After gutting the laptop and putting it in a custom picture frame, Driftnet, a program that listens network traffic and picks out images from TCP streams, was installed. [AUTUIN] tested his build with an open wireless connection in his building. The results provided a wonderful narrative that started with pictures from news sites than slowly devolved to pictures from a hot-or-not style website, an online dating site and finally pictures from the inevitable conclusion of that browsing session.
Tag Archives: wifi
Is a Wireless Data Center Possible?
In a new paper, a team of researchers from Cornell and Microsoft concluded that a data-center operator could replace hundreds of feet of cable with 60-GHz wireless connections—assuming that the servers themselves are redesigned in cylindrical racks, shaped like prisms, with blade servers addressing both intra- and inter-rack connections.
via Is a Wireless Data Center Possible?.
Although many 60-GHz technologies are under consideration (IEE 802.15.3c and 802.11ad, WiGig, and others), the authors picked a Georgia Tech design with bandwidth of between 4-15Gbps and and effective range of less than or equal to 10 meters. Beam-steering wasn’t used because of the latencies involved in reinstating a dropped connection, although both time and frequency multiplexing were. (Because the team couldn’t actually build the design, they chose Terabeam/HXI 60-GHz transceivers for a conservative estimate.)
Ruckus Wireless Goes for an IPO
Ruckus sells its Wi-Fi access points, controllers and gateways to service providers as well as enterprise customers. The company says it has 45 carrier customers, among which are Bright House Networks , The Cloud , KDDI Corp. , Tikona Digital Networks Pvt. Ltd. , Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC) and Towerstream Corp. (Nasdaq: TWER). (See Ruckus Makes Over KDDI With Wi-Fi Offload.)
via Light Reading Mobile – Broadband – Ruckus Wireless Goes for an IPO – Telecom News Analysis.
Based in Sunnyvale, Calif., Ruckus had 559 employees at the end of June 2012 and offices in China, India, Japan, Taiwan and the U.K.
Don’t sweat 802.11ac Wi-Fi – because 802.11ad will knock your socks off
802.11ac is a development of the current 802.11n standard, producing improved performance on the same 5GHz frequency bands. Some routers using the 802.11ac have already been deployed, and the experts on the panel agreed that it will become commonplace by early 2013.
via Interop: Don’t sweat 802.11ac Wi-Fi – because 802.11ad will knock your socks off.
Devices using the 60GHz standard could begin to appear in 2014 and become more prominent in 2015. This means that the next major transition is still well over a year away – in part because 802.11ac will not be a particularly testing upgrade for most end users.
Wi-Fi roaming: Hotspot 2.0 and Next Generation Hotspot
Operators faced with overloaded 3G and 4G networks would also like to use Wi-Fi offload for users as well as for backhaul data, which is why both the Wi-Fi Alliance and the Wireless Broadband Alliance are working on standards to simplify connection and roaming: Hotspot 2.0 and Next Generation Hotspot (NGH) respectively.
via Wi-Fi roaming: Hotspot 2.0 and Next Generation Hotspot | ZDNet.
Disable NetBIOS in W2K/XP/2003
NetBIOS is an ancient session-level interface and transport protocol developed by IBM to network together PCs. It is a broadcast-based, non-routable and insecure protocol, and it scales poorly mostly because it was designed with a flat namespace. Since the late 1980s Microsoft has adopted NetBIOS for their LAN Manager product, and from there it found its way into early versions of Windows and all the way into Windows NT.
via Disable NetBIOS in W2K/XP/2003.
Works with Windows 7 and got rid of all NBNS traffic for me on a per interface basis. I have netbios disabled on the wireless interface because wireless should be considered insecure and this NetBios traffic likes to broadcast to everyone your position which IMHO is not good. Run silent, run deep.
Connect Two Wireless Router Wirelessly
You can setup a wireless connection between two routers only so that it will link a wireless network to a wired network allowing you to bridge two networks with different infrastructure. You can find wireless access points products that offer either a “bridge” mode or a “repeater” mode. In this post I’m going to explain three popular open source choices that can be used for setting up a wireless bridge.
via HowTo: Connect Two Wireless Router Wirelessly ( Bridge ).
Project Byzantium
Byzantium is a live Linux distribution that delivers easy-to-use, secure, and robust mesh networking
via Project Byzantium.
Unlike most mesh implementations, a Byzantium Mesh requires no specialized equipment that may not be easy to get during an emergency, just an x86 computer with at least one 802.11 a/b/g/n wireless interface.
Wi-Fi Alliance starts certifying tunnel technology for better wireless performance
TDLS is based on the IEEE 802.11z standard, and the automatic link configuration is done in a couple of steps. The discovery process begins when one device sends a discovery request to another device, via the network they are connected to. If the target device is also TDLS compliant, then it sends a response directly to the initiator, providing information on its capabilities, including supported rates and channels.
via Wi-Fi Alliance starts certifying tunnel technology for better wireless performance – Computerworld.
Besides streaming video and audio, TDLS can also be used to improve the performance of wireless data back-up, printing and file transfers.
Why your smart device can’t get WiFi in the home team’s stadium
The only thing my boss said to me was, ‘Chip, the only thing that has to work is the cell phones.’”
That’s why stadiums across the country are partnering with cellular carriers to build Distributed Antenna Systems, or DAS. These are essentially a bunch of antennas spread throughout a building to make sure phones don’t lose their connections to the cellular network when fans walk in the door. But it’s not just phone calls and text messages filling up wireless networks during games. Fans are streaming video, whether from third-party sources or apps created by the home teams to provide replays, different camera angles, or action happening in other cities. Teams are concluding that cellular just isn’t enough, and are thus building WiFi networks to offload traffic from cellular and provide connections to devices that are WiFi-only.
via Why your smart device can’t get WiFi in the home team’s stadium | Ars Technica.
Distributed Antenna Systems connect to the service provider’s network either with a bi-directional amplifier, which uses an outdoor antenna to bring the cellular signal into the building, or a base transceiver station, which is installed inside and is the same type of radio used at cell sites, as explained by the Steel In The Air cellular consultancy. Signals are then distributed throughout the facility with a series of hubs, cables, and antennas.