From jim at media.mit.edu Tue Jul 1 06:52:15 2003 From: jim at media.mit.edu (Jim Youll) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2003 06:52:15 -0400 Subject: [Rooftops] WiFi = MoFo Message-ID: <200307011048.h61AmsQA024458@new.agentzero.com> found on f'dcompany.com when i should have been writing code. Wi-Fi = Mo-Fo Posted by: Derek Zoolaunder Jul 01 2003 12:39AM EST So I read that Starbucks has Wi-Fi "hot spots". Cool. I crank up my desktop PC and surf on over to www.starbucks.com on my DS&L connection. Then I get my laptop, which is totally configured for wireless, and boot it up, not more than three feet away from the desktop and the DSL modem. No wireless signal detected. Borders Books has Wi-Fi hot spots, too, so the paper says. Great. I click on over to borders.com on the desktop machine, but my laptop still detects no wireless signal. So I finally realize I'm a doofus and that I have to go to a Borders STORE to use Wi-Fi. Five seconds later I'm at www.bordersstores.com -- I find a Borders in my neighborhood, and I'm sitting on the web page with a PICTURE of the damned store on it, but still no wireless signal on the laptop. And the web page clearly states that this store has Wi-Fi hot spots. Hell, maybe they took the picture of that store before it even had Wi-Fi installed there, but that's not my problem, and it's still false advertising. Now I read that Barnes and Noble will be offering Wi-Fi service. Yeah, right. I'm not falling for that again. Wi-Fi is a load of bull. T-Mobile sucks it. From wifi-shootout at earthlink.net Fri Jul 11 23:15:01 2003 From: wifi-shootout at earthlink.net (wifi-shootout@earthlink.net) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 22:15:01 -0500 Subject: [Rooftops] Defcon Wifi Shootout Sponsors & Prizes Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20030711221501.007b4e40@pop3.norton.antivirus> Here's something that may interest you and your colleagues. Please feel free to publish it far and wide! ANNOUNCE: Defcon Wifi Shootout Sponsors & Prizes We are pleased to announce that TechTV has signed on as the premier sponsor of the Defcon Wifi Shootout Contest. They will be providing very nice prizes to the winners of the six contest categories, as well as the grand prize winner. We encourage you to submit your contest entries as soon as possible, and get in on the fun! Other fine sponsors providing prizes are: Breakpoint Books Hackerthreads J3sus pHreakers Jinxgear Moser Electronics Company (MECO) More details will be posted soon! Dave Moore Defcon Wifi Shootout Staff http://www.home.earthlink.net/~wifi-shootout/ From lars at aronsson.se Wed Jul 16 16:30:17 2003 From: lars at aronsson.se (Lars Aronsson) Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 22:30:17 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Rooftops] Boston Globe: Hotspots, Cold Feet In-Reply-To: <200306301140.h5UBeaQA009753@new.agentzero.com> Message-ID: On June 30, Jim Youll wrote: > 'Hotspots,' cold feet > Some analysts wonder whether WiFi craze is a bubble waiting to burst > By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff, 6/30/2003 > > [...] Some 4,500 WiFi hotspots -- areas of up to 300 feet in radius > within which subscribers with laptop and handheld computers can get > broadband-speed Net service -- have been deployed across the United > States, mainly in the last two years, according to Pyramid Research I think you can find 4500 such spots in Boston alone, where DSL subscribers have forgot to protect their residential Wi-Fi networks from people who walk or drive by. Our problem is that we don't "see" those locations as hotspots. Not yet. We need to open our eyes to this fact. Some percentage of those spots are connected to Verizon DSL and what if other Verizon DSL subscribers could use them all? That could make "membership in the Verizon DSL club" attractive, the sort of lock-in that residential broadband operators have been looking for under every stone from video-on-demand to web portals. Nobody wants to provide the raw pipe, the IP bandwidth that can be provided cheaper by any competitor. In order to create the lock-in, outsiders also need to be locked out. The broadband operator needs a central gateway that can authenticate new users and identify them as paying subscribers, whether they are in their own home or roaming around, whether they use ethernet or wireless ethernet. Commercial stand-alone Wi-Fi, Starbucks style, is failing because the demand is too low and costs are not. Whether the demand for "membership" in a DSL operator's wireless cloud is strong enough, remains to be seen. The scenario is technically feasible, costs very little to implement, and an old telephone monopoly which now provides DSL (such as Verizon) is best suited to do it. One way to implement this scenario could be to make an integrated Wi-Fi/wired hub and DSL modem that *doesn't* run NAT, but forwards every DHCP request down to the operator's central gateway (which might run NAT, although many of us hate NAT). Does anybody know what sort of equipment Verizon installs in the pay phones on Manhattan? -- Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se) Free Wireless Networking - http://elektrosmog.nu/ From wifi-shootout at earthlink.net Sat Jul 26 02:36:16 2003 From: wifi-shootout at earthlink.net (wifi-shootout@earthlink.net) Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2003 01:36:16 -0500 Subject: [Rooftops] More Defcon Wifi Shootout Sponsors & Prizes Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20030726013616.009844d8@earthlink.net> We are pleased to announce our newest sponsor, Pasadena Networks, who will be providing some cool wifi antennas as prizes. Check out their site at http://www.pasadena.net/shop/ See you in Vegas! -------- Previous message: ANNOUNCE: Defcon Wifi Shootout Sponsors & Prizes We are pleased to announce that TechTV has signed on as the premier sponsor of the Defcon Wifi Shootout Contest. They will be providing very nice prizes to the winners of the six contest categories, as well as the grand prize winner. We encourage you to submit your contest entries as soon as possible, and get in on the fun! Other fine sponsors providing prizes are: Breakpoint Books Hackerthreads J3sus pHreakers Jinxgear Moser Electronics Company (MECO) Dave Moore Defcon Wifi Shootout Staff http://www.home.earthlink.net/~wifi-shootout/