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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Thursday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week –
09/19/2007 |
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Internet hobos today want
something free, but it’s not a meal. I grew up
on the East coast, near a lot of train yards. We’d hear the train
whistles at night, and we’d imagine being old enough to hop a train and
ride around the country. As kids, we knew that hobos rode trains around the
country, and sometimes we’d see hobos walk into our town and go house to house,
asking for food. Usually
they’d be refused, but there were certain houses that would give a hobo
a meal. As I got
older, I noticed that it seemed like hobos only went to certain houses.
They’d kind of look around first, and then they’d walk up to a
house and knock on the door, and ask for a handout, and they’d usually
get it. Later,
someone told me about the secret hobo signs – markings that hobos would
make near a house, maybe on a tree , or on a curb,
leaving secret signs and markings which meant that the person who lived in
this house was a soft touch for a handout. This
would be just a nice Americana story, if it didn’t have a current and
very interesting contemporary high tech equivalent of free handouts. So what
is hobo-like about our new wireless computer world, where you can access the
internet from anywhere in your house or your backyard with your portable computer?
Is there a free handout in this setting for someone? Well,
actually, there is. With the
explosion of wireless networking, you can buy a wireless network hub for well
under $100, and you just take it out of the box and hook it up to your high
speed cable or modem – run a simple installation program, and then
your computers which have wireless networking cards in them can surf the
internet from anywhere in your house – you no longer have to plug in to
get on the internet. I had set
up a wireless network for my daughter in Seattle a
awhile ago, and the guy at the computer store was adamant about setting up
security, which most people don’t do, in their haste to surf the
internet, exposing themselves to internet hobos. Here’s
the new internet Hobo terms: Wardriving is the act of driving around in
your car with your portable computer with a wireless networking card in it,
trying to find free or unsecured wireless internet connections. As you enter
a wireless zone, the network name will show up on your portable, and you can
try to log on to any network that shows up – and chances are you might
actually be able to get on and surf the internet, using somebody else’s
wireless network connection. The
only limitation is that you have to stay in that wireless zone, which might
cover just a couple city blocks. If you
can believe it – there’s an old time hobo equivalent –
called warchalking
- which is making secret chalk
marks on the sidewalk in front of a house that has an unsecured wireless
network, so that anybody with a wireless portable can read these secret signs
and log onto your wireless network, without of course you knowing anything
about it. A secret
sign like the old hobos used to make - meaning that the person who lives in
this house is a soft touch for a handout - of free web surfing. It all
kind of reminds me of a saying by the old Memphis bluesman Furry Lewis
– “The more things change, the more they stay the same ...” For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2007 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 |
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