PING: WIFI gurus
Michael
was under the impression that the distance was on the order of low-hundreds of
feet. While on vacation last week I saw my nephew kicked back on the front
porch, diddling with his laptop, and discovered that he was on the Web! We
don't even have a TV or stereo there, so how was that possible? He looked at me
like I was from another planet and said that he was connected to one of the
_FIVE_ WIFIs he'd discovered. Now, there's a college directly across the lake
but it's at least 3/4 mile away. It must be that our neighbors have WIFI. But
is it probable that 5 WIFI owners in a small neighborhood would leave their
connection open to just anyone?
---
Michael
Aidan Grey
It may be that the antennas at the college are located fairly high up. As
well, the
college may be transmitting at a higher level that usual so their students
get a
good connection.
Things that normally restrict wireless are blockage by buildings, and
background
interference. Across a lake there is nothing blocking a line of sight
signal. There is
probably very little interference on wireless frequencies at this location as
well.
I suspect if you had checked you would have seen a very weak signal, with
almost
no noise. That is easier to read than a strong signal with high noise
levels.
Aidan Grey
Mark Dodel
-> What is the approx. max. distance of WIFI? I know _very_ little about WIFI but
-> was under the impression that the distance was on the order of low-hundreds of
-> feet. While on vacation last week I saw my nephew kicked back on the front
-> porch, diddling with his laptop, and discovered that he was on the Web! We
-> don't even have a TV or stereo there, so how was that possible? He looked at me
-> like I was from another planet and said that he was connected to one of the
-> _FIVE_ WIFIs he'd discovered. Now, there's a college directly across the lake
-> but it's at least 3/4 mile away. It must be that our neighbors have WIFI. But
-> is it probable that 5 WIFI owners in a small neighborhood would leave their
-> connection open to just anyone?
->
It depends on the router capabiities and the obstacles in the way of
the signal. In my house I can get wireless signal from my Netgear
54mps router throughout my house and up to a couple hundred feet
outside. But there are blind spots if I stand in front of a brick
wall. Also as signal degrades the speed drops down to 11Mbps. Right
now I am on vacation in Ocean City, Maryland and using a public
wireless service that I have no idea where it is located, but I'm on
the 12th floor of a 22 story condo unit. WLAN shows a 40% signal
strength at a rate of 11mbps. So its very possible he was accessing
wireless routers that were in the area. That is especially easy to do
if he isn't inside and has a clear path to the neighbors routers. At
my house I can scan my next door neighbors router even in my house,
though the signal is poor. Masonry and metal will block signal,
especially from a distant source. Also there are addon antennas that
can be used on some routers that boost the signal considerably.
As to open routers, typically windoze users don't have a clue what to
do. There are open routers everywhere any more. On my home router I
have the SSID broadcasting turned off and access limited based on MAC
addresses. So only a determined hacker would find it. Since I only
have one neighbor within 500 feet of my house I haven't bothered with
WPA encryption, yet. Also the road is over 200 feet from my house, so
the chance of someone driving by and picking up the signal is limited
as well. In fact I have tested the signal at the road and it is
extremely weak or non-existant at my mailbox.
Mark
--
From the eComStation of Mark Dodel
Warpstock 2007 - Toronto, Ontario, Canada: http://www.warpstock.org
Warpstock Europe - Valkenswaard close to Eindhoven, the Netherlands:
http://www.warpstock.eu
Michael
All very interesting to me, Mark. Thank-you for sharing. I am no less puzzled,
though, that there are as many as *five* WIFIs usable from our front porch.
It's a weekend cabin area, for heaven's sake. THis would indicate that it's
true that more and more people feel unable to survivie without a connection to
The Collective.
---
Michael
Richard Steiner
WRT54G and a pair of cute little Nokia 770 tablets for surfing the web
from BUY.COM), and I was surprised at the number of other wifi networks
out there that are unsecured. I've not tried to get into any of them,
but the little lock symbol on the 770 shows unlocked. :-)
My network doesn't even extend into our front yard, but that's because
our house is on a hill, the WAP is in the basement, and there's a ton
of dirt between it and the street level below. But it seems to be
fairly strong even in the bedrooms two stories above and on the other
end of the house.
--
-Rich Steiner >>>---> http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner >>>---> Mableton, GA USA
Mainframe/Unix bit twiddler by day, OS/2+Linux+DOS hobbyist by night.
WARNING: I've seen FIELDATA FORTRAN V and I know how to use it!
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.