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Wireless Networking Hardware

DefCon World Record Wi-Fi as Comic Strip 100

Posted by timothy from the condensed-form dept.
carbolic writes "Remember last summer's WiFi Shootout, which took place during the DefCon hacker convention? We told you about the world record 55.1 mile shot pulled off by a few guys with two honkingly huge satellite antennas, a long stretch of road, and a couple off-the-shelf Wi-Fi networking cards. This month's Wired magazine condenses the toil of weeks of planning and testing, and trudging up and down mountains in 100+ degree weather into a captivating 8-panel comic suitable for any Sunday Edition (or cubicle wall)."
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DefCon World Record Wi-Fi as Comic Strip More

DefCon World Record Wi-Fi as Comic Strip

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  • 8 Panel Cartoon (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mistlefoot ( 636417 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @01:43AM (#10437143)
    Finally an article that'll get read.

    If only they were all cartoons.....
    • Truth be told, I'm not sure I have the concentration span necessary to read a whole eight panels. Three would be better, like Dilbert.

    • STUPID (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @04:02AM (#10437521)
      if they were all cartoons, perhaps, but not if they are this retarded.

      that was the dumbest cartoon i've ever seen.

      read it or not, it was a waste of time. i know i'll be modded naughty, but really, that cartoon was fucking stupid.

      anyone brave enough to agree with me? come on, someone sack up and agree.

      • IAWTP (Score:2, Insightful)

        by wheany ( 460585 )
        I Agree With This Post

      • Re:STUPID (Score:2, Insightful)

        by neds_dead ( 795561 )
        I agree, it was one of the dumbest cartoons that I have ever read.

      • Re:STUPID (Score:2, Insightful)

        by curtoid ( 415759 )
        Not every comic in the Sunday paper is intended to be funny. Just the ones we read.... Take a look. I think there's two or even three that are ongoing "drama" comics.
        I'm not saying I like them, but apparently enough people read them or they wouldn't be there.
      • "Where's the elevation? It's fucking stupid!" --Freddie got Fingered
    • I clicked through, but it looked like one of those "serious" cartoons in the newspaper that I don't read either. If it's got good drawing and more than a few words of text per panel, I don't have the concentration.

    • I wish I could submit my weekly reports at work in this format! Management would pay more attention to the flashy colors, and because I'd have to limit the information to fit into the small number of panels, I'd only have to put in actual highlights. It's a win-win for all!

      Now if I could just learn how to draw...

    • I'd love to see the link budget. BTW, a 'knife edge' effect exists that actually 'bends' the waves over mountain ranges. What bothers me about all the wireless is the reduction of the SNL as the broad spectrum noise floor rises. But, hey, if you can't touch, feel taste, smell or hear the RF pollution; does it really exist? A Spectrum Analyzer is a cool tool, but offers a scary future....

  • Ummm... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Duncan3 ( 10537 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @01:45AM (#10437155) Homepage
    For very large values of 8?
    • For very large values of 8?

      Yeah. The rest got lost over the whacked-out Wi-Fi link.

    • For very large values of 8?
      I do wonder about their counting.... Does the one panel only count as background just because it doesn't have a border? Or do the one diagonal pair of borders not count as real panel separators?

  • slow day? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by Mortiss ( 812218 )
    It must still be slow news period, since /. is now starting to post comic strips.
  • Mirrors (including the images) are here: MirrorDot [mirrordot.com].

  • So you know before you read it (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    this is one of those comics like Ranger Rick. Don't expect a punch line or anything :)

  • WiFi (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Oi, I cant wait till I start getting WiFi interference from not only the neighborhood, but the neighboring towns!

    • Re:WiFi (Score:1, Funny)

      by blowdart ( 31458 )
      Wardriving just won't be cool any more, not when you can sit in your front room, in your boxers/tighty whities watching star trek and hacking two towns away.

  • I have a question (Score:1, Interesting)

    by djupedal ( 584558 )
    ...since the horizon on flat ground is 25 miles away, how did they manage 55 miles? Must have been some hills involved? If so, then the distance as the crow flies would perhaps be less than 55.1 miles...

    • Re:I have a question (Score:5, Informative)

      by Technician ( 215283 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @02:06AM (#10437231)
      ...since the horizon on flat ground is 25 miles away, how did they manage 55 miles? Must have been some hills involved? If so, then the distance as the crow flies would perhaps be less than 55.1 miles...

      Follow the link to the original article of the shootout. 55 miles is the distance between two GPS locations, not the distance to drive to get there. And even if you bothered to read the comic strip, it even mentions finding a road up a canyon. There are not many canyons in flat areas like Florida, but Nevada does have hills and canyons.

      Other than not reading the article or comic, good point that the curvature of the earth limits access to 2 points on the ground from beamed communications. Finding 2 points for a long range link in Florida would be difficult unless you could get rooftop access to some downtown buildings in Tampa or Miami.
      • If you are on hill A and drive down the hill and across the valley, and up hill B, and travel 55.1 miles, the point-to-point distance is less than 55.1 miles. No surprise logic to anyone here...I hope :)

        Thanks for taking a run at me, but neither the article I read (on Wired) nor the strip mention GPS distance usage... If you have that info, please link it and thanks for answering my question.

        The strip mentions driving up/down/thru a canyon, giving the impression they used the odometer on their '87 Che
        • If you had read ANY of the articles, or even the f*ing REPLIES to your post, you'd know the answer.

          Pro tip: READ BEFORE POSTING.

          Now, go back and read the replies to your posts, then feel bad for posting in the first place.

    • Re:I have a question (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jginspace ( 678908 ) <jginspace@nosPam.yahoo.com> on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @02:07AM (#10437233) Homepage Journal
      ...since the horizon on flat ground is 25 miles away, how did they manage 55 miles? Must have been some hills involved? If so, then the distance as the crow flies would perhaps be less than 55.1 miles...

      Some pics here http://www.wifi-toys.com/wi-fi.php?a=articles&id=2 3 [wifi-toys.com] give you a clue. And this caption from the comic strip: "I've got it! There's a secondary road up a canyon that should get you 55 miles away"

      Seriously though, we're never going to be talking about inclinations of greater than 10 degrees are we?
      • Well, when in Nevada, you may be standing on a flat dry lake bed, and then you realize that the mountains off in the distance are probably 50-80 miles away (and a look at the map confirms it). You're not looking at the base of the mountains, remember, but the upper portions.
    • ...since the horizon on flat ground is 25 miles away, how did they manage 55 miles? Must have been some hills involved? If so, then the distance as the crow flies would perhaps be less than 55.1 miles...

      Less than 55.1 miles, as in 55.0? Or are you going for 55.09657(etc) miles (which is the same as 55.1, given the same level of precision reported in the article)?

      I think it more likely it would increase the distance. The change seems like it would be too small to count much anyway.
    • That 25 miles figure for the distance to the horizon is only a rule of thumb, and as such it uses certain assumptions. Unfortunately, I don't know those assumptions, but I do know there is an equation to calculate the line of sight distance possible between two objects an arbitrary distance above the Earth's surface. You can find that equation here [navy.mil].

      There is a nomograph on that page that allows one with a straightedge to quickly explore the relationships between elevation and line of sight distance. Unfor

  • A fitting tribute to hackerdom , geekhood or whatever else you want to call the spirit of playful innovation and problem solving.
  • The article lists:

    Most Innovative Antenna: Turbo Crew: 0.821 miles

    I'd really like to know what they had. Any defcon attendees? Turbo Crew members?

    In this crowd, the "most innovative antenna" has got to be something wild...

    hanzie.

  • So yeah... a comic (Score:4, Insightful)

    by WhiteLudaFan ( 634444 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @02:01AM (#10437214)
    Did anyone else not find that comic totally un-entertaining? I was disappointed.
    • Yep, pretty lame. I'll summarize below and save others time.

      "Dude, hurry up and setup the antenna"
      "Cool it worked"

      Yawn. Some things just don't translate well to comics I suppose. And yes I realize all comics aren't supposed to be funny. That was just a really lame comic. Next up. An 8 panel comic where I setup a router and then connect to the Internet. Hazaa!! Think I'll get on Slashdot?

  • Poll for Subscriber (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ari_j ( 90255 )
    The cartoon sucks and the story is pointless. Are people really paying to see this early?

  • I'll show them! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @02:06AM (#10437230)
    One of these days I'm going to unveil my super secret long distance antennae. It's several miles in length. I've given it the code name "phone line".

  • Article Text (Score:4, Funny)

    by quarrel ( 194077 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @02:11AM (#10437243)
    Not to be a karma whore, but in case of the /. effect, here is the complete article text.

    -----------------

    • here is the complete article text.

      I believe you missed something - maybe a technical problem.

      Here's the article text:

      JFIF
      Ducky
      Adobe
      #%'%#
      //33//@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
      #0+.'''.+550055@@?@@@@@@@@@@@@
      !1AQ"
      Cs$U
      AQaq
      Do[C
      W_}m
      krO@
      Hr02
      6F.(?

  • Obligatory Simpsons Quote (Score:4, Funny)

    by Bryan Gividen ( 739949 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @02:13AM (#10437250)
    Worst comic... ever.

    And this time it's true....
  • Its not every day you see a comic strip about a bunch of dudes in DefCon and their adventures in the land of WiFi...news to me

  • ???joke (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zxflash ( 773348 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @02:46AM (#10437328) Homepage
    i don't get it...

    must be one of those strips like peanuts...
    not really supposed to be funny...

    deep down i know that somewhere in an it broom closet some sysadmin is wetting himself because of this strip...
    • I agree, its like back when I used to play EQ and read EQ related forums. Everyone was always posting links to this website that did daily video game comics. I read like 40 in a row one day and not one was funny. Not even slightly. They were all like,

      "Did you see that dragon?"
      "Yeah, he sure was big!"
      "Bwahahahah!"

      So either I'm getting old, or what people find funny has really changed lately. I think some people laugh at anything put in a comic strip. They think, "Woah, Im a geek, and thats geeky stuff,

      • Re:???joke (Score:3, Informative)

        by lonesome phreak ( 142354 )
        I think it's more like the old Radio Shack comic strips. They weren't supposed to be funny, but tell some type of story. Comic magazines aren't really funny either.

    • "comic" aint comic (was Re:???joke) (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Not everything in "comic" style is supposed to be funny (stupid name aside). It is just a medium for telling a story. In Japan, for example, there are thousands of titles covering every genre of literature. It is a (mainstream) "western" bias that story in this form is supposed to be funny.
    • i don't get it... must be one of those strips like peanuts... not really supposed to be funny...

      I think the flaw in this comic strip is that it takes 9 pictures and 20 speech balloons to "condense" a 2-sentence story:

      "The first test at home, 8.5miles, didn't work. After borrowing some equipment and trying again out in the hot Nevada desert, they managed to connect over a distance of 55.1 miles"

      Typical "Wired" crap, if you ask me. Make 5 pages of content fill 40 pages using tricks found in their Adobe

  • Of course, these antenna games are illegal ... (Score:5, Informative)

    by dougmc ( 70836 ) <dougmc+slashdot@frenzied.us> on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @03:00AM (#10437359) Homepage
    In the US, WiFi usage falls under Part 15 [gpo.gov] regulations, and these regulations limit the power used for the 2.4 gHz band to 1 watt [gpo.gov].

    Which is all well and good, but there's this passage (in the `1 watt' link given above) --

    if transmitting antennas of directional gain greater than 6 dBi are used the peak output power from the intentional radiator shall be reduced below the stated values in paragraphs (b)(1) or (b)(2) of this section, as appropriate, by the amount in dB that the directional gain of the antenna exceeds 6 dBi.
    which basically means that if you use a directional (high-gain) antenna to transmit, you have to reduce your power by the same amount. (For receiving you can do anything you want, but these people used the same antennas for both.) Which makes this all illegal.

    Now, there is a way out. The ham rules [gpo.gov] don't have the same restrictions on antennas, and there is some overlap between the ham bands and the WiFi 2.4 gHz band, so you could go that way, but if you go under the ham rules, you have to follow all the ham rules, like those about IDing yourself, no encryption, no bad language, no monetary interest, etc.

    It wouldn't surprise me if there's a lot of hams in the group of people trying to get long range WiFi links going for things like this -- but I know that a lot of the people trying aren't hams, and I'll bet that even the ones that are hams aren't all following the ham rules (though they should know better.)

    This link [qrpis.org] talks about wirelss ISPs co-existing with hams in the 2.4 gHz band. It's somewhat relevant, and may be interesting reading.

    • well these guys (if you read the article) were in fact hams.

      • well these guys (if you read the article) were in fact hams.

        These guys were. If you look at the pictures on the defcon website, you can even see a callsign written on the antenna (KG4KVK?) They probably did follow the rules -- writing your callsign on the antenna is does *not* satisfy the identification requirements, but merely setting your SSID to your callsign is probably good enough.

        Merely having a ham license isn't enough. You need to ID yourself in an appropriate manner, stick to specific Wi

        • I think everyone should know too that those little black and white signs on the sides of roads with numbers on them generally refer to a speed limit. People must 1) not drive faster than the number on the sign and 2) identify themselves. Merely placing a license plate on the vehicle is not enough. They must also identify themselves with picture ID.

          Thanks gods for lawful citizens!
          • Clever.

            However, the penalties for violating FCC regulations are generally stiffer than those for violating speed limits, though the odds of actually getting hit with one are smaller. Also, most people realize that going 65 in a 55 mph zone is illegal, where many (most?) people are probably not aware that hooking up a Pringles can antenna to their Wifi AP is probably illegal too, even without an amplifier. If you're going to break the law, you should at least realize that you're breaking the law, right

    • Am I mistaken in what happened. It was my understanding that this was unamplified.

      The dishes were simply used to improve the focus of the tranmission and the reception on the other end. The dish both focuses the out going signal and collects more of the incomming signal than a regular antenna.

      They did not violate the power limits did they?
      • The signal was unamplified? You mean it came out of the chip at very small mW values and was never bumped up? Poppycock. Anyway if you attach a sufficiently high-gain antenna to commercial WiFi equipment, you are required to reduce your power levels in order to retain FCC compliance.

      • They did not violate the power limits did they?

        If they followed all the ham rules, no they did not. I have no reason to believe that the winners did not follow all the ham rules, but I imagine that other teams did not.

        If they did not use the ham rules, then yes they did. The rules put a maximum limit on total radiated power (1 watt) and on effective radiated power (which allowing a 6 dBi gain antenna would mean 4 watts.)

        6 dBi isn't very much. These antennas probably got at least 25 dBi of gai

  • Come on, this has been in subscribers' hands for a while, and even on the newsstands. What makes this suddenly news, now?
  • This comic is to geeks as Doonsbury is to Democrats.
  • In order to be the Sunday comics, I am pretty sure you have to write a comic that has at least one ounce of humor.

  • cartoonish (Score:3, Funny)

    by cabazorro ( 601004 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:02AM (#10438359) Journal
    I find the story line predictable and the
    characters derivative.

    howbout some creative wi-fi onomatopoeias!
    zziiiing-ding-ding-ding(net stumbler)drrrrrr!

    Still as wi-fi goes.
    I dig their kung-fu.
  • Does my ability to count up to nine disqualify me from being a Slashdot editor?

    Whatever will I do with myself now?
  • is that I can tell that they're using Averatec laptops, just like mine, even though I can't read the logos -- the styling is unmistakable. Nice touch; I would've expected a more generic rendering.

    BTW, I see this as more graphic novel than Sunday funny style.
  • There's a comic that would be right at home between Mary Worth and Rex Morgan, MD.

  • Heck! That ain't nothin' (Score:4, Funny)

    by lcsjk ( 143581 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @01:18PM (#10442406)
    I mounted my two antennas back to back about 4 feet apart, thus transmitting some 25,000 miles around the world and still got a faint signal. Next I'm going to mount them back to back but spaced side to side more so the signal can go around the world twice before it gets to the receiving antenna. If I get a signal this time, I'll know I'm onto something.
  • My housemate's dad drew some roofing diagrams on the corner of the newspaper today. If I scan it in, can I get a slashdot article too?

    -ben

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