[wplug] downtown wireless?

[Patrick Wagstrom]

On Tue, 2006-09-05 at 21:29 -0400, Richard Farina wrote:
> Zach wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I heard we are getting free wi-fi downtown. I'd like to try it but
> > I've never used wireless before.
> I've heard of it, but I have not seen it, and believe me, I would notice ;-)
> > How do I set it up in Linux? I have a wireless card but don't know how
> > to install it.
> you need wireless-tools installed, also the correct driver (not 
> ndiswrapper). Then I suggest "man iwconfig".... of course, I'm a console 
> jockey.

Alternatively, the sane thing is to drop in a Ubuntu Dapper Drake CD and
watch as it just magically works.  You may want to run "apt-get install
network-manager-gnome" and then run "nm-applet".  This gives you a fancy
little pull down menu that lets you select from the available wireless
networks and handles all the stuff like WEP, WPA1/2 (PSK, Enterprise,
etc) for networks that utilize encryption.  Unless you have good reason
to, it's much simpler just to use network-manager.  You can just click
on the icon and it will try to connect you to the network.  Protected
networks will have a little shield or lock by them, and Network Manager
will prompt you for the password before connecting.   It's quite slick.

Suggesting that someone who has never used wireless in Linux immediately
dive into wireless-tools (what ones?  linux-wlan?  the "standard"?  what
if my card isn't supported by these?  what's this ndiswrapper and
linuxant stuff?) is a little like teaching a kid to swim by throwing him
into Lake Superior in May.  (For those of you not from the great frozen
tundra, the average summer temperature of Lake Superior is 40 degrees.
I've seen it as low as 37 in August.).

> encrypt everything with strong encryption if you care to protect it.  No 
> one can do much with your google search, but don't telnet home as root, 
> or buy something on some unencrypted website.  Well, duh.  ;-)

Apparently, you seem to missed something over the past few weeks.  The
AOL data exposure showed how easy it was to re-identify people[1].
Furthermore, there's been ongoing debate about Google releasing its
search records to the Department of Justice[2] and the fallout of them
complying by handing over data to the Brazilian government[3].  Given
that many people use GMail for email, this means Google can tie your
searches to your email.  Youch.  Do yourself a favor, install the
blackboxsearch[4] script for greasemonkey[5] and start hiding your
tracks.  Also, you might want to go get Lost In the Crowd[6].  Of
course, sometimes looking at this search information is kinda funny[7].

--Patrick

[1] google for "nytimes aol search"
[2] http://www.searchengineguide.com/laycock/006603.html
[3] http://news.com.com/2061-10796_3-6112176.html
[4] http://www.nemik.net/blackboxsearch.user.js
[5] http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/
[6] http://www.lostinthecrowd.org/
[5] http://www.somethingawful.com/index.php?a=4032