05 November 2002

Building a Community Wireless Network from Scratch SLASHDOT -- Adelayde writes about Britsol's community-oriented wireless network and offers collaborative papers describing the project's passive repeaters and thoughts on how to build antenna arrays. [Slashdot and Easton Community Centre]

Generalized Spam and Blogs Law Meme -- It appears that spammers have started leaving ad URLs as the "referring page" in their HTTP headers. By reloading a given blog a few hundred times, they can force their chosen URL to appear to be the most common link to that blog. Comment sections will be next. The current default is typically completely unsecured, so anyone can leave any text they want. This has happened to the ElectricNews discussion boards already. I need to lock down my comments by forcing people to register on the Topgold boards. It's free but normally requires human interaction. [Michelle Delio: "When Spam Hits the Blogs"]

What's Your Media Diet Like? JD Lasica -- For the first installment of a J-Log article, JD Lasica listed his media diet. It involved answering a few questions about the news sites he visited each day and each week, the place of weblogs in his media diet, and the outlook down the road. [JD's New Media Musings and J-Log Media Diet Topic]

Search for a Powerful Connection FT -- Fiona Harvey looks at data over powerlines and thinks "there may be another, less ambitious use for the technology. While outdoor digital powerline still looks risky, indoors the technology has been proving itself." In the US, the Homeplug Powerline Alliance has gained the backing from the likes of Cisco, Intel, Motorola and Hewlwtt-Packard. Other members of the consortium have developed products that plug into ordinary power sockets to create wireless networks that any suitably equipped piece of electronic equipment within a short radius can connect to. This opens the way to home networks connecting personal computers, printers, laptops and in future other devices such as digital television sets and digital radios. This kind of cabling is the only practical way to wire the inside of medieval structures. Traditional cabling would be prohibited by planning factors and cost issues.