To Fellow ALUGers,
I would like to make an appeal to all of you without broadband in the area, how would you feel about setting up a wireless wan (they are doing it all over the country and in other regions (Suffolk, Cambridge)). As I live in the middle of no where I am not commercially viable, but I believe with the power of the penguin I can jump onto someone else's wireless network, with their permission and do things that way.
Check out http://locustworld.com for the meshAP kit, which we can build cheaper, also www.invisible.net.uk for other stuff.
Let me know what u think! Maybe ALUG can be held responsible for the birth of Norfolknet!
Regards to all,
Michael --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.455 / Virus Database: 255 - Release Date: 13/02/2003
On Tue, Feb 18, 2003 at 09:20:19PM -0000, Michael Sage wrote:
I would like to make an appeal to all of you without broadband in the area, how would you feel about setting up a wireless wan (they are doing it all over the country and in other regions (Suffolk, Cambridge)). As I live in the middle of no where I am not commercially viable, but I believe with the power of the penguin I can jump onto someone else's wireless network, with their permission and do things that way.
I currently live in suffolk at the moment and going to move to norwich real soon (job and er... broadband ;)
There was this article in Linux User about this (Which I presume you've got the idea from?). Really interesting anyway.
Let me know what u think! Maybe ALUG can be held responsible for the birth of Norfolknet!
Not being real silly here but I think ALUG is really ending up as NLUG (Norfolk LUG). But that is just my opinion.......
Craig craig@wizball.co.uk wrote:
Let me know what u think! Maybe ALUG can be held responsible for the birth of Norfolknet!
Not being real silly here but I think ALUG is really ending up as NLUG (Norfolk LUG). But that is just my opinion.......
As a Norfolk resident, I find it difficult to agree with that opinion when most of the active members seem to be from Suffolk at the moment and there are more meetings in Suffolk. I'd love ALUG to get more help from Norfolk. At the moment, it seems struggle for 2 people to organise anything more than informal meetings in a bar. Basically, I think the most help could be:-
Casual: - Editing the contrib area, keeping an eye on it - Sending in updates for the main site (new source access real soon now)
Committed: - Someone co-ordinate shared/group travel to meetings - Help promoting the group (posters? PR? newsgroups? other groups) - Help organising specific meetings (venue hosts, talk organiser, etc)
Semi-permanent: - New mailing list admin (currently only 2 active, I think) - Librarian, hunting down the books we have already
Can anyone help with these taska?
MJR
On Wed, Feb 19, 2003 at 10:52:27AM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
Casual:
- Editing the contrib area, keeping an eye on it
- Sending in updates for the main site (new source access real soon now)
maybe.
Committed:
- Someone co-ordinate shared/group travel to meetings
- Help promoting the group (posters? PR? newsgroups? other groups)
- Help organising specific meetings (venue hosts, talk organiser, etc)
Should be able to do some pr thingums soonish, I may have a volunteer for some of this. I will be telling them soon. :)
Semi-permanent:
- New mailing list admin (currently only 2 active, I think)
- Librarian, hunting down the books we have already
hmmm, I am one of the admins so I guess I already do that, I will take a shot at working out where our books are and am quite happy to be the librarian. At least I am now back in East Anglia I will be able to come to meetings too.
Adam
To All,
This is very very sad i know but. There is an ASP website (yeah i know) of all the books that i own if any one wants to borrow one let me know and i am sure we can work out a way of getting it to you.
Surf on down to http://www.sageary.ccsgroup.co.uk login and password of ALUG and browse the books I own. I hope to be adding some for Wireless stuff soon, but with the baby and all money for books or time is a bit short!!!
Regards,
M
If ALUG would like a copy of the source I can sort it out! :o)
-----Original Message----- From: main-admin@lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-admin@lists.alug.org.uk]On Behalf Of Adam Bower Sent: 22 February 2003 11:58 To: main@lists.alug.org.uk Subject: Re: [Alug] Wireless WANS (i.e. Norfolk)
On Wed, Feb 19, 2003 at 10:52:27AM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
Casual:
- Editing the contrib area, keeping an eye on it
- Sending in updates for the main site (new source access real soon now)
maybe.
Committed:
- Someone co-ordinate shared/group travel to meetings
- Help promoting the group (posters? PR? newsgroups? other groups)
- Help organising specific meetings (venue hosts, talk organiser, etc)
Should be able to do some pr thingums soonish, I may have a volunteer for some of this. I will be telling them soon. :)
Semi-permanent:
- New mailing list admin (currently only 2 active, I think)
- Librarian, hunting down the books we have already
hmmm, I am one of the admins so I guess I already do that, I will take a shot at working out where our books are and am quite happy to be the librarian. At least I am now back in East Anglia I will be able to come to meetings too.
Adam -- "Step away from the Cathedral, This Bazaar is loaded" jabberid = quinophex@jabber.earth.li
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Have you seen the articles on building your own directional WLAN aerial? You can get a range of several miles. sorry no URL, but try a Google search.
On 18-Feb-2003 Michael Sage wrote:
To Fellow ALUGers,
I would like to make an appeal to all of you without broadband in the area, how would you feel about setting up a wireless wan (they are doing it all over the country and in other regions (Suffolk, Cambridge)). As I live in the middle of no where I am not commercially viable, but I believe with the power of the penguin I can jump onto someone else's wireless network, with their permission and do things that way.
Check out http://locustworld.com for the meshAP kit, which we can build cheaper, also www.invisible.net.uk for other stuff.
Let me know what u think! Maybe ALUG can be held responsible for the birth of Norfolknet!
Regards to all,
Michael
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.455 / Virus Database: 255 - Release Date: 13/02/2003
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On Wed, 19 Feb 2003 raph@panache.demon.co.uk wrote:
Have you seen the articles on building your own directional WLAN aerial? You can get a range of several miles. sorry no URL, but try a Google search.
Take a look at http://www.frars.org.uk/cgi-bin/render.pl?pageid=999999 if you are after WLAN antenna info. They are gtting 14km out of their tests.
Some cheap antennas are available at this site http://www.btinternet.com/~jewell/vjbants.htm
If you want some serious gain take a look at the dishes available at http://www.jrmiller.demon.co.uk/products/dish.html designed for 2.4GHz amateur satellite communication
Simon
There are a few of us here at the University of Essex who are messing around with this kind of thing. In fact, we're just on the point of ordering a truckload (well, maybe only a vanload) of antennas and related kit. Any ALUGgers in the Colchester area are welcome to get in touch with me.
Shame Ionica peaked 5 years too early, their technology would be perfect for this kind of thing.
..Adrian
On Wed, Feb 19, 2003 at 04:33:30PM +0000, Adrian F. Clark wrote:
There are a few of us here at the University of Essex who are messing around with this kind of thing. In fact, we're just on the point of ordering a truckload (well, maybe only a vanload) of antennas and related kit. Any ALUGgers in the Colchester area are welcome to get in touch with me.
What are your security measures? I'm keen to know what people are using to encrypt their connection. Is it 100% reliable? Can you actually prevent crackers from using your network?
On Wednesday 19 February 2003 17:36, Craig wrote:
Can you actually prevent crackers from using your network?
Not really, the best you can do on any wireless network is make it as hard as possible.
128Bit WEP will deter all but the most dedicated, with decent kit you could also implement MAC lockdown (but then you would have to administer the addition of new interfaces)
At the gateway, run a proxy with authentication maybe. Depends on what you are worried about, if it's unauthorised people using your connection then these measures should do, but if you are worried about internet traffic being snooped then you really shouldn't be using the internet at all :o)
Do bear in mind though that WEP can really kill performance, more so in the case of multi hop networks (configuring WLAN APs as repeaters) Not a problem if you are running a AP to connect your laptop to your ADSL line, but in the case of building a larger network it may become an issue.
Also be careful with high gain antenna arrays, I'm pretty sure that there are Legal limitations regarding Effective Radiated Power for the 2.4GHz band. Regardless of the power output of your equipment if you attach a high gain antenna to it you could be causing other users of the same band some problems.
Wayne
on Fri, Feb 21, 2003 at 01:04:36AM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Wednesday 19 February 2003 17:36, Craig wrote:
Can you actually prevent crackers from using your network?
Not really, the best you can do on any wireless network is make it as hard as possible.
128Bit WEP will deter all but the most dedicated, with decent kit you could also implement MAC lockdown (but then you would have to administer the addition of new interfaces)
er, why not just use IPsec?
RC4 has been shown not to be a terribly good choice technically, for WEP. e.g. http://airsnort.shmoo.com/ and the paper at http://www.cs.rice.edu/~astubble/wep/
Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Wednesday 19 February 2003 17:36, Craig wrote:
Can you actually prevent crackers from using your network?
Not really, the best you can do on any wireless network is make it as hard as possible.
incorrect, you /can/ make it secure but it takes an awful lot of work, look into 802.1x, dymaic WEP keys with client+server side certificates if you are really interested... Sz
Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Wednesday 19 February 2003 17:36, Craig wrote:
Can you actually prevent crackers from using your network?
Not really, the best you can do on any wireless network is make it as hard as possible.
You can setup wireless networks securely, but it takes alot of time a knowledge (neither of which I have much of at the moment ;). Using dynamic wep keys, EAP-TLS and client/server side certificates it is possible to have a secure connection.
128Bit WEP will deter all but the most dedicated, with decent kit you could also implement MAC lockdown (but then you would have to administer the addition of new interfaces)
yup...
At the gateway, run a proxy with authentication maybe. Depends on what you are worried about, if it's unauthorised people using your connection then these measures should do, but if you are worried about internet traffic being snooped then you really shouldn't be using the internet at all :o)
I believe the wireless hotspots in London have this arrangement, anybody can associate with the AP, but there is a proxy to conenct to the Internet... only a good solution if the proxy uses HTTPS to authenticate (for obvious reasons ;)
Do bear in mind though that WEP can really kill performance, more so in the case of multi hop networks (configuring WLAN APs as repeaters) Not a problem if you are running a AP to connect your laptop to your ADSL line, but in the case of building a larger network it may become an issue.
Also be careful with high gain antenna arrays, I'm pretty sure that there are Legal limitations regarding Effective Radiated Power for the 2.4GHz band. Regardless of the power output of your equipment if you attach a high gain antenna to it you could be causing other users of the same band some problems.
afaik this is correct, however if you purchase a wireless card where you can turn down the TX power you can attach a directional antenna and still be within the legal ERP limitations, although don't quote me on that ;)
Sz
On Wednesday 19 February 2003 16:33, Adrian F. Clark wrote:
Shame Ionica peaked 5 years too early, their technology would be perfect for this kind of thing.
Are you sure it would ?
Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I'm pretty sure that regarding data throughput Ionica's ill fated network was not capable of much more than a regular PSTN line, anyway from memory network coverage was nearly as bad as ADSL.
It certainly was never available in any of the places I wanted it.
If it was capable of higher bandwidth data communications then that was a missed opportunity, by both Ionica and whoever could have bought them.
Wayne
On Fri, Feb 21, 2003 at 01:11:00AM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Wednesday 19 February 2003 16:33, Adrian F. Clark wrote:
Shame Ionica peaked 5 years too early, their technology would be perfect for this kind of thing.
Are you sure it would ?
Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I'm pretty sure that regarding data throughput Ionica's ill fated network was not capable of much more than a regular PSTN line, anyway from memory network coverage was nearly as bad as ADSL.
The network coverage wasn't bad, just that the technology didn't work, people with a line of sight to their hq building had problems making phone calls. The bandwidth also was probably less than that of a regular telephone.
If it was capable of higher bandwidth data communications then that was a missed opportunity, by both Ionica and whoever could have bought them.
Ionica still exist (at least the technical people etc. and the people who set it up iirc) , they are still doing things with wireless communications so maybe they will actually return with a service that works.
Anyhow the real reason they went bankrupt is because they spent all of their money on cable ties, one look under their old datacentre floor would confirm this to anyone!
Adam
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