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FERRO · Jun 10, 2002, 03:59 PM

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/10/technology/10WIRE.html?ei=5007&en=8bb397788ddf1bff&ex=1024286 400&partner=USERLAND&pagewanted=print&position=top " target="_blank">"Broadband Goes Wireless" with a 20 Mile range...</a>

<blockquote>quote:<hr />In a garage just six blocks from the garage where Steven P. Jobs and Stephen Wozniak launched Apple Computer 26 years ago, Mr. Holt is making his clever and inexpensive radio repeater by modifying inexpensive Wi-Fi cards, the circuitry that sends and receives the signals.

Although he has partially broken with the Wi-Fi standard, he argues he is doing just what the unlicensed radio spectrum was originally set aside to encourage � innovative wireless network designs.

Mr. Holt, a 54-year-old software designer and engineer who began his career at the Lockheed Corporation in Sunnyvale, Calif., replaces the software that supports the Wi-Fi 802.11b standard with his own code, thereby dramatically extending the range of the cheap, mass-produced hardware. Each repeater contains two cards � one that Mr. Holt has enhanced and another that is able to speak the 802.11b standard to a home computer.
<hr /></blockquote>just fyi... <img border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" title="" src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" />

be nice to get this in my area...

funkboy · Jun 10, 2002, 04:24 PM

You and me both.

However, one wonders - by breaking the 802.11b standard, could this be dangerous to health at all? I imagine (and hope) it isn't, but if it is... think of *that* class action lawsuit!

If they can do what they're proposing, though, I can picture two things happening:
1) They become very rich and become just as touchy as the cable and telephone companies they now demean
2) They get bought out by one of these cable and telephone companies and the technology is kept under wraps for a long time

Or hey, maybe we'll have a good story in the end... I hope so!

cdhostage · Jun 10, 2002, 04:34 PM

Oh no! If every person in Washington carries one of these, the microwave radiation will cause the average temperature of their bodies to raise .2 degrees! Help!

FERRO · Jun 10, 2002, 04:36 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by funkboy:
You and me both.

However, one wonders - by breaking the 802.11b standard, could this be dangerous to health at all? I imagine (and hope) it isn't, but if it is... think of *that* class action lawsuit!

If they can do what they're proposing, though, I can picture two things happening:
1) They become very rich and become just as touchy as the cable and telephone companies they now demean
2) They get bought out by one of these cable and telephone companies and the technology is kept under wraps for a long time

Or hey, maybe we'll have a good story in the end... I hope so!<hr /></blockquote>I am not a genius here, but wouldnt widespread use of a wireless communication mean that anyone with the proper equip. could recieve anything you recieve? I mean if they can listen to the same radio waves you are than they can hear any encryption key that you get too, right?

I personally dont care if someone would want to waste their time watching me surf... I dont buy anything over the internet (anymore) and I am not a prude, but I know that people can listen in on other peoples cell phone conversations... you would think (at least I do) that it isnt very safe...

I dont know much about wireless encryption...

FERRO · Jun 10, 2002, 04:44 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by cdhostage:
Oh no! If every person in Washington carries one of these, the microwave radiation will cause the average temperature of their bodies to raise .2 degrees! Help!<hr /></blockquote>I read the article fairly fast... I dont remember reading that it uses the reciever card as a signal antenna? If it does than their would be alot of radiation around... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />
I am sure upstream signal intensity isnt as strong as the signal being recieved... so I dont know...

Still, We already have enough of those cellphones around pumping the world full of synthetic radiation...

I dont now if cellphone radiation causes cancer but you wont see me with a cellphone plastered to the side of my head 24/7 ... <img border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" title="" src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" />

(I know, I know...

I didnt mean to post two in a row, wont happen again...)

[ 06-10-2002, 04:48 PM: Message edited by: FERRO ]

AlbertWu · Jun 10, 2002, 04:48 PM

radiation is harmless. most of the time it passes through matter without affecting it, and when it DOES affect it, the effect is a minor, if not insignificant, temperature change

there is no chance that it could cause cancer, only charged particles (alpha, +2, and beta, -1) do that by knocking out DNA sequences. photons, which have a charge of 0, and are relatively low energy, do not do that.

end of story.