Open Wireless at ConClave
Oct. 12th, 2005 11:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nemorathwaldOne more important point to my con report, which will segue into a rant about computer security.
When I opened up the laptop computer at ConClave, I did not have a futile hours-long struggle to get on the internet. I had prepared for a struggle. I was even sitting in the middle of Cafe Penguicon where there were plenty of tech geeks who could help me figure it out. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised when the latest release of Ubuntu got me right onto the hotel's wireless network, effortlessly. I did nothing; not even a password; it just was there. Like the drinking fountains and bathrooms in the lobby, you walk up to it and it just works, no permissions, no charge. I had no such luck with the wireless in my own bedroom. In fact, I still don't. The difference is that the hotel wireless was not secured, whereas![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
phecda is a computer professional and has locked down the wireless network at my house so well that it has formed a consistent barrier to its usefulness. I'd wager the vast majority of wireless internet access with the laptop has been elsewhere than at home. I have never gone somewhere else and accessed some other network, without losing it again in my own residence and waiting for it to be set up again by someone else.
I don't need to secure the internet; that's contrary to what the internet is. Especially when the person most often locked out of it is the only wireless user on the network, for whom alone the wireless exists. I've always thought of giving free wireless internet access to my neighborhood as a pleasant idea. I just don't want them getting the contents of my hard drive. Why is it these are not two different compartmentalized things? I have never, ever, used a home LAN network to transfer files from one of my home computers to another of my home computers. That just never works and I have no confidence that it will start working. All I use it for is the internet. Some smart techie somewhere has got to have come up with a way to offer an open internet node without "LAN" access. Don't tell me it can't be done.
As Dane Cook said in his wonderful comedy routine, "It can be anything you want, dreamers. So dream it! Go ahead, dream it ya #&@%in' dreamers!"
When I opened up the laptop computer at ConClave, I did not have a futile hours-long struggle to get on the internet. I had prepared for a struggle. I was even sitting in the middle of Cafe Penguicon where there were plenty of tech geeks who could help me figure it out. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised when the latest release of Ubuntu got me right onto the hotel's wireless network, effortlessly. I did nothing; not even a password; it just was there. Like the drinking fountains and bathrooms in the lobby, you walk up to it and it just works, no permissions, no charge. I had no such luck with the wireless in my own bedroom. In fact, I still don't. The difference is that the hotel wireless was not secured, whereas
phecda is a computer professional and has locked down the wireless network at my house so well that it has formed a consistent barrier to its usefulness. I'd wager the vast majority of wireless internet access with the laptop has been elsewhere than at home. I have never gone somewhere else and accessed some other network, without losing it again in my own residence and waiting for it to be set up again by someone else.I don't need to secure the internet; that's contrary to what the internet is. Especially when the person most often locked out of it is the only wireless user on the network, for whom alone the wireless exists. I've always thought of giving free wireless internet access to my neighborhood as a pleasant idea. I just don't want them getting the contents of my hard drive. Why is it these are not two different compartmentalized things? I have never, ever, used a home LAN network to transfer files from one of my home computers to another of my home computers. That just never works and I have no confidence that it will start working. All I use it for is the internet. Some smart techie somewhere has got to have come up with a way to offer an open internet node without "LAN" access. Don't tell me it can't be done.
As Dane Cook said in his wonderful comedy routine, "It can be anything you want, dreamers. So dream it! Go ahead, dream it ya #&@%in' dreamers!"
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Date: 2005-10-13 05:54 am (UTC)