On Sat, Dec 11, 2004 at 08:17:32AM -0600, Riad S. Wahby wrote:

This seems like a peculiarity of your location. Here in Austin almost all of downtown is covered by free wireless.

I wonder how much of it is deliberate. I run my AP open for any passerby, and expect similiar in return when I pass through their area. Speaking of wireless, I'm very impressed with LinkSys WRT54GS alternative firmware advances. It's only a question of time before robust ad hoc meshes are available by simply reflashing your AP with alternative firmware. -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

On Sun, 12 Dec 2004, James A. Donald wrote:

On 11 Dec 2004 at 8:29, J.A. Terranson wrote:

...

Looking out of my fifth floor window I can connect to ~20 802.x nets *without* directional antennas or high powered cards. With extra gear, I can hit almost 50, and in both cases, roughly a third are completely open, another third are trivially "protected", and the remaining third have done the best they can under the circumstances

This may explain the lack of wardriving. Why bother to drive?

Exactly. I also run an open WiFi (labelled as "Open Wifi" :-) for others, as a payment for those that I use around town. Interestingly, I don't know of anyone who still actively wardrives at random (as opposed to against specific targets) for this same reason. Why bother? The only thing you really *should* have is a high powered card with any reasonably directional antenna (~$120.00usd as a set). That and a laptop and you can run any midsized office that doesn't need to provide services at a fixed IP :-)

--digsig James A. Donald

-- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin@mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF Civilization is in a tailspin - everything is backwards, everything is upside down- doctors destroy health, psychiatrists destroy minds, lawyers destroy justice, the major media destroy information, governments destroy freedom and religions destroy spirituality - yet it is claimed to be healthy, just, informed, free and spiritual. We live in a social system whose community, wealth, love and life is derived from alienation, poverty, self-hate and medical murder - yet we tell ourselves that it is biologically and ecologically sustainable. The Bush plan to screen whole US population for mental illness clearly indicates that mental illness starts at the top. Rev Dr Michael Ellner