According to the Wall Street Journal, coffee shops in New York are starting to cut back on laptops -- by reducing WiFi privileges, removing outlets, or banning the machines outright. This article has spawned a vast number of spin-off pieces and conversations across the Web. [more inside]
posted by Shepherd on Aug 7, 2009 - 100 comments

"Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that would require all Internet providers and operators of millions of Wi-Fi access points, even hotels, local coffee shops, and home users, to keep records about users for two years to aid police investigations." To be fair, it's not just Republicans who like this idea.
posted by Kirth Gerson on Feb 22, 2009 - 60 comments

Are you allergic to WiFi? Some residents of Sante Fe, NM certainly think they are and they want to take away municipal WiFi to sate their delusions.
posted by socalsamba on Jun 17, 2008 - 98 comments

Wi-fi Routers: Silent blinking death. Via badscience.net, where it was posted in response to what sounds like a truly awful show. Electrosensitivity previously discussed here.
posted by Artw on May 25, 2007 - 52 comments

"Is Wi-Fi going to turn out to be the tobacco, asbestos or Thalidomide of the 21st century? It's looking that way." Woman choses to live in a Faraday cage to ameliorate the symptoms caused by electrosmog. It's funny that she looks so much like a beekeeper in her fancy hat, given the recent kerfuffle (from another UK paper) about mobile phones wiping out the bees. Coming soon: faraday undies. [via]
posted by scblackman on Apr 27, 2007 - 84 comments

They'll never piggyback on your wireless again Your router makes the computer look funny. (via MeTa)
posted by klangklangston on Aug 10, 2006 - 62 comments

AirPower Wiki looks like its just getting off the ground, but if you travel much, you know the hassle of finding a power outlet in an airport. Hopefully it grows fast and furiously.
posted by allkindsoftime on Jul 26, 2006 - 8 comments

Another wifi-related arrest was publicized today. In the past, the only case readily available to researchers involved additional seedy activities that are what really drew the arrest. The coffeeshop and other open hotspots show up on several sites such as jiwire and wifinder which are devoted to helping people find wireless hotspots.

In this case, a coffeeshop noticed someone leeching their WiFi parked in his truck -- over the course of 3 months, without ever entering the coffeehouse and making a purchase. While not yet convicted of anything, he has been arrested for "theft of services," and this could mean the first precedent set for whether or not "wireless piggybacking" is illegal. The case becomes especially interesting for both sides of the ethical debate on "borrowing" wireless. One one side of the judge's opinion will be the fact that the coffeehouse is a public place, not a private home. On the other side, it turns out the man who was arrested just so happens to be a registered sex offender, though this coincidental fact is not technically relevant to the case.
posted by twiggy on Jun 22, 2006 - 259 comments

Have extra Indian food around your house? Trade it once a month for free Wi-Fi access. Sharing WiFi via Google Maps [via mefi projects] If you've got WiFi and are willing to share it - or you can can 'see' someone else's WiFi and would like to use it - you're in the right place.
posted by tozturk on Jan 16, 2006 - 16 comments

New Orleans becomes the first US city with free citywide wifi.
posted by The Jesse Helms on Nov 30, 2005 - 35 comments

Newsfilter: Mountain View plans WiFi city. The Mountain View, CA City Council has approved an offer from Google to rent the city's street lamps for $12,600/year to install city-wide wireless internet. Some residents are concerned about privacy and health issues, but the city council says that's beyond their scope, and chooses to take the free lunch. (Disclaimer: I live here.)
posted by sarahnade on Nov 16, 2005 - 28 comments

"They use my lines for free -- and that's bull." The CEO of SBC Communications Inc. Ed Whitacre launched this criticism at the likes of Vonage, Google,Yahoo and MSN. Meanwhile Google is seeking some alternative paths to the Internet.Perhaps SBC should head the old adage from John Gilmore "the net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it”Or perhaps these companies need to pay the proverbial Internet plumbers; myself, I prefer more competition;my phone bill has never been lower!
posted by thedailygrowl on Oct 31, 2005 - 23 comments

Googlenet. What if Google wanted to give Wi-Fi access to everyone in America? And what if it had technology capable of targeting advertising to a user’s precise location? The gatekeeper of the world’s information could become one of the globe’s biggest Internet providers and one of its most powerful ad sellers, basically supplanting telecoms in one fell swoop. What was speculation this last month, now seems to be getting closer. However, it looks like it's raising hackles, similar to the ugly memories of google web accelerator beta which was cancelled just a few days after release
posted by Mave_80 on Sep 20, 2005 - 41 comments

"More than 10-million U.S. homes are equipped with [wi-fi] routers that transmit high-speed Internet to computers using radio signals. The signals can extend 200 feet or more." And Benjamin Smith was just arrested for going online through an unsecured one that didn't belong to him.

It begs the Doonesbury question: Isn't it still a free country?
posted by NotMyselfRightNow on Jul 7, 2005 - 249 comments

Wi-Fi Thank You is a place where you can send a thank you message to anyone who provides a free Wi-Fi hotspot.
posted by sciurus on Jun 22, 2005 - 8 comments

Republican Congressman Pete Sessions from Texas introduced a bill that would make all free, public, municipal WiFi illegal. Sessions, as it turns out, is a big fat recipient of SBC funds. Why stop there? Should we privatize highways as well? How about subways? Glad the liberal media is all over this one. Here are a couple of links: Original post on DailyKos, An informative editorial from the Fort Wayne paper
posted by mountainmambo on Jun 9, 2005 - 48 comments

Endangered Gizmos via the EFF (warning, they do want your money to continue fighting "to defend our rights to think, speak, and share our ideas, thoughts, and needs using new technologies, such as the Internet and the World Wide Web.")
Lawsuits have driven some excellent consumer products into extinction, like the ReplayTV 4000, DVD X Copy and the lamented wild and crazy Napster 1.0 including what drove them into extinction. They also list endangered gizmos like the HD TV PCI Card, Morpheus and Generic FireWire, open Wifi hot spots and CD burners.
Among the "saved" gizmos is the Skylink garage door opener which had been attacked under the DMCA.
posted by fenriq on Feb 8, 2005 - 5 comments

FutureIsNowFilter "TengoInternet and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department announced a pilot program to offer wireless Internet service at five Texas state parks... The wireless service will allow park guests while visiting the park to access the Internet to gain park information, send e-mail or pictures, or just surf the Web, without cords having to physically plug into a network."
Shouldn't be camping be more about nature than technology?
posted by Doohickie on Dec 16, 2004 - 31 comments

A nice article on some of the engineering and economics aspects of WiFi, and the history of frequency regulation in the USA.
posted by freebird on Aug 16, 2004 - 9 comments

USB adaptors & a Spider Skimmer = Poor Man's Wifi!
posted by X-00 on May 16, 2004 - 7 comments

WiFi Against Bush is an interesting twist on viral marketing aimed at our neighborhoods and the occassional warchalker — let everyone in within range of your router know what you _really_ think of the President.

Via the venerable Shifted Librarian.
posted by silusGROK on May 12, 2004 - 11 comments

Catch some waves... for free! Wi-Fi Freespot will help. Via my roommate's co-workers, who keep sending this round e-mail circuits. I don't know why they include me. I hate technology.
posted by WolfDaddy on Feb 5, 2004 - 7 comments

WiFi-SM is "a Wi-Fi-capable patch you stick on your body so you can feel painful shocks whenever news stories are published containing keywords that you enter into the software". (via Mikes List) Who needs this when we have MetaFilter?...
posted by marvin on Oct 8, 2003 - 11 comments

McD Wireless Beginning today, many McDonald’s restaurants around the Bay area will provide Wi-Fi with a side of fries... Previously discussed in March.
posted by sparky on Jul 9, 2003 - 18 comments

Would you queue for the iLoo? [More inside]
posted by ginz on May 7, 2003 - 24 comments

With Tungsten C - it's most powerful handheld ever (according to themselves) Palm is making some aggressive moves to turn its business around and brings wireless 802.11b-based connectivity to the Palm family of devices. Microsoft, on the other hand, is to use FM radio waves for news, weather and traffic, etc - on your watch. Is this a race or PDA technology diversity at its best? ...and here I'm sitting around with my stone age Visor.
posted by psychomedia on Apr 25, 2003 - 25 comments

IM just for Wifi - Trepia has developed a new method for wifi users to connect to each other. Imagine turning on your laptop and seeing the other wifi users near your physical location and being able to chat with them.

There's only a Windows client at this time. I asked where the Mac & linux clients were and the CEO told me they were coming in the future once the Windows version takes off. I'm betting that if enough people ask, they'll accelerate their plans.
posted by Argyle on Apr 15, 2003 - 14 comments

Lee Felsenstein, saving the world with wifi and a bike. This old school computer hacker built a human powered wireless internet station named as one of the best inventions of 2002. Now he needs to raise $25,000 to wire five villages of farmers to the web (to obtain weather info, pricing data) and to each other. This is another story that reminds me not all of this technology is for gadget geeks. It really can help improve peoples' lives, as shown by the varied projects coming out of the Tech Museum grant winners and groups like this.
posted by mathowie on Jan 2, 2003 - 42 comments

The ever popular WiFi systems are the latest threat to National Security according to this story.
posted by thedailygrowl on Dec 17, 2002 - 5 comments

802.11b Survey Map of NYC Following the NYC Bloggers Map, what else should mapped in NYC, smoking rooms?
posted by Voyageman on Dec 12, 2002 - 17 comments

Attention, Wi-Fi users: The Department of Homeland Security sees wireless networking technology as a terrorist threat. That was the message from experts who participated in working groups under federal cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke and shared what they learned at this week's 802.11 Planet conference. Wi-Fi manufacturers, as well as home and office users, face a clear choice, they said: Secure yourselves or be regulated. Is this reasonable? Is this really a threat to security? (via boingboing )
posted by Espoo2 on Dec 6, 2002 - 10 comments

Starbucks announces wireless Internet access in stores and plans to charge customers for it: $29.99/month for access in one store, or $49.99/month for access in all equipped stores nationwide. Seems a little pricey to me. And besides, don't cool coffeehouses offer free wireless Internet access? They're sure getting lots of coverage of the announcement in any case.
posted by tippiedog on Aug 22, 2002 - 21 comments

WarFlying
Well it had to happen eventually didn't it? Have you ever gone on a hunt for wireless networks in your neck of the woods? Find anything you shouldn't have? And have you ever actually seen a WarChalk yet?
posted by Mwongozi on Aug 19, 2002 - 7 comments

Don't let child pornographers share your connection! Now that sharing your Wi-Fi connection with the unwashed masses has become so popular - the BigCo's are trying to shut it down. We've talked about this here and here but I was blown away by this marketing speak from a AOL Time Warner VP


"By having an open transmission, it leaves you really vulnerable," Digeso said. "If you have a Wi-Fi connection in a public park, what would stop, God forbid, a child pornographer or, God forbid, a terrorist using that network?"

Are terroists using your Wi-Fi connection?
posted by dhacker on Jul 9, 2002 - 34 comments

Warchalking Collaboratively creating a hobo-language for free wireless networking. Here is the first draft of a warchalking symbol card. [via Boing Boing]
posted by srboisvert on Jun 24, 2002 - 26 comments

Etherlinx, plans to offer high-speed wireless access to the Internet at inexpensive prices. (NYT) Without venture capital backing, in a garage just six blocks from the garage where Steven P. Jobs and Stephen Wozniak launched Apple Computer 26 years ago, Mr. Holt is making his clever and inexpensive radio repeater by modifying inexpensive Wi-Fi cards, the circuitry that sends and receives the signals. Their ambitious target: the cable and phone companies that currently hold a near-monopoly on high-speed access for the "last mile" between the Internet and the home.
posted by semmi on Jun 10, 2002 - 2 comments

The crypto used in 802.11 wireless networking has been cracked. The crack is devastating; it's fast and passive. Simply by listening, the 40-bit key can be cracked in 15 minutes. Worse, the crack scales linearly with the number of bits in the key, so raising the key length to 128 bits would raise the crack time to about an hour. 802.11 is used in such products as the Linksys Etherfast Wireless and the Apple Airport. From now on those products should be considered to be completely insecure.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Aug 3, 2001 - 16 comments

Microsoft bans use of Open Source with its wireless internet tools. Will this be a huge PR blunder, or will people accept MS' hardline stance against this so-called "potentially viral" software?
posted by moz on Jul 2, 2001 - 25 comments

SF Gate article states, "with a wireless ethernet card, a laptop and some basic software savvy," people walking around downtown San Francisco could just point their antenna at a building and be privy to private, unprotected coporate networks.
posted by paladin on Mar 22, 2001 - 9 comments

Apple is going to have to rename it's AirPort for the Japanese market because of a previous trademark already issued for the name. They're going to call it AirMac instead. Hmmm... Seems to me they could have put a bit more oomph into it, like AirThang or AirConnector. Must have been pressed for time to get the thing launched.
posted by grant on Jan 28, 2000 - 1 comment

Is it wrong to love a machine? I'm writing this from my employer's new Toshiba ultra portable laptop which also happens to be using the wireless LAN. There's nothing quite like wandering around with a 4 pound, 1 inch thick pentium II 366 that's network enabled.
posted by mathowie on Jul 29, 1999 - 0 comments

Of course, I want one of these, but more exciting than that is the new wireless LAN. At work, we have a 1Mbps wireless than that cost thousands, but this looks 10x faster at 1/5 the cost.
posted by mathowie on Jul 21, 1999 - 1 comment