Vex Star » Federal Communications Commission

I’d like to extend my router’s wireless range.

admin — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:41:27 +0000

I know of several ways to do this but would like people’s opinions of what they’ve done/read etc.

The router is upstairs and needs to be so I don’t have to run wires behind walls so moving the router is out. I was thinking of extending the antenna via ( I think rg-174) out the window and around the house to the patio where I want the signal strength boosted. The run would be around 50 feet. I’ve talked to a colleague of mine who is big into ham radios (been doing it 50+ years) and he said running the coax that far would negate any signal strength you would get. Don’t know though. Would ohm cable do I need? Rg-174 is tiny and there are thicker coax cables used for wireless signals. (maybe a solid copper wire if I could find it in the right size) Also, I’ve heard you can setup a router as a repeater like the Linksys boosters work. Thought this would probably be the best option. If I have a Linksys ws54g then which router would work with it? Does anyone know? Which is the best option do you think?

You could pick up another WRT54G, install DD-WRT and use that as a repeater.

Or there’s the cheap (and fairly ghetto) way, which is to use a tinfoil parabola to direct the signal towards your patio.
Or just buy new antenna. Fuck the FCC/CRTC! Like they’ll ever notice. Oh, get your HAM operators license and it’s 100% legit, even if you boot others off their wifi

Getting it soon. Is it legal with a tech license or do you need a general/operators license. (operators license is a bit more than what I’m willing to commit too.)

Do you infer that extending the antenna is only legal if you have your ham license? If I do this what is the best way to go about it? *refers to the post above*

edit: Talked to a longtime friend who has been in Ham for over 30 years the other day and he said he’d give me a radio. Meant to pickup a tech book today but forgot.

The FCC isn’t going to give a shit about an antenna that lets you get WiFi on your patio. Hell, you can get bigger antennas for certain routers from Wal Mart.

Now if you buy an amplifier and giant antenna so you can blast WiFi to your entire neighborhood, they might start to look your way.
WRT54G + HyperWRT (bumped up radio power) + upsized antennas = wifi reception through three walls and across the yard about 80 feet to my garage.

What type of antennas and cabling did you use?

Also: Can you use HyperWRT with dd-wrt?

What type of antennas and cabling did you use?

Also: Can you use HyperWRT with dd-wrt?

No cabling, just cheapie antennas I found on eBay. What do you mean by using HyperWRT "with" dd-wrt? As in a wireless bridge setup? The only wireless bridge I’ve ever set up was two WRT54G routers with OpenWRT, but I can’t see there being that much a difference between flavors…I could be way off base there, though.

Yea, I guess it’s called a ‘wirless bridge’. Would want my main router running dd-wrt and another router in repeater mode running HyperWRT.

Can’t find anywhere where anyone has done this yet and confirmed it’s ability. Haven’t searched real hard yet but will have to.

btw: if you don’t know what HyperWRT does it’s below. (for those cruzing through)

HyperWRT is a power boost firmware for the Linksys WRT54G and
 WRT54GS router. The goal of this project is to add a limited set of features
 to the last Linksys firmware, extending its possibilities but staying close to
 the official firmware.

HyperWRT is based on Linksys 3.03.6 firmware for the WRT54G and Linksys
 3.37.6 firmware for the WRT54GS.

HyperWRT has these added features :

    * Adjustable Transmit Power & Antenna Select
    * 13 Wireless Channels
    * 'Boot Wait' flash protection
    * Increased Port Forwarding & Triggering Fields
    * Increased Qos Device & Application Fields
    * Increased Access Restrictions Policies & Blocked Services Fields
    * Command Shell
    * Telnet Daemon
    * Startup & Firewall Scripts
    * Uptime
    * ...

Changes in HyperWRT 2.1b1 are :
- Updated codebase to 3.03.6 for WRT54G and 3.37.6 for WRT54GS 

Download for WRT54G:

Download for WRT54GS:

as some people said you can boost your antenna strength with custom firmwares or get special antennas. whatever you do i’d really try to avoid wireless repeaters as that could have a huge impact on your internet performance.

Didn’t know this.

"huge impact" ?

a repeater theoretically cuts your throughput by half (but really it’s not half). so with a G you’re send/receive to the router is 54 (but really it’s about 30) so half that is 27 (but really it’ll be about 15)…………… does your ISP let you download at 15meg?

if your ISP lets you hit 15meg for download then a repeater will throttle you. if they don’t then you won’t notice a difference.

"huge impact" ?

if your ISP lets you hit 15meg for download then a repeater will throttle you. if they don’t then you won’t notice a difference.

Except that you don’t actually get 54 if you’re far enough away to need a repeater. The simple solution here is an antenna.

"huge impact" ?

if your ISP lets you hit 15meg for download then a repeater will throttle you. if they don’t then you won’t notice a difference.

wireless has a lot more performance characteristics than bandwidth.

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Comcast Ordered to Stop BitTorrent Traffic Interference

admin — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:41:53 +0000

ISPs have been throttling BitTorrent traffic for years now, but only recently has this turned into a political issue. In a huge victory for BitTorrent users, the FCC has now announced that it will order Comcast to stop interfering with BitTorrent traffic.

Almost a year ago we first reported that Comcast was actively disconnecting BitTorrent seeds. Now, after numerous debates and false promises from Comcast, the FCC has ruled that Comcast�s BitTorrent interference is unacceptable, and orders the company to stop doing so.

Kevin Martin, FCC chairman told AP that Comcast�s BitTorrent throttling is �arbitrary�, and that the company had violated the principles of the Federal Communications Commission. Martin said that Comcast slows down BitTorrent users independent of the amount of traffic they use, and that the company failed to communicate their network management practices to their consumers.

Indeed, a recent study by the Max Planck Institute showed that the company had misinformed the FCC and their users. Comcast has always argued that BitTorrent upstream traffic was only blocked during periods of heavy network traffic, this turns out to be a lie, as the study showed that they blocked BitTorrent upstream traffic 24/7.

The FCC has announced that it will take appropriate action against Comcast, and the ISP will be ordered to stop interfering with BitTorrent traffic. Comcast has said before that it will invest in its network capacity and stop slowing down the traffic of their users, but these were all false promises.

Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press who filed the complaint with the FCC is delighted with this outcome, and said in a response: �Nine months ago, Comcast was exposed for blocking free choice on the Internet. At every turn, Comcast has denied blocking, lied to the public and tried to avoid being held accountable. We have presented an open and shut case that Comcast broke the law.�

�The FCC now appears ready to take action on behalf of consumers. This is an historic test for whether the law will protect the open Internet. If the commission decisively rules against Comcast, it will be a remarkable victory for organized people over organized money,� Ammori added.

It is to be expected that – if the pipes are really congested – Comcast and other ISPs will have to step away from the all-you-can-eat plans they have been offering for years, now that people are actually using bandwidth they signed up for.
Hot damn, now I don’t have to be worried when I move and Comcast is the only ISP available in the area.

i wouldn’t be so quick to say that. if you are really using bittorrent and have high bandwidth requirements, you’re probably going to be paying more for your internet access.

honestly, i don’t know why they just haven’t done this for years. if 90% of the bandwidth is being used by 5% of the users, make them pay more for the extra bandwidth and then use that money to increase the available bandwidth.
My ass the pipes are clogged. There’s more dark fiber in the USA than lit fiber.
I prefer a socialist internet. I pay the same as everyone else, and use it as I need to. I don’t want to have to pay more one month, less the next month, just because I had more Windows updates than normal.
in other news

Written by J.J. King on July 10, 2008
During their annual summit meeting in Japan, the G8 members agreed to get the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) ready for implementation by the end of the year. The agreement, pushed by multimillion dollar companies, will open the doors to a digital police state, much to the pleasure of the MPAA and RIAA.

This May we already posted about the leaked ACTA proposal, and it now seems that the final agreement will be ready sooner than we had hoped. Fresh out of the G8 meetings �Declaration on the World Economy�, passages under the heading �Protection of Intellectual Property Rights� suggest member states want the international anti-piracy agreement ready for implementation sooner than some expected, as it reads:

We encourage the acceleration of negotiations to establish a new international legal framework, ACTA, and seek to complete the negotiation by the end of this year.

This date is consistent (surprise, surprise) with that which the US Trade Representative has set as its own timetable for ACTA. Together with some insider information that was obtained by TorrentFreak, this doesn�t sound promising.

How will ACTA affect P2P users?
So what does this mean for P2P users? The honest answer is that it�s hard to be sure. The degree of secrecy surrounding the ACTA negotiations is astonishing, blocking attempts at a variety of levels to develop a counter-strategy. The process is deliberately avoiding both the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), which now have enough member countries suspicious of the �anti-piracy maximalist� agenda to make ACTA�s progress impossible.

At a recent EU meeting following the June ACTA negotiations in Geneva, a packed room of �stakeholders� � that is, industry representatives � were desperately trying to get information on what had made it into the June draft of ACTA while revealing as little as possible, publicly, about what they themselves wanted in it. The Commission � on first-name terms with these industry reps, showing only too well how well regarded they are in this policy-forming process � has basically indicated that no-one will see the text of ACTA until it�s ready to sign.

Also at this EU meeting, it was made absolutely explicit that ACTA is in large part about updating legal frameworks to take account of P2P and developments on the Internet. The previous regime to deal with IP and piracy, TRIPS was 12 years old, officials said, and the Internet had �not existed in the same way� when TRIPS was drafted. In this respect, the hints we have about what might make it into ACTA from a list of suggestions the RIAA obtained by Knowledge Ecology International (which has been double checked for veracity) are very important. More than any other lobby, of course, the RIAA is dealing with issues specifically related to the Net. This gives some pointers of where ACTA could go if the anti-piracy and IP lobbies get their way.

Getting your iPod though customs�
RIAA�s proposals for ACTA go well beyond U.S. law on the enforcement of copyrights online. As earlier reported, they want �competent authorities� to be able to take action at borders over pirated copies without the need for a complaint from a rights holder. An official at the EU meeting ridiculed the �iPod search� stories about ACTA, pointing to the EU�s own border measures � but given U.S. border agents are already retaining and searching large amounts of laptops at borders, this is another burden for travelers who are already harassed by ridiculous �security� measures in the Homeland and beyond. Those dismissing such ideas as �merely� the wish list of the rabid anti-piracy lobbies take note: although there has only been one draft of ACTA made so far (and no one outside the secretive gang involved has been able to see it), reliable sources say there is text relating to the border measures provisions. So at least one of the RIAA�s wishes seems, in some form, to have already made it in.

The RIAA�s wish list for online enforcement of its �rights� is also of great concern, not least because it implies that they would get access to private data from ISPs in order to be able to see what we�ve been sharing. As the year goes on, it�s becoming clear that the P2P / IP debate is merging with the surveillance and privacy debate in ways that I think many people hadn�t forseen. We need to understand fast that enforcement of copyright is one of the main levers being used to drive a wedge into our data privacy at the international level.

RIAA and MPAA want to police the Internet
In general, what the RIAA want is �harmonization� (read: extension of US law over the whole world) of the tricky Grokster �inducement� provisions that make providers of software liable if they can be seen as inducing infringing behavior in users. As I know personally from discussions with the RIAA about projects like VODO, interpretations of what constitutes contributory liability are very broad in the States. What the industry wants to do is chill the rapid innovation that led to products like Napster and BitTorrent by rendering entrepreneurs uncertain about the legal status of their activities. The fact that BitTorrent is the most efficient media reproduction and distribution system in history, used by hundreds of thousands of producers to distribute their own work outside the clutches of the corporate media cabals is, of course, not part of the picture here. This is precisely about media conglomerates� desire to hang on to the tatters of their empire.

The RIAA�s ACTA would also continue the trend towards ISPs and search engines to weed out infringing users. RIAA expects ISPs to filter infringing materials and police offending P2Pers, cutting off their access if necessary. Again this points to mass surveillance of internet use that, in the light of the wiretapping controversy alread raging in the States, is utterly unacceptable in Europe or anywhere else.

How We Can Slam On The Brakes
So what can be done, and what hope do we have over ACTA? Well, firstly, there are internal contradictions in the process that might make its progress less than smooth. The inclusion of the �3 strikes� rule for kicking P2P users from their ISP contract is a case in point � the European Parliament is actually very suspicious of the 3 strikes rule and the UK government is reportedly desperately looking for alternatives to this political hot potato, which only months ago was portrayed as a fait accompli. This raises the possibility of a showdown between ACTA and the European Parliament.

Secondly, the European Commission has no mandate to implement criminal sanctions on copyright matters – this is down to the individual member states who will be very wary about antagonizing their electorates. Since these criminal sanctions are seen by players like the RIAA as a key �virtue� of ACTA – without which it would be a �dodo� – the shakiness of the legal base for inclusion of criminal sanctions is a big issue.

Thirdly and relatedly, the secrecy around ACTA is a potential pitfall. A mandate should have been obtained from the Commission to negotiate the Treaty, but if it exists it has been declared too secret, or at least �confidential� to bring out. Since this document would very likely have to include a rationale for allowing the Commission to negotiate beyond its power on criminal sanctions, it may be rather suspect. European TorrentFreak readers should immediately write to your MEP in your Member State and ask them to request a copy of the mandate, so that we can get a copy of it online and look at how the EU justifies negotiating an ACTA that includes criminal measures. Since the US wants ACTA to be signed before Bush leaves office, a derailing tactic like this has a good chance of working.

ACT against ACTA before it�s too late�

cliffs: the RIAA can diaf

well, no. i’m figuring there would be a bandwidth cap, though i guess there could be a monthly usage cap too. pay X for 250down/150 up… Y for 500down/250up. Z for 1Mb down/500kbup. you know. instead of throttling speeds, force people to pay for the speed they want.

that’s the way it should work. fuck all you can eat because if there is an asshole that is running BitTorrent on my shared cable line and is fucking up my connection, then he should be paying more to pay for upgrades so my service isn’t degraded.

Start a movement, I’ll join.

No need. It’s already that way. They’re trying to change it to not be that way anymore.

If there’s a bandwidth cap, there is by definition a usage cap. If you can’t download more than 1Mb/s, then you can’t download more than 2.5Tb/mo. The problem isn’t the asshole next door running BitTorrent, the problem is the assholes at the cable company who sell your neighbors more than their fair share of the cable’s maximum capacity.

i agree that the cable company is full of assholes, but i hate when people run their torrent client 24/7 knowing that they are on a shared link and not caring that they are fucking up everyone else’s connectivity.

oh, and a bandwidth cap only constitutes a usage cap if you are maxing your connection non-stop. if you are, you shouldn’t be paying the same as me. it doesn’t matter the size of the pipe, the assholes i’m talking about will max it out no matter what the limit is simply because they can. so, have them pay twice as much as me and use that to fund a bigger pipe.

over-selling is essentially a REQUIREMENT in order to provide the burstable speeds that we demand for a price we’re willing to pay.

There’s a reason that business products cost more for the same bandwidth — because the business statistically use it more fully than their residential counter-parts.

Look at webhosting…. Dreamhost gives me 8,656 GB of bandwidth per month…. but if I even came close to using that they’d shut me down. It’s all smoke and mirrors to make you feel good.

If people would just stop being asshats and stop with the piracy then everything would be better for everyone. Costs would go down, and speeds would go up.

Torrents are not inherently bad, but if you remove piracy from torrent usage it basically goes the way of gopher.

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OT computer crew halp me

admin — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:06:36 +0000

I just moved into a new place and I need a new router. whats the best router for say a small condo with 2 PC’s having a wired connection and maybe 1 or 2 laptops with a wireless connection + and Xbox 360/PS3. the PC’s are used for gaming and the laptops for school/work/business I went on newegg to read some reviews but its kinda overwhelming.
wrt54gl w/ tomato or dd-wrt firmware, unless you want draft N
I’d suggest Buffalo, but the FCC’s mad at it and won’t let it sell any more routers in the US. Try Netgear or SMC.

I decided to go with the wrt54gl. thanks for the advice!

What’s that all about?

CSIRO owns the patent for 802.11 wireless products
they sued Buffalo Technology
CSIRO won, and Buffalo was ordered to stop selling them (Buffalo appeal pending)
CSIRO would take on the others next (Netgear, Belkin, 3Com, Linksys, etc)

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