Not much point to .mobi domains in the realms of Verizon, it seems – the New York Times reports that starting 2007, ads will be placed on sites that are accessed using their mobile phones. The Verizon Wireless release claims that certain types of ads and video clips will not be allowed, as they may not be compatible with the limited browsers found in the phones, but this is not very encouraging – meaning that they will allow video clips. Will this not hugely increase the amount of data used during browsing? I believe Verizon offers all-you-can-eat data plans, but if you are not using one of those, you could feel the pain. In any case, having to wade through a mobile website rendered on a tiny screen is hard enough as it is, with some devices not being able to cope with the amount of processing required, resulting in a very slow and frustrating experience. Add videos, which require much higher resources to be played back, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Steve Uhrig, in memoriam
A few weeks ago, I learned about the passing of a good friend, Steve Uhrig. A few years ago, I was involved in projects relating to IT security, surveillance, tracking and communications, and in this line of work I met Steve. When I joined a TSCM mailing list, actually, the TSCM mailing list, one of the members that caught my attention was him – always outspoken, honest and technically sound. He would not take crap from anybody, and provided lengthy explanations or rebuttals in his posts. He was always there to lend a hand.
Steve ran SWS Security, and specialized in everything related to surveillance and communications, working with many government agencies over the years, and even becoming the technical advisor in the movie ‘Enemy of the State‘, where he also got a small part as the guy selling electronics in a shop. You can read more about him and his activities in his own website, still maintained by his friend M.L. Shannon. He was also involved in the amateur radio community, his callsign WA3SWS now silent, also actively participating in emergency communications support.
Whenever I got stuck in a particular subject, Steve would always gladly help, spending hours answering to emails about technical subjects in great depth, be it grounding systems for lightning protection to high-performance surveillance camera systems. I will miss him a lot, and only wish I could have had more time to get to know him better. This time of the year is when one tends to remember parted friends and family, so this is my little tribute to his memory.
How not to install a WiFi antenna
Leaving aside regulatory issues that may turn this particular setup into an illegal operation, I will better not describe the quality of the installation to be polite. Check out this picture:
Spotted the problem yet? Radio antennas are affected by any element that is present around them, even non-metallic elements, such as the ground. In this particular case, kanijo, a Fonero, has attempted to provide more “range” to his FON hotspot, which is in itself commendable, however, the means may not result in the desired end.
You can see that the vertical omni antenna, a carefully tuned radiating element, has been strapped to a metallic pole, which also runs a coaxial cable into a TV antenna right on top. The router is inside a sealed plastic box, with power and Ethernet going into it from below. There is no way that this antenna is radiating correctly, as the pole that supports it is probably grounded (if it has been installed according to regulations), and even if it is not, it is inducing an imbalance into the tuned element, causing a large amount of RF to be attenuated. The user reports good results with it, which are most likely due to good luck.
The second problem with this type of setup is that vertical antennas don’t emit downwards, and thus will provide very limited coverage to users below the antenna. There is some downwards bleed of course, but it will only reach lower users that are some distance away from the antenna.
Recommendations for these sort of setups: install the antenna right at the top of its own pole, and ground the pole. If you have no choice but to use an existing pole, get a T arm fitting and mount the antenna at least 1 meter (3 feet) away from the pole. A perfect example of such as setup, in this case with two supports as the antenna is rather large and care for wind load is needed, is this (credit to Roger Halstead):
Check out Roger’s page, it is a very good read if you are interested in radio installations.
Why the Apple iPhone may not fail
Reading an article in The Register by Bill Ray, he thinks the Apple iPhone will fail, actually, fail badly. I somewhat doubt his conclusions.
The main argument to support his analysis is that since network operators have to like the phone, then Apple has to do a good job convincing them. Remember the ROKR? It was rather a failure due to the fact it could only be loaded with iTunes music over cable, and thus mobile operators were left out of attractive data chargers levied when buying music directly from the phone. There was even speculation that Apple allowed it to launch on purpose, to protect their audio player market.
Where Bill goes wrong in my opinion is that the handset market is heavily controlled in the US, but not in Europe – go to any shop in the latter and you will have a very large variety of handsets to buy unsubsidized. Why? Because a lot of people value the ability to switch operators as they see fit, without having to enter into contracts involving their soul. In the US, there isn’t a culture of operator hopping, but rather of staying with one just to get a phone $50 or $100 cheaper.
One thing I have never understood is why people get themselves tied into a two year contract for a $50 saving. If they worked out how much they could save by moving operators taking advantage of special offers, they may think twice.
There is a very large number of paths Apple could follow, first, they have a nice distribution network with excellent shops placed in key areas, second, they have a large and loyal crowd of followers, who would probably not mind paying an unsubsidized device, and third, there are already a number of MVNOs and fixed-line operators that are willing to take a bite from the large networks. As for the subsidy, I wonder…are iPods subsidized by anyone? Apple costumers are used to pay for quality, and in my view, the iPhone will be no different.
Merry Christmas, now read our legal disclaimer
The name of the company has been blurred to protect the innocent, and my email too, to prevent OCR-capable spam bots – this is what landed in my inbox today. Fancy that! A Christmas greeting with a legal disclaimer. So, let’s see what the implications are:
- The fact that it is Christmas may be confidential or privileged information, belonging to the sender of the email. Santa, you are through with your monopoly! No more running around with deer and presents! Or we will sue you!
- Had I received the message in error, I would be forbidden from showing anyone the greeting card, or saying “Merry Christmas!” to friends, colleagues and family. I guess I could not buy Christmas presents for my kids, as I cannot make use of the information that it’s that time of the year, either.
- The company doesn’t give a crap about Christmas, as the greeting is the opinion of the sender. At least they have someone nice working there.
In any case, thanks for scanning the greeting with F-Secure to make sure there were no Christmas bugs attached.
The problem with WiFi at hotels
The New York Times ran a story two days ago, also picked up by Glenn Fleishman over at WiFi Net News, about how hard it is sometimes to get connected at hotels over their WiFi networks. Some travelers even report a failure rate of 50%, in comparison with 5% in wired connections. Support is usually directed to a hotline run by the hotspot operator, which results in a rather frustrating experience.
I have also seen it all, hotels with only WiFi in the lobby and wired connections in the rooms (Hotel Fox, in Copenhagen), others with very spotty coverage that reached only certain rooms, getting connected to another hotel’s WiFi across the street, then realizing it was free and only asked for a room number and surname, while your own hotel charged you a fortune, and so on.
My best experience was during DEFCON 14 in Las Vegas, where we stayed in the MGM Grand hotel. These guys went over the top, and installed an AP in every single room!. It was bolted underneath the table, inside a metal case, and the deprecated Ethernet cable was connected to it. A quick scan revealed that I could only see about 4 or 5 networks from my room, and only two with a half-decent signal, which makes me believe they turned down the power of the APs so as to avoid interference problems.
Wouldn’t it be great if with falling hardware costs, other hotels would do the same thing? To avoid interference between rooms, apart from channel variations, one could either turn each room into miniature Faraday cages, or turn down the power of the AP to a minimum.