Author: RenderMan

Kismet, like Netstumbler, is one of the defacto wardriving and wireless troubleshooting apps available for free to the public. Kismet, unlike Netstumbler has a number of features that make it a much more useful tool for network discovery and reconnisence. If you have not tried Kismet, you really should. It's a great tool to have...

With all the press lately about people abusing others open WiFi AP's, you think security is getting better. Well it's not. Police are still playing catch up and the law is still pretty vague. Given the consiquences of someone abusing your AP, it's as good an idea as ever to lock it down securly. Via...

Japan's NTT DoCoMo is applying for a Wi-Max license and plans to begin testing in Tokyo in the near future. With thier interest in 3g and the Japanese market for such a service, it's no wonder that NTT DoCoMo is looking into the technology. Via [networks.silicon.com]

Dell's new Latitude D series laptops are available equipped with an EDGE or EVDO card for connection to cellular broadband networks from either Cingular or Verizon respectivly. This defiatly shows that there is a market (probobly mostly for business travellers) for Wireless WAN hardware to be integrated into the laptop itself. A service contract with...

Knowing the tools that attackers could use to attack your network is the first step in knowing how to secure your network. These same tools can be used to discover weaknesses yourself and patch them before the bad guys find them. Via [it-observer.com]

The NSA has just ordered $41.6 Million worth of Harris SecNet54 wireless routers. Based off of standard 802.11a/b/g standards, the accesspoints radios are hooked into hardware cryptographic accelerators, turning them into a high level encrypted VPN device. This use of higher level encryption over normal protocols makes the units a bit less proprietary but alot...

We all know that WiFi security sucks. Well, who's to blame. It's hard to blame users when manufacturers don't make it very easy to setup thier equipment with security. This is why many people end up turning off the security and leaving it open. It's easy and once it's working, it keeps working without worrying...

Google was granted a few new patents for wireless. The patents cover several aspects of delivering ads from access points and modifying the browser look depending on the access point connected to. The idea is that in exchange for using the access for free, users will have ads show up on thier devices. While not...

Canada's national ballet school of all places is making the jump to use VOIP over Wi-Fi. The ballet school recently moved into a new building and was looking for a modern solution to thier communication needs to match thier modern building. The partnership with NEC shows how everyone can benifit from emerging technology. Via [computerworld.com]...

Intel is backing a new startup called Arch Rock and thier desire to build wireless internet enabled sensor devices. The idea is to have these things on everything, utilizing a low power mesh network to string them together to allow operators to have a firm grasp of what is happening in the physical world, through...

A Florida company is claiming to have developed a new wireless VOIP service to compete directly with cellular providers. The new proprietary technology called xMax claims to offer the cost of setting up a base station to be in the thousands, not the millions currently costing cellular providers. Scant of details and lack of testing,...

WiMax; to stay fixed or to roam. Fixed WiMax is set to hit London in a big way and shows how much growth WiMax still has to make before it hits the big time. Right now fixed (where the customer installs an antenna on thier building) is about the only way WiMax can be profitable...

Application vendor Newbury has released a new product to make it easier for enterprises to leverage positional data on thier WiFi clients. The software allows network owners to track the location of clients through a number of AP's and can launch location specific services based on that location. The system can also track the location...

Will metro WiFi ever really work? Governments who have trouble filling potholes responsible for a bleeding edge technology? Some people see it as a blessing and others as a huge curse. The economics of who pays for what, and even logistics such as how much of how much of a downtown office building should be...

Now that the buzzword of convergance of WiFi and cellular is going full steam the question now seems to be 'who owns the talk time?'. If I have a cell phone and am using the cellular network, it's easy to bill me for the talk time. If I'm at my home or business using the...