http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050901_172053.html By Humphrey Cheung September 1, 2005 Westlake Village (CA) - If you think setting up a wireless network is difficult in your living room, try the Antarctic. For the last seven years scientists in Antarctica have been setting up access points and repeaters in sub-zero temperatures and 80 mile per hour winds. To the hundreds of scientists stationed there, wireless gives a big morale boost and increases their efficiency. Kent Colby, Senior Communications Tech with the National Science Foundation, told us what it is like to be the "Wi-Fi guy" down south. Wireless access points and repeaters, often placed on mountain tops, shuttle information between science camps, towns and ports. A wireless network provides scientists a valuable and often the only available infrastructure for transmitting the enormous amount of digital data from collection points to home base. While Wi-Fi has increased bandwidth between residents and stations in Antarctica, traffic heading from the world's second smallest continent is very limited. With only 10 phone lines and a single T1 coming off the continent strict procedures are in place to ration outside access. There is a coffee shop where scientists can grab a hot drink and plug in their laptops, but around town options are scarce. "The T1 is shared with NASA so really we have only 180K for Internet. You can't use wireless around town because it chokes the bandwidth," says Colby. Personnel must brave the elements to get to Wi-Fi installation sites, often on mountain tops. Temperatures usually hovers around -5 to -31 degress Fahrenheit in the summer, but have dipped to an incredible -129 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Colby. In addition, 100 mile per hour winds are sustained for several hours and Colby remembers when they had 80 mile per hour winds winds for two and a half days straight. "The wind can blow doors off and collapse a building," says Colby. Storms can trap Wi-Fi installers on a mountain top. Extreme winds of up to 200 mile per hour along with white-out conditions can make any type of rescue impossible. Colby says that most sites have pre-positioned supplies and that personal can survive several days before getting help. The wireless access points and repeaters are also subjected to extreme conditions. "If a manufacturer says their access point is rated for up to -20 degrees, we say that we need it to be -40," says Colby. Once the access point is turned on it stays on for the whole summer, thanks to solar panels and backup batteries. Perhaps the cold temperature also improves stability because, according to Colby, they have had only three weather related equipment failures over the years. So why would anyone need Wi-Fi in the Antarctica wasteland? For residents it has proved to be a huge morale boost. Scientists can keep in touch with loved ones back home. Colby says that one school teacher was able to send almost daily pictures back to her class. In addition to the morale boost, the wireless network has other tangible and perhaps lifesaving benefits. Scientific data can now be relayed with a simple email from a laptop. Before Wi-Fi, radio channels would be tied up as information was read. "You don't have to read the data and keep saying roger," says Colby. The wireless network has brought some extra headaches to network administrators. Scientists have brought subnets down with their personally installed access points. Improperly configured IP addresses have caused packet storms making Colby's life difficult. How does the IT team prevent such disasters? "We go wardriving," says Colby. Running AirMagnet on his laptop, Colby trudges around town looking for rogue access points. Colby says, "I find a lot of Linksys and Netgear here and there." He also has found scientific data on shared folders. While some networks are secured, most are not and Colby isn't overly concerned about intruders finding sensitive information. "If someone did hack in, they would find out that a certain moss grows at 1 mm a year, how thrilling is that?" _________________________________________ Attend ToorCon Sept 16-18th, 2005 Convention Center San Diego, California www.toorcon.org
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