Re: Newbie, but wanting to take on an adventurous project.

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Sheldon T. Hall wrote:
> Quoth Raymond Bennett ...
>> That's sort of disheartening, I was really excited about this :)
>> I thought it would be easy to find somebody on the other end.
>
> And you yet may.
>
> A three or so years ago, this was a _very_ active mailing list, and
> SeaWi nodes were sprouting up all over the place.  Since then, WiFi
> has, in general, become both commonplace and easy to use, and,
> specifically, widely available as a way to connect to the Internet.
> Wardriving isn't necessary any more, since almost any built-up area
> has open WAPs available, either by design or by accident.  You can
> get it on the WSF ferries.  Guys with cellphone modems route WiFi
> over their laptops on commuter trains.  You can roast hotdogs on
> the WiFi RF from the dorms at UW.

Ah, the heady days of yesteryore.  :)

It's disappointing that there is less organization of wifi nodes.  The
use of Ad-Hoc networks and OLSR could easily unify a lot of network
routing in metro areas.  But who knows that?  You and me and most of
Europe.  Not so much with our neighbors, though.  If you put up a
node, TELL YOUR NEIGHBORS.  Print out 100 flyers and go door-to-door
letting people know that you are putting up a wifi network node, and
that they can have access to it.  Explain to them what Community
Wireless Networks (CWNs) are in general are and what the Seattle
Wireless Network (SWN) is specifically.  Let them know that the SWN
and the Washington Wireless Network (WWN) are Community Wireless Networks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Wireless_Network

If you don't live in Seattle (anymore), call your Community Wireless
Network the <City/Town/County> Wireless Network and add yourself to
this page:

http://washingtonwireless.org/index.php/Main_Page

If you are in a different state, create a site for your state and add
it to this page:

http://unitedstateswireless.net/index.php/Main_Page

Someone should really extrapolate this meme and make a global wireless
network wiki.  I'd prefer that someone other than me do it.  I think
that would put too much power in the hands of one person.  Maybe a
United Wireless Networks organization, not unlike the UN.  Someone get
on creating a globally recognized community wireless network
organization.  Does http://freenetworks.org/ meet these criteria?  If
so, someone from freenetworks.org should register
"superduperglobalwireless.net" or the like.

> Since the SeaWi project did not make public connection to the
> Internet a priority, it seems to me to have faded somewhat.
> Certainly, my own interest is much less.  The original attraction
> for me was its possibility as an alternative to expensive and slow
> ISDN access to the 'net, but between the arrival of DSL here and my
> failure to find a mainline partner for a link, that attraction has
> gone away.  I still have the gear, or could get more, but it's
> tough to find a reason to set it up.

I've never heard of SeaWi before now.  Can you tell us a bit more
about it?

The initial attraction for me was to build a carrier-neutral wireless
infrastructure.  There are a lot of such nodes in the community now.
The only thing missing is the work of interconnection, or "meshing"
these nodes together using only the software that is already installed
on them.

To get these nodes interconnected on the same mesh, they need to
change their essid to a single, canonical essid, say for instance
"seattlewireless" they also need to switch their DHCP server off.
This is the most important part of the equation.  DHCP poisoning is
not accepted and will result in your neighbors loathing you, and
eventually ignoring signal from your AP.  After turning off your DHCP
service (go ahead, I'll wait), you need to change your link mode from
Master or Managed to Ad-Hoc.  To become part of the mesh, you will now
need to install olsrd from http://www.olsr.org/

Now comes the hard part.  Open your front door and step out of your
house.  Face South.  Walk until you find a neighbor.  Introduce
yourself to your neighbor and convince them to put up a node and tell
their neighbors about it.  Now move in a clockwise manner through your
first ring of neighbors.

Tada.  You are now on a mesh network.

The next step is to put your radio on your roof.  You can then talk to
the next ring of houses surrounding your place.


>> As for usefulness, maybe it isn't necesarily useful. However I
>> think it would make it easier for anybody in between to 'plug in'
>> to the SWN network which might widen the scope of the project?

If you can see 6 miles from your location, you can set up a radio
array and make a bit of money selling links.  Or you could give it
away for free.  But there's not so much incentive in that, is there?

> That's certainly true.  Its fun stuff to fool with, and there is a
> certain thrill in making some little flea-power radio connect over
> a long distance, but beyond that....

One of these days the network will be running smooth as silk.  Now is
not that time.  We still need to convince our neighbors that they care
about it.  Otherwise, we'll just be a bunch of talkers and not so much
developers, yes?

> Of course, the real question is whether folks still want to connect
> to the Seattle Wireless network.

Well, if they do, I'll give a trickle of bandwidth to the public
Internet over wireless when I get the antenna mounted.  First, though,
I've got to save enough money for a good antenna.

> Don't let me discourage you, though.  If you can find a link
> partner, do it!

And you can.  And you will.  Otherwise you wouldn't be asking, now,
would you? :)

> -Shel
Cheers,

C.J.

- --
<[email protected]>
http://cjcollier.livejournal.com/tag/
+1 206 226 5809
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