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<div>Hi all,</div>
<div>Here is some text I wrote about my "Wifi-Hog" project
for my PhD thesis which specifically addresses situated tech and the
city. This project has gotten a lot of criticism / debate in the past
which has helped to strengthen its focus and lead to other / similar
type interventions / ideas for future research and discussion.
Hopefully it will bring up some interesting discussion on this list as
well...</div>
<div>Jonah</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><font size="+3" color="#000000"><b>WiFi-Hog: From Reaction to
Realization</b></font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000">by Jonah
Brucker-Cohen</font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000">URL:
http://www.coin-operated.com/projects/wifihog</font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000">When technologies are first
introduced, hype usually follows. The hype naturally dissipates over
time, but when news begins to spread about how people are using the
technology, the hype machine begins to resurface. When I first heard
about wireless internet (or 802.11b) back in early 1999, I ignored it.
This was a technology that seemed very far off, as no computers were
yet equipped with wireless receivers (except a few Personal Digital
Assistants (PDAs)). I heard about people using the technology in
classrooms and hospitals, with very particular applications that
seemed too particular for any mainstream adoption. A couple years went
by and my ignoring continued.</font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000"><br>
A few years later, wireless internet (now affectionately called
"Wi-Fi") began to resurface as reports of projects and
public community networks began to sprout up. Now that Wi-Fi was being
integrated into everything from laptops to portable stereo systems, my
ignoring started to dissipate in the hype. Wireless was becoming
cheap, pervasive, and simple to implement.</font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000">After hearing about the hype and
projects, I began to notice something else that was happening in and
around wireless nodes and their deployment. In August 2002, Slashdot
ran an article about "Starbucks vs. Personal Telco Project (PTP)"
[1] , a battle that was quietly taking place in Portland, Oregon's
Pioneer Square. This was a challenge over public obstruction of
wireless space, where corporate signal was out-blasting the
pre-existing community signal. PTP had two 2 T1 connections with off
the shelf routers setup providing free wireless access to anyone in
the square. A few months later, Starbucks who partnered with T-mobile,
set up in-store satellite Internet access that broadcasted on Channel
1 within the store and around the square. Channel 1 is the default
connection found by most consumer wireless cards. As a result, since
Starbuck's signal was stronger and its connection speed was faster
than PTP, the once free network that pervaded the park had to close
down. The struggle over claiming ownership of public spaces with
wireless nodes was in full swing.</font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000">On a trip to the NYC Wireless [2]
headquarters in 2002, I heard a story about how Verizon (a major
telecommunications company in NYC) had started to put high-power
wireless access points (APs) on the tops of all of their pay phone
booths in the city. These blanketed every block of the city and were
only available to customers of Verizon's DSL service. NYC Wireless had
set up a free node from their office which was meant to reach the
street below, but Verizon's corner payphone node was interfering with
it. The problem was further reaching than I thought.</font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000">In 2003, I began working on a
project called "Wifi-Hog" that was a direct reaction to the
claim of ownership that corporations and individuals were placing on
public wireless space. The project consisted of a laptop connected to
a Portable Video Jammer (PVJ), and some custom circuitry that
communicates to software on computer. The software was comprised of a
packet sniffer (such as Carnivore [7]) and wireless stumbler (such as
NetStumbler [4] which allows the software to find open networks) which
monitors incoming packets from an open node. The idea was to only
allow traffic originating from the Wifi-Hogger's IP address to access
network, otherwise the PVJ is switched on, blocking others from
connecting to the open node. Since most Wi-Fi networks operate on the
un-licensed 2.4 GHZ band, jamming this spectrum is not illegal. There
are over 100 websites that advertise and sell the PVJ, so finding one
was relatively easy.</font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000">As mobile technology has entered
public space and brought private conversations and interactions along
with it, an interesting rift was forming between what is deemed
acceptable usage. Wifi-Hog is specifically reacting to the lack of an
"Acceptable Usage Policy" of wireless networks. Since these
networks exist as private, public, and corporate monitored services,
there is also confusion about rights ownership over networks in public
spaces. Wifi-Hog is a tool that enables control over a specified
network by someone who is not the network's administrator and looks
specifically at what happens when these seemingly open networks are
made exclusive and competitive. In a sense, Wifi-Hog exists as a
tactical media tool for controlling and subverting this claim of
ownership and regulation over free spectrum, by allowing a means of
control to come from a third-party.</font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000">As mobile and wireless devices
become more ubiquitous, free and public wireless nodes have gained
high penetration. Free nodes are popping up in public parks, airport
terminals, libraries, schools, and other venues worldwide. In addition
to sanctioned spaces for the nodes, private nodes without encryption
are leaking from offices and houses onto city and rural streets.
Activities that exploited and actively seeked out these networks began
to materialize. Some examples include the WARchalking [3] and
WARdriving phenomenon (where you search for open nodes on city streets
and mark their location with chalk) and artist interventions like
"Noderunner" [5] and Blast Theory's "Can you see me
now?" [6] which integrate urban street players with wireless
connectivity. As the networks grew, especially in dense urban spaces,
signals from private, public, and commercial (or paid) nodes began to
interfere with each other. This spectrum overload brings up even more
questions about how jurisdiction of signal is defined and who has
precedence over others.</font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000"><br>
Looking specifically at free wireless access points, Wifi-Hog is also
a reaction to the public spaces they inhabit. Wifi-Hog is a personal
tool to enable both private interaction in public space as well as
social obstruction and deconstruction of shared resources. This idea
compares to similar situation of property acquisition in the before
state-controlled zoning laws were put in place. Land was a public
resource that had to be regulated due to misuse and territorial
disputes. My aim was to investigate how wireless networks could also
fall into this predicament since they can leak or pervade from private
to public spaces. This containment issue might also allow for third
parties to disrupt or interfere with them.</font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000"><br>
An interesting example of this type of territorial dispute occurred
the United States in the late 19th century. The Homestead Act of 1862
provided that unoccupied public land be transferred to a homesteader
after five years of residence. This was an act sanctioned by the US
government to create a system of land grants to encourage settlers to
develop the then uninhabited West. In effect, the Homestead Act was a
pay off for settling in the region. The idea behind Wifi-Hog counters
this since it represents an almost "hostile" takeover of
this land. Imagine if you had lived on the land for 3 years, it was
still in the public domain, but you had invested your life into it,
and someone came along and fenced off the land with a barrier you
could not penetrate. In this case you do not have any legal right to
the land, but you still feel as if it is yours since it has been in
your custody for 3 years. This is a scenario closely linked to
Wifi-Hog's premise that a public wireless network maybe be partially
owned or controlled by someone, but it can nevertheless be taken away
and controlled. The project sends a clear message to groups attempting
to claim ownership over a public space by demonstrating that their
network can be easily jammed and controlled by others. An example of
its use might be for an individual to use Wi-Fi Hog to disrupt a
corporate signal and let a weaker, but free node exist in the same
space. This signifies a loss of control by providers and sparks a
challenge to their "land-grabbing" attitudes.</font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000">Since the project was introduced,
most of the reaction from wireless communities has been negative. This
mostly stems from misunderstandings of why the project exists and how
it was presented. Most people were upset that I was "advertising"
the PVJ as something that could disrupt all of the progress and work
that had been done to create open networks. My focus at first was to
disprove the fact that wireless was leading us into a "utopian"
world where networks would be everywhere and people would work
harmoniously beside each other. I see this as a simplistic view that
fails to see the conflicts of ownership and the complex integration
and use of wireless in public spaces. Some thought that my project
created rifts in the "community nodes" that existed such as
London's Consume.net [8] or NYC Wireless's wireless parks, since I was
promoting a disruptive tool. From a discussion on the NYC Wireless
list, some comments about the project were made evident by an
anonymous poster:</font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000">"If I remember the way NYC
Wireless, etc started out, the very act of putting up public wireless
nodes was to exert territoriality - we were claiming the public parks
as free Wi-Fi zones, and betting that these would deter pay providers
from locating there. To a large degree this has turned out to be an
accurate prediction. We were also trying to re-contextualize networks
within local places, grounding them in real urban communities rather
than having them exist in some kind of an abstract non-geographic
cyberspace. I have to agree that this project doesn't seem to be
terribly sophisticated, and is very reactionary. It is a yes/no
proposition, without any selectivity. You might just as well just be
climbing atop the maintenance shed in Bryant Park and plugging /
unplugging the antenna lead." (August 2003)</font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000"><br>
Despite the mixed reactions and confusion surrounding the point of the
project and its execution, the problem it addresses remains important.
As spectrum overcrowding becomes more common in cities, the conflict
between for-pay and free nodes will reach a critical point. Companies
will have to enforce strict delineation of their signal strength so
that free networks cannot impede on their business models and vise
versa. Projects like WiFi-Hog are clear and critical reminders that
wireless networking is still a young technology that displaces
architectural and social boundaries. This distinction is important for
the future of wireless and the communities that support its
development.</font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000"><br>
</font><font size="+3"
color="#000000"><i><b>Footnotes</b></i></font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000">1. Slashdot, August 2002
(</font><font size="-3"
color="#406786"><b
>http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/02/08/20/0431202.shtml?tid=98</b></font><font
size="-3" color="#000000">)<br>
2. NYC Wireless (</font><font size="-3"
color="#406786"><b>http://www.nycwireless.org</b></font><font
size="-3" color="#000000">)<br>
3. WARchalking (Wireless Access Router) (</font><font size="-3"
color="#406786"><b>http://www.warchalking.org</b></font><font
size="-3" color="#000000">)<br>
4. NetStumbler (http://</font><font size="-3"
color="#406786"><b>www.netstumbler.com</b></font><font size="-3"
color="#000000">)<br>
5. Noderunner (http://</font><font size="-3"
color="#406786"><b>www.noderunner.com</b></font><font size="-3"
color="#000000">)<br>
6. Blast Theory, "Can You See Me Now?", (</font><font
size="-3"
color="#406786"><b>http://www.canyouseemenow.co.uk</b></font><font
size="-3" color="#000000">)</font></div>
<div><font size="-3" color="#000000">7. Carnivore, (</font><font
size="-3"
color="#406786"><b>http://www.rhizome.org/carnivore</b></font><font
size="-3" color="#000000">).<br>
8. Consume.net (</font><font size="-3"
color="#406786"><b>http://www.consume.net</b></font><font size="-3"
color="#000000">)</font></div>
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