I found the article below on "The Register" site and asked myself the following question: 

If connecting to Internet using an open and unsecured wifi access point is considered as a crime, why authorities do not apply the same principle to other services (mainly electricity and water) we often use without any formal agreement of the owner ?

 " More than half of computer users have illegally stolen Wi-Fi connections, according to The Times – but only 11 alleged offenders have been arrested in the UK, as the police seem to think those deploying Wi-Fi should be more careful about securing their connections.

The data was collected from a "Have Your Say" survey on the website of security-specialist Sophos: apparently 54 per cent of the 560 people who responded admitted nicking bandwidth from insecure Wi-Fi routers.

This might say more about Sophos customers than the general population, and extrapolating the results to every computer user in the country is probably a crime against statistics: so that's exactly what The Times has done.

…

Anyone caught stealing a Wi-Fi connection can be fined up to a grand, even if it's left unsecured, so make sure you ask nicely next time you're looking to log on, and if the person next to you has never stolen a Wi-Fi connection then we have to assume that you have. "

What is your opinion about accessing open wifi ? Do you think it is a crime ?

Source: The Register

Tags: 2007, access, agreement, art, blog, ces, computer, connection, connections, crime, customer, electricity, enforcement, free, ia, im, internet, internet access, King, lan, law, list, MIT, nomadcom.net, police, population, security, services, statistics, survey, the register, thief, thieves, uk, user, water, web, website, what is, wifi, wireless, wp, www

Whisher, a Spanish start-up, backed by Switzerland’s leading phone company, Swisscom, and the venture firm Benchmark Capital Europe is apparently very active for few month now. The principle of Whisher is that Wireless Access to the Internet should be free and accessible from everywhere which is basically the same concept than FON Movimiento, except that you don't need to purchase any specific hardware.

Whisher' users are requested to download an application through which they can share their wireless access (works also with WEP or WPA connections) with other Whisher members 

The newly released version 2.0 beta of the software offers more than just storing and encrypting connections' passwords such:

• Wireless connection manager
• WiFi sharing
• Chat with other users connected on the same wireless access point.
• Multi Instant Messenger support (Yahoo, MSN, AIM, ICQ, GoogleTalk, Twitter, Jabber)
• File Transfer (with users sharing the same wireless AP)
• LAN Support
• GeoLocation
• Other Networks connections (access via commercial access; hotspot, etc..). FON is supported too.
• Around You. Gives you informations about coming events, restaurants around the wireless connection you are currently using.

New services that should be available soon :

• Voice Support
• Global File Sharing 

Plateform supported : Windows XP, Linux, Mac O/S. Vista not available yet.

The software is still beta and some stability and registation problems have been reported. More information on their Blog

Tags: 2007, access, aim, api, art, blog, capital, ces, connection, connections, europe, event, fon, fon movimiento, free, global, google, HP, ia, icq, im, instant messenger, internet, lan, location, messenger, Mobile Communications, msn, network, nomadcom.net, password, phone, problems, release, sco, services, share, sharing, swiss, swisscom, switzerland, Telecommunications, twit, Twitter, user, vista, whisher, wifi, windows, wireless, wp, www, XP, yahoo

• You're traveling a lot.
• You're spending long boring hours in airport lounges.
• You're often having dinner in solo in unknown cities.
• You never speak with your neighbor during flight.

  Rings a bell ?

Could it be different if you could travel with someone who shares same interest or who works in the industry or even works for the same company than you ? 

So such reasons, PairUp proposes to reinvent business travels by introducing the concept of "Connected Travel" allowing businesspeople for the first time to easily share travel plans and instantly search for potential business connections at their next trip destination or industry event across companies and across booking engines.

For sure the "about PairUp" speaks only about business opportunities as it's "Made in USA" but it could also be used to meet people sharing same non-professional interests.

Once logged on, the workflow is rather simple:

• Add information about your trip itinerary
• Select confidentiality level (who can know about your trip, i.e people of your industry, in your network, attending same event, etc..)
• Select your Networking interests for this trip (activities, business opportunities, professional networking, companion seating, etc..).

Then, search (with narrowing options) to have your "Confirmed Connections" and "Potential Connections" displayed and easily contact any person of interest.

Sounds easy no ?

Now, is anyone use, or already used, this flying social network ?
What were the results?

Tags: air, aircraft, airport, arc, ATT, Aviation, book, business travel, cities, connection, connections, engine, event, flight, ia, im, industry, King, lan, light, network, opportunities, Our World, pair, pair up, search, seat companion, share, sharing, simple, social, social networking, space, Travel, USA, www

On 26th of December 2006 a 7.2 strong earthquake in Southern Taiwan damaged several telecommunication submarine cables linking China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, among others, to overseas telecommunication networks, including Internet backbone. 

More than a month later, repair work is not done yet due to bad weather conditions & poor equipment. Customers, Telecom companies & media start to express their discontent."It will be a long time before Internet access is fully recovered between Asian and the US as workers are using "technologies of the 19th century to solve problems of the 21st century," Sina.com said today

According Shanghai Daily, quoting Global Marine General Manager, none of the optical fiber in 4000m deep damaged cables have been fully repaired yet. Today's report says that work should be completed by January 30th (some other sources say end of February). Currently up to 70% of traffic from mainland China has been re-routed using alternative pathways such as satellite links, which are slow, expensive and unstable compared with cable-based connections.

This remind us the loss of satellite Intelsat IS-804 in January 2005 which left 10 countries of the Pacific rim without any communication links for days, as no backup was available) and forced 8 others to switch to their backup systems. 

Such events clearly show us what happens when main overseas communications links go down and how weak, when exists, are fallback systems.

Just imagine if such disruptions were man-made in order to turn the world back to the "telegraph age"….

More about : Reuters, Shanghai Daily, Heise Online.

Tags: 2007, access, air, art, asia, blog, cable, ces, communication, connection, connections, customer, disruption, earthquake, event, february, geography, global, HP, ia, im, internet, internet access, Internet World, King, lan, map, network, nomadcom.net, online, pair, press, problems, satellite, sco, space, story, submarine, taiwan, telecom, Telecommunications, traffic, world, wp, www, XP