and node maintainers would be responsible for handing out IP space within their node, as well as linking nodes together, probably via a tunneled link through their personal broadband connection.

              Note, that all you're doing is linking nodes via broadband (rather than via modem through the phone networks) - you don't have to link up to the greater internet, and in fact, for liability purposes, you probably wouldn't (except maybe for receiving and getting e-mail for registered users within your node.) You could also cache outside content by demand, so local users could browse static information.

              By abstracting node linkage, you could have nodes linking to each other via broadband, via long-range repeaters, a really long cat5 wire, ethernet over barbed wire [totallygeek.com], or even modems (either landline or Ricochet wireless.) The nice thing about the topology is you can probably borrow the entire network structure from the original Fidonet, replacing the PPP linkups with the link-agnostic node linkage protocol, and slap some limited tcp/ip services on top of it.

              So, if you don't have a direct link to the greater internet, what good is a node? Well, you can put together a pretty nifty distributed file library, exchange news and mail without having to hop outside of the local network, members within a given wireless cloud can game against each other, and if there's sufficient bandwidth, game against other nodes, essentially a hybrid between a fidonet node and a distributed virtual LAN.

              The coolest thing about this would be the creation of a shadow infrastructure that could route around damage, such as a major backbone collapsing, or fees and censorship. Once the citizen-maintained infrastructure was in place, even if the internet was shut down (either because of war, cyberattack, or because commercial interests have destroyed it), we'd still have pieces that could easily link up and provide service to members of the citizen-net.

              I wouldn't be surprised if someone already has a project like this... SO POST LINKS if ya know of any!
              • So far I've come up with:

                consume.net

                and

                and a litany of others in Australia.

                I have yet to find equivalent groups in US that have actually deployed (most look like bozos trying to make a quick buck off of delivering wireless internet access, or else are community groups putting a lot of info up, but no infrastructure I can peer to immediately :( )
                • Ironically, it appears that not being allowed to share wireless internet access without having to pay a hefty licensing fee is helping to drive the growth of non-commercial regional networks in Australia. Most of the networks I've found in the states are for the purpose of sharing someone's broadband. I have yet to find one that is for a neighborhood network that is active and growing. I guess since we can get broadband access for so cheap here, we're not driven to building giant wireless LANs in order to get more bandwidth.

                  On a different topic, if you bridge access points, can you still control who gets to peer with your bridge? I'm thinking no, unless you filter out their packets, but maybe someone who actually knows how 802.11b works can give a definitive answer...
                • www.seattlewireless.net
      • Quick question.

        Do these AP's have to have different IP addresses? If not, and you can have four wireless hops between IP addresses, you could, realistically, get some pretty decent physical distance between points were IP addresses are needed. At that rate, just about any routing protocol should be sufficient.
        • Even if APs require different IP addresses, you can still bridge them together, and have each one route to a local AP which would then serve that specific area of the cloud, probably using NAT, unless you wanted static servers.

          Problem is, how do you coordinate handing out private IP space to a whole bunch of different repeaters (and static servers)? If the idea really takes off, you will probably need a central registry to keep sections of the network from stomping on each other as new APs and their associated users come online.
    • Too bad you're too late: winternet.com [winternet.com]. Established in 1994....not using "wireless" but even so....you lose the trademark race.

    • Winternet (Score:2, Informative)

      by Rupert ( 28001 )
      Winternet [winternet.com] were my dialup ISP before I got cable [minnesotaroadrunner.com]. They are still going.
    • Since this is all being done by the Wireless Athens Group, is this all just an attempt to WAG the Dawgs?

  • DoD limits... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jeffy124 ( 453342 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @11:19AM (#3986844) Homepage Journal
    A quick read through that story shows nothing out of the ordinary. Anything that transmits something over air (cell phones, pagers, walkie-talkies, etc) is already banned from military and other government buildings, except in approved circumstances where the equipment was purchased by the gov't, or approved areas of certain buildings. I dont really see the "news" in that story.
  • No, you can't use wireless for a boot disk, I know. But with the recent news about Dell trying to make floppies obsolete [idg.net.nz], reported here on Slashdot, I just wondered if WiFi would be a good replacement instead of some other removeable media like compact flash.

    There no moving parts to WiFi, so there's nothing to ever wear out. And the "media" is even cheaper than $1 floppies -- it's free!

    Hmmm, now the only problem is geting companies to agree to a standard for the devices so there's no drivers. And some standard protocol so that everyone can always interchanged data. How many decades will that take? *grin* I suppose you shouldn't toss out your 3 1/2 " drives just yet...

  • It's also happening in Gainesville, Florida (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Zen Mastuh ( 456254 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @11:23AM (#3986870)

    It looks like all the mid-sized cities are in a footrace. The City Commission wants to be an early adopter, and one vocal critic has been making some noise (sorry--no link b/c the local rag doesn't have the story in their web archive) even suggesting to demonstrate its vulnerability. How many repeats of this [slashdot.org] will we need before people start to pay attention?

  • Liberty... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Any attempt by the federal government to further limit the ability of United States citizens to monitor and/or use the airwaves in the United States is a grave mistake. In times of crises the use of radio and similar communication devices by amateurs has helped immensely. Had they been invented at the time, our forefathers would have suggested having a radio in addition to powder, ball, and musket.

    I am not suggesting that such technologies shouldn't be regulated. Airwave frequencies must be regulated! What I am saying is that as soon as radio communications are restricted for use by military and commercial purposes only, than liberties ears may be silenced forever.

  • Nothing is ever free (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by alen ( 225700 )
    They may have to start raising local taxes for this.
    • good point, but read it this way -- If you pay taxes for it, using it makes your taxes worth it. If you dont use it, it's effectively money down the toilet from your point of view.
    • But think about it this way:

      If the net effect is to bring more people downtown, and that boosts sales at local businesses, then the idea is that the city will recoup their investment with from the increased sales taxes.

      So it's not free, but it might pay for itself.

  • Whats the big deal about the Pentagon? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Arcturax ( 454188 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @11:30AM (#3986916)
    When I saw the Pentagon mentioned along with a crackdown, I expected something about them cracking down on citizens. Instead it is simply about the Pentagon taking the wise move to curtail wireless WITHIN the military only use until they can be assured it can be used securely. That strikes me as a smart move, closing a hole that a terrorist or assassin might have otherwise used. Its good to see those in the Pentagon using their brains and thinking of interesting ways they might have security problems rather than having a tragedy happen first.

  • Starting your own wireless ISP (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jacer ( 574383 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @11:32AM (#3986932) Homepage
    Step one, find geeky friends within community. Step two, convince them the T1 should be at your house. Step three, setup equipment, use wireless repeaters ect, make sure that when you actually order the T1, that you get enough IP addresses to avoid NAT Step four, assign your traffic as priority, with a maximum of 98% of the bandwidth, and claim you don't know what the problem is
  • Athens isn't the only place starting things like this. Valdosta State University [valdosta.edu] has a wireless network [valdosta.edu] spread out over most of the campus. Supposedly there is Wi-Fi being setup in Valdosta itself, nothing known whether or not it is a free service venture.

    GA Tech [gatech.edu] also has a couple of projects going on here [gatech.edu] and here [gatech.edu].
    Georgia Southwestern State University [gsw.edu] also has an endeavour [peachnet.edu]. As does the Medical College of Georgia [mcg.edu].
  • Didn't you mean for Good and 666?
  • How is it that an Athens network with 1 node gets a spot on CNN TV and online, and in the AJC, yet the The Atlanta FreeNet [atlantafreenet.org] can't get diddly even though it tries? I mean, look at their website that CNN Linked to... December meeting minutes?!?! Please.

  • Responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tazzy531 ( 456079 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @11:55AM (#3987053) Homepage
    In an earlier speech at the same conference, President Bush's top cybersecurity adviser, Richard Clarke, said the technology industry was acting irresponsibly by selling wireless tools such as computer network devices that remain remarkably easy for hackers to attack.


    The industry's most common data-scrambling technique designed to keep out eavesdroppers, called the wireless encryption protocol, can be broken -- usually in less than five minutes -- with software available on the Internet.

    "It is irresponsible to sell a product in a way that can be so easily misused by a customer in a way that jeopardizes their confidential and proprietary and sensitive information," Clarke said.
    I think that is the dumbest analysis ever. Everyone that has to worry about confidential data and has the know-how of setting up a wireless network already knows that the medium is insecure. The industry never promised a secure network. I mean, if he wants to take this route, why don't we say that it was irresponsible that they developed the internet because TCP/IP is also rather insecure.

    Also, why don't they use the same line with guns. "The gun industry is inherently irresponsible because guns are inherently dangerous and insecure" or "The airline industry is acting irresponsibly because they don't have locks on the cockpit doors."

    I think what many people fail to see is that originally, the internet was based on a trust system. It was more important to get data through then to protect them. That however has changed. However, we shouldn't tell the industry to stop innovating because of the potential for misuse. Wireless devices are a great leap from the wired networks of prior. And it is widely known that anything going over a public network is inherently insecure.

    I would argue that this "cybersecurity advisor" really has no idea what he's talking about.
    • Second thought.

      In addition, it is up to the implementers choice of whether and/or how to implement the wireless infrastructure. The government should not be telling the industry to stop producing such devices because of poor implementation.

      that's like saying the car industry should stop producing cars because there are a number of bad drivers on the road...

    • Re:Responsibility (Score:2, Insightful)

      by djtack ( 545324 )
      What's really ironic, is that Clarke is labeling the wireless vendors as irresponsible for selling weak crypto, yet U.S. gov't has a long history of trying to suppress strong crypto.
    • right on.

      Bruce Scheneir (sp?) has written about this many times. Most intrusions on computer systems and networks are not the fault of the vendor, it's the fault of the admin who doesnt apply timely patches, not updating virus defs, expectsing the equipment to do all the work for him. Bruce's rationale is that good security is a process, not a product. And he's right. I also think his proposed solution is correct - cracker insurance providers should enforce good security by granting lower rates after they audit a system and certify it secure; higher rates for insecure setups.

  • change of tune for DOD? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Hollins ( 83264 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @12:02PM (#3987096) Homepage

    President Bush's top cybersecurity adviser, Richard Clarke, said the technology industry was acting irresponsibly by selling wireless tools such as computer network devices that remain remarkably easy for hackers to attack.

    The industry's most common data-scrambling technique designed to keep out eavesdroppers, called the wireless encryption protocol, can be broken -- usually in less than five minutes -- with software available on the Internet.

    A few years ago, the U.S. government attempted to make all encryption crackable by government agencies by mandating key escrow or weak encryption. At one point, they even tried to jail Phil Zimmermann for creating and publishing PGP. Now they're berating vendors for making encryption in their products too weak and have become advocates for strong consumer encryption. Other countries that have had no encryption controls in the past are now trying to adopt key escrow requirements.

    I find the reversal fascinating. Few easier ways exist to execute an electronic wiretap than to packet-sniff the subject's WiFi connection. I'm curious if there are internal struggles over encryption policy.

  • I keep seeing people mention ordering a T1 for Internet access for the wireless network. Why not use DSL? If someone is just going to setup a network for neighbors or the community is there a problem with DSL?
    • Well this particular article focuses more on wireless ISPs in rural areas where DSL access isn't widespread, thus the appeal of wireless being able to step in and fulfill the lack of broadband access. However, you are right. If you set this up somewhere with DSL access, that'd probably be the cheaper way to go.
  • "In a counterpoint to that, we have the Pentagon cracking down on wireless devices...."

    How is this at all counter to the preceding story? Though I think 802.11x devices are suitable for trivial and lightweight network traffic, I don't use it at home because of inherent security flaws (among other reasons). Similarly, I don't give out my credit card info over my cordless or cellular phones. Yes, fine, I'm paranoid though my needs for secrecy - as a private citizen - are relatively moderate.

    However, I certainly don't see any reason why the US military shouldn't regulate the use of largely unregulated communications within its own sphere of influence. Seriously, these are some of the same people who modify computers for zero electromagnetic emissions. Why wouldn't they want to minimize the risks inherent in utilizing unsecured public bandwidth?

  • This is exactly what the US needs. More options. It's so limited now. If you are lucky you can choose from a set of one (1) cable ISP. We need to see more of this in the communications industry. It would be nice, for example, to see cell phones cost comparitively close to land lines, if not cheaper. Japan can do it, so can we. We just need more far-sighted people.
    • True, however I remember reading on this site that a land line in Japan was ~$600 with a long waiting list.. Shouldn't be hard to be cheaper than that! -Jason

      • If landlines aren't being used much anymore, it makes sense to me that their price would increase. (ie: not enough customers to cover expenses) I don't know if this is the whole case in Japan, but I would think that it would be a factor.

        In other words (and for the fun of illustration, NOT to insult your intelligence), say a service you provide costs you $1000/month regardless of the number of customers. With 1000 customers, you can make a 100% profit by charging them $2/month. But if you only have ten customers (maybe because your customers found a better and more convenient service), then you would need to charge them $100/month just to break even.

        Of course, if your cost is relative to your customer base, then this philosophy may have little effect on you. On the other hand, there aren't many businesses that I can think of that can stay in business and hold competitive prices if they don't have enough customers.

  • I can see it now: "If you Wi-Fi in Athens to sell off your $20,000 stash of NASCAR collectables on E-bay... you might be a redneck." "If you use the Athens Wireless Network to update your "I love Dale Earnhardt" webpage... You might be a redneck."

    • Hi-tech red-neck (Score:2, Interesting)

      by 0xdeadbeef ( 28836 )
      Not an exageration. Indeed, there is a propensity for holding "Gun and Computer" shows in the civic centers of rural Georgia.

      You may laugh, but the modern redneck knows computers like they know guns and trucks. And they were into HAM and CBs long before the teenybopper set [slashdot.org] learned the advantages of cell phones.

      Of course, Athens isn't exactly a redneck Mecca. It's more like the Berkeley of Georgia.
  • Check out my Sem@code [semacode.org] page. Also mentioned here [pghwireless.com].

    To quote myself:

    Here's what you need: a WiFi device; a public node; a CueCat or any other barcode scanner. If you're all geared up, then you can jump the gun on ubiquitous computing. You might use sem@code, a barcode that encodes a URL. With a wireless or mobile internet device, you just scan the barcode into your URL field, and voila! you load the website it links to.

    Sem@codes are public tags for URLs. This is not pie-in-the-sky [philly.com] stuff: for example, over three million [digitrends.net] CueCat scanners were distributed (you can get one [ebay.com] on eBay). With that or any other barcode scanner attached to your laptop, you can read semacodes. In addition, your or anyone else can generate sem@codes [semacode.org] with open-source software online.

    Simon

  • Of course, the article states that the cloud is only over downtown Athens to a radius of about 3 blocks. Not much good there, as downtown is a horrid place full of trouble-seeking high-school kids, drunk/drugged college students, and homeless people. The "main drag" reeks of petuli oil and cigarettes (not just tobacco!) and the side streets smell of worse things.

    Most adults who actually live in Athens tend to avoid downtown. Based on this fact, a wireless network sponsored by UGA and the government translates into the government trying to appease the university at the expense of its own full-time residents (yet again!). Apparently, UGA can't even get it right as the all the computer/technology departments at UGA are on South Campus, which is much further away from downtown than the liberal arts-heavy North Campus. If they're trying to deploy this technology and actually have students that will use (and test) it, they started on the wrong end of campus!

    Great idea, bad implementation plan. Very few of the full-time citizens will ever get any use out of this technology, yet they will be the ones stuck paying for it.

    PS: Before anyone from Athens gets all high-and-mighty about the wonders of downtown, I lived 28 years in or near Athens, and I remember when downtown was the best place to go in Athens. Alas, the mall opened up across town and downtown was abandoned. What's there now is a shadow of what it once was.

    • Well, I still live in Athens, and I frankly think I don't go downtown enough. It is one of the better downtowns that I have had the opportunity to be in/around. As a former high-school student and current college student (not at UGA, however) I have to resent your first few statements about the type of people downtown.

      The article also points out that while it is 3 blocks now, they hope to move it to 24 soon. You point out that adults avoid downtown. I assume you mean people who aren't in college. But the college kids are exactly who would be most likely to use this. Imagine a student who goes to lunch at the Bluebird Cafe (excellent vegan stuff). The said student can have his/her PDA/laptop and do some research for the next class, etc. I'm not saying everyone will, but no one will if the infrastructure is not in place.

      I do agree with some of your points however. A campus-wide network should exist for every college in the US. (being an electrical engineering / computer science major allows me to say that :) ) Athens' smell reminds me of a sea port in Italy that I got to visit with UGA's study-abroad program, but it isn't everywhere, so you are partially right about that.

      Now I just wish I had that Powerbook G4 to go downtown with.
  • As a graduate of computer engineering I sure would have loved to sit in the middle of downtown Athens (or on Bowman Field in Clemson where I went to school) and watch all the cute girls while having a remote X client window open to work on all my silly little projects. Of course, I may not have graduated then...

    PS: The story is here too [eduslash.com]
    • What the hell is 'Computer Engineering.'

      There are two formal disciplines of engineering that are accredited:

      Electrical Engineering
      Mechanical Engineering.

      All others 'engineerings' are handwaving and shortcuts implemented by various schools and organizations to get a bunch of people out there in industry plugging stuff in, etc.

      I am not an EE or a ME. I'm at least honest about the fact that I'm not an engineer.
      • I graduated from an accredited engineering school with a focus in computer engineering. I took the exact same classes as the electrical engineering students up until my senior year, when I took things like Software Practicum, Digital Signal Processing, etc. I am an Engineer, if you don't agree, kiss my ass.

  • Error in CNN Article (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jeremy Erwin ( 2054 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @01:19PM (#3987619) Journal
    The industry's most common data-scrambling technique designed to keep out eavesdroppers, called the wireless encryption protocol, can be broken -- usually in less than five minutes -- with software available on the Internet.

    WEP actually stands for Wired Equivalent Privacy [berkeley.edu]. It was intended as a means of ensuring that wireless users could have the same level of privacy as users using a wired network-- not as an secure communications protocol. (Of course, WEP does not even provide that level of "privacy").

    Aren't there better privacy/security options available for Wireless devices?
  • "...trying to control information leakage."

    It's worth noting that this was how we spied on the soviets for years during the cold war-- Through wireless phone communications before they learned that some of that stuff might be better off encrypted or left to land-lines. That and rigging their Xerox machines when they were first invented for photo duplication ^__^
  • I'm currently sitting just within the edge of this cloud on Clayton street. Of course, I have no wi-fi devices to play with right now, but who knows....
    I'm kind of surprised this made it to CNN, it's really underplayed around Campus, you don't hear a lot about it. Also, I'm wondering how toe UGA infrastructure will handle it, they are notorious for poor network performance despite MASSIVE bandwidth.

    Kintanon
  • My vision is really goofed up today, I thought the title of the story was:

    "Wireless Clowns for Good and Ill" ...oopppps...
  • Looking over the Raylink [raylink.com] site makes this very, very appealing. Does anyone have experience - or links to somewhere - about setting this up? Questions:
    1. Interoperability with other OS's - the site mentions support for Windows only.
    1. Controlling access.
    1. Setting up accounts and billing.
    1. What services must be provided (i.e. do you really need to provide POP3 accounts or Usenet?)

    It would be nice - and extrememly cool - to be able to get out from under the thumb of my DSL provider while giving (selling!!) access to others in the area. Given that this appears to be cheap (equipment + fast connection to share + time = ????) it is very tempting...
  • "It is irresponsible to sell a product in a way that can be so easily misused by a customer in a way that jeopardizes their confidential and proprietary and sensitive information," Clarke said.
    In that case, you'd think they would go after Microsoft with a little more gusto!
    ;-)

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