Category Archives: Wireless Connectivity

What to do with Wireless Freeloaders … and the dangers of “open” wireless

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I came across this web page – upside-down-ternet – today while looking for some other technical information. I thought that this was great … just way too creative!

It seems that this guy found out that some neighbors were using his open wireless network. Now I have thought about this before … and thought of many of the security issues. For example, did you know that when you use someones open wireless network, they can “sniff” all of your non-SSL secured usernames and passwords from your applications? If you do not use SSL for your e-mail application, and you were using my open wireless network, I can get your e-mail account username and password. In fact … I have done this in the past. Likewise, any website that has you login and does not use SSL to secure it, is passing your username and password back and forth in the clear!

Anyhow … what this guy realized is that he could lock down the wireless, or have fun with the neighbors! The first thing he chose to do was redirect all of their web requests to a kitten website. So no matter where they tried to go on the Internet, they would end up at the kitten site.

His second ploy is even better. What he realized is that he could re-route all of their web browser requests through his own “proxy” … without them even knowing! What he played with was modifying the images on all of the web pages they viewed. His two examples are flipping all of the images … or blurring them!

The real important thing to realize here, is that when you choose to jump onto someone’s open wireless network, all of your Internet traffic is being routed through their network, and maybe their servers. If the person who owns that network is smart, or devious, there is a good chance that your communications are being monitored, recorded, or modified. You might want to think about it …

The Benefits of Broadband

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I’m finally there. I wasn’t sure exactly when I would take the leap … but I did a few weeks ago. It wasn’t without problems … but I’m glad that I made the move. I finally bought a Broadband card for my laptop, and service from Cingular/AT&T.

I have long been a user of wireless. I bought my first Xircom gear in ~1995, just prior to the Xircom management buyout that formed NetWave Wireless. I think that I spent ~$2000 for an access point and two cards! In 1997 as a Novell employee I began working with the folks at NetWave on potential applications of wireless networking … and this was all pre-802.11 standards! All of this culminated with the demonstration of my research at the 1998 Novell Brainshare where we covered the Salt Lake City Convention Center – the Salt Palace – and surrounding area (~5 city blocks) – with wireless Internet access. I’ve never gone back. I love Wifi … and it is great to see it everywhere. Well … almost everywhere.

This is the issue that I found. Wifi isn’t everywhere … or sometimes when you find it the cost is just too great. A month or so ago I found myself at the airport … for about two hours … and the Wifi access was $10 for the day. I thought about it, and chose to find out exactly how much the service costs these days. I had seen Phil Windley using broadband from Verizon, and he really seemed to like it. As a Cingular/AT&T customer, I figured that I would check out what they had to offer.

I visited the local Salt Lake City Cingular store, and the deal was a Sierra Wireless 2G/3G PCMCIA card for $50 (after the $100 rebate), and the service – with unlimited bandwidth – was $60/month. I was in. I bought the card and the service, and headed off to install and get things working. I will say that I didn’t expect what happened next.

When I went to install the card in my laptop I didn’t even think to check on new versions of drivers. I popped the CD into my drive and installed what they gave me with the card … v5.4.1 drivers. When I rebooted … and inserted the card … BLUESCREEN. Ugh … the drivers were crashing my laptop. I was able to boot into “Safe Mode”, but I then spent two days debugging and interacting with technical support to find out that the latest drivers were v6.2.10, and that there was a conflict with the McAfee firewall that I was using. That mess started on Friday, and by Monday I was recovered and up and running. And now? I’ll never look back!

I have done some speed tests, and fairly consistently get ~1.5mbps down, and ~300kbps up. Several times now I have been getting speeds even faster! It is amazing to me that for $60/month I am now able to get megabit speeds almost any where that I go.  Over the last week, I have found myself in several places where I had no Wifi access … and plugged in my card, and jumped on the net.  The unlimited bandwidth enables me to not even think about how often I use the card, and what I do when on-line.  The speed is good enough for me to run all of my standard business applications.

I’m sure that I’ll do more testing, and might have more feedback, however so far I am happy and impressed with what is possible.  Broadband is now bringing the Internet to you – at an affordable price – in even more locations than ever before.  I now have multiple levels of fall-back to stay connected and in communications.  I’ll have to see when I do my first blog post from a moving vehicle (not while I’m driving!), and also see how many different strange places I can blog from now.  It also gets me thinking about getting out my wearable computers again … I had some fun ideas for mobile games … hmmm …

My thoughts on Twitter … or ‘Opt-in Stalking’

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I do love communications technologies. Communications is the foundation of effective organizations … communities. There are so many ways that we are able to virtually extend the various communities in our lives. If you reflect back on society 200 years ago, you can see how communities of people were limited to physical locality. There was no effective means of staying in contact – in anything close to real-time – with anyone more than a few miles away. With this communications infrastructure, there was simply no way for global distributed communities to exist.

Now … flash forward to 2007. Twitter appears on the scene. We already have the Internet and cell phones. E-mail and Instant Messaging have been around for over a decade and are now completely entrenched in society. Instant Messaging has even bridged to cell phones where many of the phones in use can also login to the various Instant Messaging networks. Oh, and blogs of course are everywhere. I am now able to communicate and keep in touch with all of my global virtual communities. People who I have not seen in years … who are not physically close … are still “close friends” as we have stayed in touch via IM or now Skype. Of course we also read each others blogs.

I was very skeptical of Twitter as first … not sure if I liked the idea of it. But just like any other new communications technology, I quickly began to see a pattern that I liked. When Twitter is used with friends, we can begin to gain insights into their lives.  Phil Windley and I have talked about this, and we both seemed to notice a similar pattern … we are gaining new perspectives of friends and co-workers who are using Twitter to post short updates about their daily lives.  I learned that Phil Windley takes bike rides, and also works on his yard.  I found out that Phil Burns is into hiking up the mountains in the area, and also ran his first 5k.

When I began to look at Twitter in this new light … as a way to allows others to know what you are up to on a daily basis, this began to expand a new dimension in my relationship to my global virtual communities.  The messages that I am getting on Twitter are significantly different from the e-mails, IMs, and blog posts that I am reading … these twits are crude updates about what these people are doing at various moments during their day.  When I began to see this, I realized that what Twitter has created is a globally distributed “opt-in stalking” system!

Anyone can now create a simple way to be stalked … by almost any anonymous individual with access to the Internet.  Twitter allows the stalked a variety of simple ways to update the world with where they are … or where they aren’t!  Twitter also provides the new generation of stalker to monitor the goings on in any Twitterers life.  People twit that they are out at a club, or home watching TV.  They will twit about going on bike rides, and when they are at school.  Stalkers now know when people are not at their home … hmmm, time for a burglery?  They also know when they are out at some other public place … hmmm, time for a confrontational visit?

Don’t get me wrong … I’m actually a growing fan of Twitter … however I have started to see a lot of things that I like and don’t like about the service.  It’s great as it is … and there is a lot of room for improvement.  I’m actually working on an alternative system with some friends … we’re pushing to get a beta out the door by June 4th.  It will provide some similar functionality, but also some new enhancements that can provide some privacy and control over who hears what.

In any case … I am a big fan of this new form of communications … of having a new way to learn more about people who are virtually in my life.  I have long proposed Lemon’s Law of Effective Organizations:

The effectiveness of an organization is directly proportional to the quantity and quality of the communications within it.

Twitter is yet another form of communications that can contribute to the breadth of possible communications.  If you haven’t tried it yet, you ought to!

Microsoft Robotics

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I know that some people are going to say that this is old news, but today I came across some very cool software from Microsoft … the Microsoft Robotics Studeo.  Where the heck have I been?  For all of my life I have loved the interaction between computers and the outside world.  I remember writing my first code that controlled a floppy disk drive, and it was fun to use keyboard commands to control the heads … stepping them back and forth and returning them to track 0.

I came across this offering from Microsoft while looking for information about White Box Robotics back in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  I’m going to be taking a vacation back to Pittsburgh this summer, and am lining up various things to do.  I want to stop over and check out what White Box is doing, as they are looking pretty impressive on the level of research and development that they are doing for “home” robotics.

White Box Robotics was founded in 2001 by Thomas
Burick to fulfill the vision of changing the world one robot at a time.

We remain committed to the ongoing development of the
PC-BOT, a new class of networked mobile robots that delivers exceptional value
and ease of use. This achieved by leveraging mature PC technologies, adopting
open standards and creating a plug and play environment that allows just about
anyone to build exciting PC-based robots.

The White Box Robotics
laboratory is based in Pittsburgh PA and is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of
Frontline Robotics Inc. Thomas continues to pursue his vision as the company’s
Chief Robotics Officer and now is part of a new enlarged team of
multi-disciplinary and highly experienced engineers. This team delivers the
depth and breadth to catapult this technology into the rapidly emerging market
for personal, commercial and security robotic applications.

What I really like about this is that there are a number of vendors all working together to create some standards for the platforms.  The Microsoft Robotics Studeo press release lists an impressive group of companies and researchers in the robotics field.

I’m reading … and I think I’m going to download this for my new laptop tonight!  Cool to see robotics making some good jumps!

Sending E-mail from Cingular SMS Text Messages

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When I got my new Nokia E70, one of the things that really disappointed me was the different way that e-mails were sent from the text messaging. No matter what I did, I was unable to figure out how to send an e-mail using the “basic” SMS text message. Instead, I was forced to use the “multimedia message” … which I quickly found out was being charged to me per message, even though I was just sending simple text. 🙁

So why do I really care about this? Well … I have formed the habit of using SMS text to e-mail as a way to send reminders to myself that I later will find in my e-mail inbox! If I am out and about, and away from my computer, I can quickly jot a message on my phone and e-mail it to myself. When I get back in front of my laptop there are my reminders sitting in my inbox! Also … I’m working on a cool SMS text messaging site that I have had under construction for years now … and I am sending messages to it also … for purposes to be announced soon. 🙂

With my older Nokia phone, I could easily send a basic SMS text message, and specify an e-mail address … the phone handled dispatching a properly formatted message to the SMS e-mail gateway at Cingular and everything worked. With the E70, although I am able to add e-mail addresses to my contacts, when sending a basic SMS text message, I am unable to pick an e-mail address to send to! Instead … I have had to use the costly “multimedia message” format, and then I get a pick list of numbers and e-mail addresses to send to.

Tonight, while experimenting more with my phone I realized something … that I could reply to a e-mail that was sent to my phone as a “basic” SMS text. If I could do that, then I figured that there must be a way to properly format a basic SMS text to send as e-mail. By searching Google, and remembering some obscure settings, I finally figured it out. So for anyone interested here it is:

To send a SMS text message to an e-mail address on the Cingular network:

  • Address the message To: “0000000000” (ten zeros)
  • Write the text with the format “{e-mail address}({subject}) {body of e-mail}

Now the exact format has to be followed. An example would be:

joe@somedomain.com(This came from my phone) I figured this out!

The key points in this are that the e-mail address and subject are separated from the body of the message by a space! Do not put a space after the e-mail address … it must be the e-mail address, then the subject – in parenthesis – with NO space between them. Then a space before the body of the e-mail message. If you want to, you can leave out the subject and the parenthesis, and just get a message with no subject.

Now I do have to admit that I am still very disappointed with Nokia, in that I can not find how to get the e-mail address from a contact to appear in the text message … so I end up having to type this EVERY time. But the cost of these messages is included in my plan … so it’s worth the extra effort!

iPhone … is theirPhone …

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Well, it’s already turning into a bummer.  It appears that the iPhone is going to be locked down against 3rd party applications.  What a loss.  I was really looking forward to some sort of developer angle here … but it seems that Apple is going to lock things up tightly when it comes to applications for the iPhone.  From this article:

But it’s not like the walled garden has gone away. “You don’t want your
phone to be an open platform,” meaning that anyone can write
applications for it and potentially gum up the provider’s network, says
Jobs. “You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn’t
want to see their West Coast network go down because some application
messed up.”

In addition, I’m hearing more and more that they are locking the phone tight to the Cingular network … not allowing you to change to alternate networks.  David Isenberg comments on the same issues in his blog post: Apple blows it.  I agree with him completely … I’m shocked at the complete lock-in that Apple is creating around the iPhone.  Bummer.

My $0.02 about the iPhone

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Ok … it’s cool. So far I like what I have read, except for a couple of things … which I expected.

  1. The price. Wow … that is a lot of money for a phone. I know that it is more than a phone, but ouch. I’m also a little cautious about the cost of the cellular plans also. I already use Cingular and the data plans are not the most aggressive.  The interesting part is that I already know they are going to sell as many as they can make.  Steve Jobs knows how to market.
  2. The storage.  This really caught me off-guard.  Only a 4GB and 8GB version?  I have become so used to my 80GB Video iPod that I can’t even imagine going back to only 8GB.  I really enjoy taking such a huge portion of my music collection – along with several videos and numerous podcasts – everywhere that I go.  I would really have to reset how I use my iPod if I was going to drop back to only 8GB.  Maybe I shift to using my phone … oops, I mean iPhone (trademark Cisco Systems) … for all of the podcasts, but still keep my Video iPod for my music, etc.
  3. Touch Screen.  As usual, Steve has outdone himself as the iPhone appears to have even further enhanced the user interface.  I have always liked touch-pads and touch interfaces, and hearing about some of the new multi-finger aspects really impressed me.  It has me thinking about how natural some of this is going to become.
  4. Application Support.  I’m also impressed with this aspect … it appears that this is OS-X and has support for the Apple Widgets.  If there is truly compatibility with the standard development environment for Widgets this is going to really open up development for the phones.  In addition, if Apple has truly opened up the iPhone and it’s APIs, then things are going to get fun.  When I last looked at some of the API limitations, I was unable to write an application that could access the camera, and even the text/SMS interfaces.  I’m hoping that Apple will break through these barriers.
  5. Battery Design.  I had heard about the two-battery design, and it makes complete sense.  Cool idea.  Now if I use my iPhone for music too much … I don’t kill the battery for my phone.  Nice.

I stopped by the Apple store here in Salt Lake City today.  They said they have no idea when they will see one.  It’ll be interesting to see when the iPhone begins to show up everywhere.  I’m sure that it won’t be too long.  It’s already the thing to be seen using …

Second Life … still controlling the (virtual) world!

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Wow … what a quick reaction … but not quite enough, in my opinion. Linden Research quickly announced the release of the Second Life client into Open Source. I actually love the name of this blog post by phoenix linden … Embracing the Inevitable.  It announces the release of their client software into Open Source, and where to go and get it.  There is an issue though … they are still holding onto the control of the virtual world by not releasing the server software … yet. As David Kirkpatrick at Fortune reports:

While this initial step will open up what is essentially the user’s
window into Second Life for modification, it will leave Linden Lab in
control of the proprietary software code for all Second Life’s backend
services – the server software that makes the world exist. However,
executives say that the company’s eventual intention is to release an
open source version of that software as well, once it has improved
security and other core functions. They say they have been preparing
for the open source move for about three years.

Yes … this is not enough to provide a free and open platform for virtual existence. I do see where this is a prudent business move to create even more of a lock on the entire market though. Linden seems to now be pushing to create de-facto standards of their client APIs and protocols by creating a group of developers who write to this environment.

My worry is if it took them three years to get the client out to Open Source, how long will it take them to get the server software out?

I believe that the pressure is mounting as other well-funded companies continue to explore the space … as this quote from IBM demonstrates:

IBM Vice President for Technical Strategy Irving Wladawsky-Berger, a
close student of Second Life, heard about the impending move toward
open source from a Linden employee. “They have the right thought,” he
says, “which is that open source things work with the marketplace. But
this is a field in its infancy that will be very competitive. Linden
Lab might end up with a huge leadership position in a certain class of
tools for virtual worlds, but those might not be the right tools for,
let’s say, a surgeon learning a new procedure in an immersive online
environment. Second Life can be wildly successful, but so can others.”

I do not think that IBM and others are sitting still. Neither am I. I’m heading over to download the APIs reference materials now … 🙂

P.S. I just thought of an interesting “client” to create for Second Life. What if there was an “augmented reality” client that was created that would overlay the Second Life world onto the real world? Maybe create someplace in the desert – like at Burning Man – that would allow you to have GPS tracking on yourself, and then wearing augmented reality goggles you would be seeing some portion of the Second Life world? As you wandered around the desert, your view would be augmented with the terrian of Second Life, and the other people wandering around in reality would be overlayed with their graphical avatar. Hmmmm …

New Nokia E70

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I’ve had my Nokia E70 for about a month now.  Here are some thoughts on the phone …

  • It is slow.  Period.  This phone has now taught me that hardware vendors are trying to push far too much software and functionality at the limited processors in these devices.  I find myself constantly waiting for the phone … waiting for menus … waiting for the applications to load and be usable.  This phone is noticeably impacting my productivity in a negative way.
  • The phone is not reliable.  Right now, my key problem is around the bluetooth connection to my Jabra BT250v headset.  Once or twice a day now my headset connectivity stops working.  I go through the menus on my E70, turn off the bluetooth, then turn it back on, and re-connect my BT250v and it’s back working.  But this is like having to re-boot my phone once or twice a day.  C’mon Nokia … can’t you create a reliable product?
  • The task list is too limited.  I had bought the phone hoping that I could replace my Palm Tungsten E2 … and it’s close … but the Task/ToDo list application on the E70 is just too limited.  I use 15 different ToDo lists on my Palm to organize my life.  The E70 doesn’t include the ability to create multiple lists … it’s all dropped into one big list.  Bummer.
  • I do like the browser.  I have to admit that it has been fun just opening up my phone, and cruising the Internet every now and then.  The browser is small, but well designed, and very usable.  I’m able to read the news and do searches, etc.

These are just a few quick thoughts off the top of my head … I’m still glad I bought it … maybe I’ll have to keep checking for firmware updates to see if anything gets fixed.  I am impressed at where these devices have got to … I can only imagine what the next generation of phones will be like next year …

Telcos and Cellcos continue to lag …

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While down at the Adobe MAX conference in Las Vegas, I saw some very nice demos of Flash Lite v2.1 … a version of Flash for mobile devices and cell phones.  It was interesting to see that both Verizon and Qualcomm were on hand to talk about the immediate availability for developers.  As I just bought my new Nokia E70 phone (which I’m slowly getting used to!) I thought this would be great!  I’m doing some Flash development … and now I can write apps for my phone with it!

Well … then reality set in.  I went to the Adobe Flash Lite booth, where I was told that my phone ships with Flash Lite v1.1 … an archaic version with severe limitations.  Ok … so when can I get the upgrade?  Well, go ask the Nokia folks.  It was nice that Nokia had a booth at the show … I simply strolled across the room to ask!  When I got to the booth, one of the Nokia reps even had a E70 in his hand!  Woohoo!

As we discussed the wonders of Flash Lite v2.1, I finally asked “When will I get my update?”  Long silent pause.  “Well, at this time I don’t know if we’ll support Flash Lite v2.1 on our 3rd Edition Phones.” was the answer.  Uh … I just bought this thing … I asked “What is a 3rd Edition Phone?”  The response was something like “Everything on the market is 3rd Edition or less.  The 4th Edition Phones are already being developed.”  So the bottom line that I learned is that Nokia probably will never support Flash Lite v2.1 on any phone in the market.  Yes … there is a possibility asa a developer you can get your hands on a version that will work on your phone … but the end-user community will not get it.  What the heck are they thinking?  The answer seemed to be that they did not want to go back and test and recertify the phones in the market.  Bummer.  Strike One for the Telcos and Cellcos.

The next step was to ask Adobe for the latest development tool that would allow me to create Flash Lite v1.1 applications!  The answer was Flash Professional 8 … a $700 tool.  On top of this, the development paradigm used by this tool was completely foreign to me … although I had been warned about the “timeline” model.  When I got the developer demo, I quickly realized that this was not going to work for me.  Bummer.  Strike Two for the Telcos and Cellcos.

Before giving up completely, I then began to explore a conversation about some possible applications that I had thought of.  Things got even worse.  I really wanted to have some applications do some cool things with the camera, and SMS services.  It turns out that the Telcos and Cellcos have prevented the Flash Lite applications from directly working with the Camera or SMS capabilities of the phones.  So I can’t have my application take photos, or send photos, or send/receive SMS text messages.  Bummer.  Strike Three for the Telcos and Cellcos.

It was amazing to me that after years of waiting for the cell phone to catch up and be a real player in the Internet age, it’s still handcuffed and locked up by the Telcos and Cellcos.  Yes … I know that you can still do *some* things with these devices … but they are far from being free, and a truly open and mobile platform for applications.