Tag Archives: wifi

How a banner ad for H&R Block appeared on apple.com—without Apple’s OK

Posted on by at 11:35 am

R66T, pronounced “Root 66″ and intended as a play on the famous American highway Route 66, describes itself as “one of the nation’s leading publisher of targeted content, information and advertising to private Wi-Fi and High-Speed Internet Access (HSIA) networks, conducting tens of millions of individual user sessions—approaching one-billion user-minutes per month.” The company says that it supports Wi-Fi networks at places like airports, hotels, coffee shops, and malls, often providing free access in exchange for showing “hyperlocal” advertisements.

via How a banner ad for H&R Block appeared on apple.com—without Apple’s OK | Ars Technica.

This might be a good opportunity to mention that everyone should use AdBlock Plus, a plugin available for many web browsers, which will block these kind of advertisements.  Blocking ads is also a good PC security measure since ads provide a vector for a lot of malware to inject themselves.

A Look At YourKarma, A Tiny Wi-Fi Hotspot On A Mission

Posted on by at 12:02 pm

The YourKarma device creates a WiFi hotspot that moves around with you, and connects your WiFi connected devices to the Internet. This is just like the tethering option available on your pocket computer; but YourKarma sends data through Clearwire’s cellular network.

via A Look At YourKarma, A Tiny Wi-Fi Hotspot On A Mission | TechCrunch.

What is AP Isolation Mode and why should I disable it on my router?

Posted on by at 1:42 pm

In the computer networking world, AP stands for Access Point, or in this case, a wireless access point. AP Isolation effectively creates a “virtual” network among wireless clients, in which each device is an individual entity that cannot communicate with other wireless devices on the same Wi-Fi access point. This configuration can be useful for public Wi-Fi hotspots to separate potentially malicious network traffic from other.

via What is AP Isolation Mode and why should I disable it on my router? – Customer Feedback & Ideas for Photosmith.

The tomato router has this option.  Other APs do not.

Wi-Fi patent troll hit with racketeering suit emerges unscathed

Posted on by at 5:58 pm

Innovatio deliberately avoided targeting the actual manufacturers of Wi-Fi equipment, preferring to sue end-users. But in October, Cisco, Netgear, and Motorola teamed up to file an 81-page lawsuit [PDF] seeking to shut down Innovatio’s patent-trolling project once and for all. Not only were the patents invalid, but the suit alleged Innovatio’s whole campaign was a violation of the RICO anti-racketeering law. That law is more commonly used against crime families than patent holders.

via Wi-Fi patent troll hit with racketeering suit emerges unscathed | Ars Technica.

No, free Wi-Fi isn’t coming to every US city

Posted on by at 11:34 pm

We’ve written about White Spaces on numerous occasions. The FCC gave its thumbs up in 2008. We wrote about test networks in 2010, and by December 2011 the FCC had approved the first White Spaces broadband device.

via No, free Wi-Fi isn’t coming to every US city | Ars Technica.

LOL.  I read the free Wifi story in the Chicago Tribune and even on slashdot.

Gov’t will open up radio spectrum to improve Wi-Fi

Posted on by at 4:35 pm

The Wi-Fi traffic jam was predictable, just as it’s predictable that there will be a mobile spectrum crunch, he said. 195 MHz of new spectrum will be opened up, all in the 5 GHz band, which has less interference but shorter ranges than the 2.4 GHz band. Opening up more spectrum has the potential to alleviate Internet-use congestion, particularly at crowded places like public Wi-Fi access points.

via FCC’s Genachowski: Gov’t will open up radio spectrum to improve Wi-Fi | Ars Technica.

Instabridge’s Android app uses Facebook Connect to let you share Wi-Fi with friends.

Posted on by at 9:49 pm

Instabridge’s free Android app lets you automatically share Wi-Fi networks with your Facebook friends. Available in a handful of European countries, the app works by taking advantage of the Facebook Connect authentication tool, which lets users to log on to websites with Facebook credentials.

via Instabridge’s Android app uses Facebook Connect to let you share Wi-Fi with friends. | MIT Technology Review.

To share a Wi-Fi network through Instabridge for the first time, you must type in your network’s password, which is encrypted and stored on Instabridge’s servers.

Errata Security: Apple’s secret “wispr” request

Posted on by at 2:38 pm

The reason Apple does this is because you may be using an app other than the web browser. For example, the only thing you might be doing is syncing your e-mail. In such situations, you would never see the portal page, and your app will mysteriously fail to connect to the Internet.

Therefore, before your app has a chance to access the network, Apple does this for you. It sends out a request to the above URL. If the request gets redirected, then Apple knows there is a portal. It then launches a dialog box, containing Safari, to give you a chance to login.

via Errata Security: Apple’s secret “wispr” request.

At my local Starbucks, all web surfing is free. But, Windows presents a captive logon page where you must accept the Terms of Service, but the iPhone doesn’t. I assume the portal detects this URL, and automatically opens up the access-point without doing a redirection. I need to test witha Linux distro in order to figure out what’s going on.

FreedomPop Preps Open Wi-Fi, Launches Free Home Internet Challenging ISPs

Posted on by at 9:59 pm

FreedomPop is now also entering the home market, with a free home broadband product called FreedomPop Hub Burst that uses Clearwire WiMax, the company is announcing today. FreedomPop is now accepting orders and expects to ship its home modem next month. The service is faster than DSL but slower than cable. Stokols says the service will disrupt incumbents like Time Warner Cable, AT&T, Verizon and Comcast. Users get free service of 1 gigabyte per month but they can “earn” unlimited free access by adding friends to their network or participating in partner promotional offers. That amount of data is fine for 70% of users, says Stokols, the former CEO of digital video company Woo Media and vice president at British Telecom.

via FreedomPop Preps Open Wi-Fi, Launches Free Home Internet Challenging ISPs – Forbes.

Why Cisco Wants Meraki’s Wi-Fi Smarts

Posted on by at 7:27 pm

Thousands of enterprise users have already opted for a virtualized approach to network management — Meraki alone has more than 10,000 mid-sized corporate customers — and now telcos are keen to understand how software-defined networking (SDN) and other new “cloud” approaches might help them run their networks more efficiently. (See Carriers Collaborate on Network of the Future.)

via Why Cisco Wants Meraki’s Wi-Fi Smarts – IP & Convergence – Telecom News Analysis – Light Reading Mobile.

Cisco’s main interest in Meraki lies in the privately held Wi-Fi company’s software-based centralized management capabilities for medium-sized enterprise networks.