macbook wireless range???

[Timepass]

thanks I'll defineatly try that in the morning....other question....is the range of a macbook greater than the range of a psp? and how much greater

I dont know. I going to guess the singal strengh where you are is going to be really weak. so it be flacky at best for the mac book any how. It going to be weak at the range you are looking at. I am roughly about 40 ft from my router (and several walls) and it 4 bars and I know the card will be better than anything in a laptop. But you are talking 200ft and several walls to kill it power will be a really weak signal at best which means it going to be pretty flacky.

Right now one my my neihbors also has a wireless running. yeah I pick it up but I pretty sure I couldnt use it even if it was open. I just see it but it hovers bettween 0 and 1 bar.

 

[xfiftyfour]

I dont know. I going to guess the singal strengh where you are is going to be really weak. so it be flacky at best for the mac book any how. It going to be weak at the range you are looking at. I am roughly about 40 ft from my router (and several walls) and it 4 bars and I know the card will be better than anything in a laptop. But you are talking 200ft and several walls to kill it power will be a really weak signal at best which means it going to be pretty flacky.

Right now one my my neihbors also has a wireless running. yeah I pick it up but I pretty sure I couldnt use it even if it was open. I just see it but it hovers bettween 0 and 1 bar.

yeah, even within some bigger houses wireless reception can be weak unless you have extenders/repeaters in place.. going from house to house through walls and distance? mmm... not going to be very usable, most of the time (though i should mention that i've never used a macbook, so the newer cards might be much better than the one currently in my PB)

 

[brbubba]

thanks I'll defineatly try that in the morning....other question....is the range of a macbook greater than the range of a psp? and how much greater

The range of my PSP sucks compared to most WiFi cards. My macbook gets the best reception of any WiFi, without an external antenna, that I have ever seen.

 

[chapinmesa]

If you're not harming anything, it's hardly an ethics issue. And it's not illegal -- at all --. I challenge you to find a law that disallows the joining of public networks.

And really... asking them if it's ok? If someone came up to my house and asked if they could connect to my WiFi, I'd just kind of look at them strangely. If I didn't want people on my connection, I'd enable WEP. Even early routers have WEP protection.


There's a whole "sport" (for the super-nerds) called wardriving that involves going around towns looking for WiFi spots. If you have a problem with it, ethically, then don't do it... it's like the vegetarians who say noone should be allowed to eat meat, hah.

Exactly, theres no way that this is really "ILLEGAL" in any way. I agree that the asking is kinda silly to, I mean, if my connection is open...go for it, I obviously don't care if its opened up.

As for wardriving, I've actually done that myself a fair share of times, pretty fun really, not like im trafficking child porn and illegal/copyrighed files across it, if anything I just check my email or hop on the forums, not a big deal in my eyes.

 

[benthewraith]

The range of my PSP sucks compared to most WiFi cards. My macbook gets the best reception of any WiFi, without an external antenna, that I have ever seen.

Let me state the perfectly obvious....nothing is as worse as the Intel Pro/Wireless 2200b/g.

Oohhhhh!!!!!!! Just thinking about that card gets me infuriated.

 

[janey]

did the winky face mean u were being sarcastic...becaues I hope not...

Nope.
Here's a screenshot of my router's info page:

The top's my Macbook, the bottom's my mac mini. They're about 6 inches away from each other and both of them are like 15-20 feet away from the router (stupid walls). It's seriously insane.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Slashdot's probably not the greatest legal advice to be had on the internet though.

Perhaps yours is not the greatest legal advice either. IIRC the courts have been mixed on this at the local and state level.

This is an issue of how far does one "protect" their network from others.

I will speak from my broadband providers TOC as I know it. There is no requirement for my me to restrict "outside" access via WiFi. It could be argued as to my personal use verses my providing public use. For the airwaves are supposed to be for "public: use.





And then eating the food from their fridge... Even if it were technically legal, it's not morally right. I'm sure if the owner of the network doesn't mind, then asking won't hurt. Just because something isn't locked down, doesn't make it free for all. [/QUOTE]

 

[vv-tim]

Yes, but technically (and legally) the "drinker(s)" would be trespassing, and the owner would be in his full right to complaint, right...?

If you're sitting on your neighbor's porch tapping his WiFi, then by all means, he has a right to complain Otherwise, you're not trespassing, which is a completely different law (since we've been on theft this whole time).

 

[Some_Big_Spoon]

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/22/1247213

It's a farce of a right-wing "political system", but it'll set precedence unfortunately, but not because of anything to do with war driving.

 

[vv-tim]

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/22/1247213

It's a farce of a right-wing "political system", but it'll set precedence unfortunately, but not because of anything to do with war driving.

No, again, you missed the point. This guy was parking in their parking lot (private property) and was told to stop (thus the access that was once freely granted, is now taken away -- he no longer has permission) and he CONTINUED to park in their parking lot and use their WiFi.

This is not a case of some random person using WiFi and out of the blue being arrested. "RTFA" as Slashdot would say.

 

[Killyp]

Let's put it like this:

Would you be happy if a guy ran a great big long CAT5 cable from your network hub out the window and into his house? I certainly wouldn't be....

Just because wireless is wireless, doesn't mean it shouldn't be treated differently to wire connections.

 

[unixfool]

1. i'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that these are all typing errors rather than grammatical incompetency.. could you please pay a little more attention so that others aren't pained to read through three paragraphs of broken english?

2. if someone knows so little about wireless networks that they can't even follow their manual's instructions of setting up a password, then they really shouldn't be bothering with routers and wireless cards at all. would you build a house if you didn't know how to attach doors?

3. if we (more specifically my fiance, the tech-geek of us) catch people on our network that aren't supposed to be there, you'd better believe he'll use it to his advantage and teach them a little lesson - especially if their dumb enough to get onto our network AND leave their computers wide open. now, certainly not as severe as crapping on their boot file, but reading their packets and putting something on their hard drive? absolutely. again, my point: don't mess around in things you're not familiar with (whether setting up a wireless network, or hijacking someone else's).

4. as for the legalities of joining an insecure network, many have already pointed out that it is in fact NOT illegal to do so, and honestly, even if it were.. do you really think someone will prosecute for it? furthermore, do you think someone that can't be bothered to password-protect their network will even have the know-how to FIND OUT someone else is jacking their bandwidth??


get off your high horse of ethics. sorry, but dumb people are taken advantage of all the time in this world (loans, buying new cars, lending money where they shouldn't, fraud, break-ins, scams..the list goes on).. why would wireless networks be any different?

NONE of your arguments and analogies make ANY sense whatsoever. Stealing is wrong. If it doesn't belong to you, don't touch it. In some places in the world, you can go to jail for rummaging and taking people's trash on the curb. It's the same thing. It's not your network to access, even if its open. I may leave my door open, but that doesn't mean permission is granted to enter.

I've seen a few acquaintances get 0wn3d because they connected to what they thought was an easy access point and it was actually designed to either keylog or gain access to their systems.

Janey is correct. There's gray area around this topic, as technology usually moves much faster than legistlature, but its definitely immoral to those who actually have morals. Just because you lack morals doesn't lessen the fact that what you are suggesting is theft and trespassing....theft of someone else's paid bandwidth and trespassing on someone's network.

Yes, I'm a security engineer for a very large and well-known ISP/MSSP.

See you in the headlines soon...