Sorry I missed the meeting, I was in Chicago yesterday. On Wed, Aug 13, 2003 at 10:03:15PM -0500, Ben Nelson wrote: > Everyone, > > Here¹s the latest from last night¹s meeting: [snip] > Call for Parts: > We¹re looking for some components to further the Loring park project: an > omni antenna and an access point. If you¹ve got an extra of either of these > available for extended loan or to donate, or are interested in sponsoring > the purchase of same, let me know! Think of it: you¹ll be sitting in the > park, surfing the web, knowing you are a vital part of the operation. That¹s > not radiation, that¹s the warm feeling of a good deed done. I may have some antennas available for use soon. > Outreach: > Andrew been working on literature that could be distributed to the public > that talks about wireless, TCWUG, and generally encourages people to get > involved and set up hotspots. A question at the meeting was: by using > netstumbler, or just turning on your wi-fi card, you/we can see networks and > tell if they¹re open or not. Also, it¹s not to hard to narrow the location > down to a small area. Here¹s the problem: how can we contact the person > running the hotspot, and either get them to list themselves as a public > hotspot or help them secure their network, without, for lack of a better > phrase, creeping them out totally? I¹m going to post this to the list as a > separate piece, as I think outreach is pretty important, and I¹d like to get > some other views. Why would we want to go out of our way to bother people with making their access points harder to use? A lot of people simply do NOT care, and it's really not a security issue (they're much more likely to get infected/violated/etc from the internet than from their WAP), are you also going to update the firmware on not only their access point, but every client card they use to insure that they're not broadcasting weak WEP packets? Besides the fact that people/companies do _not_ enjoy being told their systems are "insecure", if you'd like to start a movement to 'secure' every access point feel free, I don't think it's a valid concern for the group. [snip] > Next Meeting: > The second Tuesday of September, 9/9, same time (6:00-8:00), same place > (Freight House Dunn Bro¹s). I'll be there. > See everyone next month. > > Ben -- Matthew S. Hallacy FUBAR, LART, BOFH Certified http://www.poptix.net GPG public key 0x01938203 _______________________________________________ Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.tcwug.org tcwug-list at tcwug.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list