This article is a short overview history of wireless networks, the uses of the famous can of Pringles, wardriving and the theft of wireless signals.

Technical enthusiasts find inspiration in the packages of Pringles.

For several years technical enthusiasts have used containers of Pringles potato and other items such as soup and coffee for arming the cantennas, antennas made from empty cans. These homemade devices are used to secure, and share strongholds wireless Internet signals. And other times they are used to borrow the sign of any internet neighbor which operates a Wi-Fi unsafe.

The scope of wireless networks is very small. With the Wi-Fi, for example, the signal can travel about 90 meters at most. Put walls, voltage cables and other impediments and scope ends there.

These Cantennas can extend the reach of a network to increase the signal strength that is transmitted or received. Initially, the homemade device costing center of dollars less than the commercial alternatives. With the fall in the prices of commercial antennas, has lost its economic incentive in their manufacture, but even so the homemade dishes are popular.

Some field investigations suggest that canisters of soup and coffee are the ones that produce a greater increase in signal strength, but they are cylinders of Pringles who metallized cardboard have become the icon for cantennas.

I've built tons of them. The do in a class that I make. They are an excellent way to learn how the antennas, and how the wireless. Lee says Barker, author of several books on wireless, based in San Diego.

Barker is co-director of Strategic Technologies and Research Center at the University of San Diego and president of SoCalFreeNet.org, a community group nonprofit which build public wireless networks.

The popularity of home-making has resulted in a popular commercial product, the Super Cantenna, of Solana Beach Wireless Garden. Tests with the Super Cantenna

The Cantenna

A few years before the term Wi-Fi friendly outside Acuna, a handful of hard-core enthusiasts technological played with the wireless system known as 802.11b. The basic hardware for such technology was expensive, and add specialized antennas to increase the performance of wireless networks made an expensive hobby.

Several fans began to publish plans-you-do it in the same network. Andrew Clapp a student in mathematics from Oregon was a bullet with those plans, and made him think. The calculations followed by experimentation confirmed his suspicions: A can of Pringles, with its background of metal and metal inside, it can serve as a reflector for a version of the antenna at the project. And then the national cantenna.

The Cantennas quickly gained popularity within the hacker culture - hacker to refer to someone who likes to disarm, and botch understand technology.

Wardrivers

Go to the Wi-Fi growing in use, the networks also made it unsafe. A new pastime emerged about the wireless internet insecure - wardriving. Wardrivers are the people who drive or walk wandering looking insecure networks and cantennas quickly became a very popular tool.

A number wardirvers simply enjoyed finding open networks, others look for free access to the Internet. A more sedentary version of this type of wardriver involves using the wireless Internet service in the apartment of a neighbor. ;-)

The Wardrivers malicious use the wireless unsafe to enter the computers of people. The war cantennas allow the drivers to find networks that the antennas could not be scheduled, and a lot of fuss about cantennas involved war driving.

Barker said that drivers think about the war while moving through the streets with Cantennas of Pringles officer for a sexy stereotype of pop culture, the reality is that most of the cantennas are made by fanatics enthusiasts who love to get their hands on technology to learn from it.

The cantennas are a great way to learn about the theory of antennas, he said. There is an urban myth of the war with his driver cantenna, but the reality is that they are enthusiasts who like to disassemble things to see how they work.

Cantenna the simplest, called wave guides, or guide leads the radio waves inside the tin to the bottom of the same plane, which serves as a reflector. The waves bounce back from the reflector, creating a concentration of waves at a precise point near the reflector, where the incoming and reflected waves meet.

On the side of transmission, the cantenna focuses the radio signal in a directional beam, more or less like a flashlight focuses light into a beam.

As well as other fans of wireless, Jason Brook of Solana Beach began to play with cantennas as a hobby, but his interest turned into commercial. While other fans recycled cans of soup and coffee trying to find the optimal dimensions, Brook decided to build a similar device from scratch.

With the help of engineers from antennas, calculating the best dimensions and materials for a cantenna. His company, Wireless Garden, began to manufacture the Super Cantenna, an alternative of $ 36.50 to the can of Pringles. The product became popular quickly.

We made the first 500 in my room. From the first day we receive 20 to 30 orders a day on the Web, according to Brook. Now we are selling for hundreds of thousands.

Despite that cantennas have a history hakcer, Brook said that the majority of its customers are Wi-Fi users and network administrators.

The Super Cantenna has become popular among administrators of network security for corporations, who are struggling with access points Wi-Fi ghosts, said Brook. Employees who enjoy Wi-Fi in their homes often install AP's Wi-Fi in their offices, creating security leaks. Administrators Cantennas used to detect the AP's unauthorized, said Brook.

Like many new technologies, the cantennas the war and assisted by driving cantenna created new ethical and legal issues.

The Federal Communications Commission requires that all antennas are approved. The agency's spokesman Jim Shlichting said the FCC is concerned about the fact of adding a more powerful antenna to a transmitter can increase the signal to the point where it interferes with other wireless devices. As a minimum, the homemade devices are outside the technical compatibility, and Schlichting warned the people against their use.

Wayne Slavin, founder of a site in San Diego for wireless users and war drivers, Netstumbler.com, said that he never had heard of problems caused by cantennas and does not know any case in which the FCC has taken action against a user of cantennas.

Go to slopes or use the Wi-Fi signal from a neighbor suggested another set of issues. Schlichting said the FCC has no regulations against the use of a wireless signal which is transmitted to the public domain.

The provider of high speed Internet access, Cox Communications said that the use of Wi-Fi a neighbor proposes a very interesting scenario. The person who gets the free Wi-Fi is not breaking any laws, but the cable subscriber running an insecure wireless network is technically committing theft of services, according to the spokesman Ryland Madison. Cox requires that all its Internet subscribers secure any wireless network.

In a way no different than when someone passes a cable from his window to a neighbor, said Madison. He is allowing the theft of services. Usually we learned when we called with complaints of slow service. This slow because your neighbor is hoarding all your bandwidth. Cox is not attacking theft of Wi-Fi signal as did the cable TV industry when the people you shared her schedule.

We see it as an opportunity to educate our customers. We tell them the need to secure their networks.

Popularity: 10% [?]