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I have been using a Motorola 3360 ADSL modem for over a year. Well, not the same one. Last Thursday, the third one in the last year crapped out on me. (I needed one right away because my wife is job hunting and we can't wait for delivery. ) I decided not to go with another Motorola. I went to Staples and found that they have two available in the store. One is a Netgear 600N single channel and the other, which I purchased, is a Netgear Model: DGND3700-100NAS, which is a dual channel modem. It has both the 2.4GHz...

SNIPPET: "New York City is the center of a public uproar as Internet blogger Pamela Gellar rises with an “anti-jihad” ad campaign." SNIPPET: "Gellar and her group are protesting the Jihad, which in definition is the religious duty of Muslims. According to the Dictionary of Islam, jihad is defined as “A religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad . . . enjoined especially for the purpose of advancing Islam and repelling evil from Muslims.” The literal meaning of jihad, according to the British Broadcasting Network, “is struggle or effort, and it means much more than...

Clark Kent  may have to find another place to change into his Superman getup because phone booths are about to get used again. Payphones in major cities like New York have become less and less a public resource as mobile communications continue to grow. This New Yorker can’t remember the last time she used a payphone terminal, other than to duck out of the rain. Looking to once again make these kiosks valuable, the Big Apple’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) this week made available the city’s first payphones-turned-Wi-Fi hotspots. The pilot program began on Wednesday and...

Well, I'm clearly approaching desperation, or I wouldn't be posting something like this. OTOH, if help doesn't appear on FR, it might not be had anywhere. So here's the situation: I installed a brandy-new Cisco router (E1200) for a client who uses an ancient Macbook. Many pages load fine but Google -- the one that matters for her because she uses Gmail -- times out or takes many minutes to load. It's not unheard of -- I've found it brought up on different help forums but there seems to be no consensus on the fix and, disappointingly, no accountability whatsoever...

An Ontario teachers' union is calling for an end to new Wi-Fi setups in the province's 1,400-plus Catholic schools. The Ontario English Catholic Teacher's Association says computers in all new schools should be hardwired instead of setting up wireless networks. It also says Wi-Fi should not be installed in any more classrooms. In a position paper released on Monday, the union — which represents 45,000 teachers — cites research by the World Health Organization. Last year the global health agency warned about a possible link between radiation from wireless devices such as cellphones and cancer. Some believe wireless access to...

Although wireless Internet can be found everywhere from your corner coffee shop to your local dog park, a growing group of concerned parents across the country are urging health officials to keep it out of one place: schools. And if this year was any indication, the chorus of opposition to the popular technology and its potential health effects is gaining momentum. In September, at least 12 elementary and middle schools in Ontario and B.C. imposed sweeping bans on wireless Internet by not installing it or removing it completely from their classrooms. In May, the World Health Organization reclassified the radio...

I'm looking to purchase a Kindle Touch E-Reader from Amazon. The Kindle Touch ($99.00) has Wi-Fi connectivity and the Kindle Touch 3G ($149.00) has Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. Otherwise, they're pretty much the same as far as screen size, battery life, and other features. I'm not familiar with the advantages/disadvantages of Wi-Fi vs. 3G and am wondering if the 3G model is worth the extra $50.00. Does anyone have any advice re: this matter? Thanks.

Diane Schou, who left her home in Iowa to live in West Virginia, said she used to live in a Faraday Cage prior to finding shelter in Green BankThere have been attempts in the not-so-distant past where citizens strapped on their tin foil hats and complained of Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS), which is an illness typically caused by electromagnetic fields created by mobile devices and Wi-Fi. Earlier this year, for instance, some San Francisco, California residents pushed legislators to force cell phone sellers to display labels providing the amount of electromagnetic radiation their devices produce. This law was shelved in May...

I love a good hack, especially one that requires me to throw back a cold one before hand (or during). This simple wifi boost has actually been shown to increase signal strength by at least 2 to 4 bars. And, well, I will drink to that. These instructions came to me via The Chive and i think they are most definitely worth checking out. But here is the most important question: what kind of beer will you use? For this project you are going to need scissors, a utility knife, some adhesive putty and an empty beer can. More than...

Is your network safe? Almost all of us prefer the convenience of Wi-Fi over the hassle of a wired connection. But what does that mean for security? Our tests tell the whole story. We go from password cracking on the desktop to hacking in the cloud.We hear about security breaches with such increasing frequency that it's easy to assume the security world is losing its battle to protect our privacy. The idea that our information is safe is what enables so many online products and services; without it, life online would be so very different than it is today. And...

When you log on to a Wi-Fi network with a laptop computer, how much info about yourself do you reveal? I don't mean what you reveal to a cracker/hacker but to, say, the network administrator. I'm not asking about porn or anything illegal but normal net surfing. I ask because of the proliferation of Wi-Fi hotspots. Some local government entities, like schools, can have unsecured access, you just log on.

Minnesota hacker Barry Ardolf was sentenced to an 18-year term in a federal prison this Tuesday. Ardolf had terrorized a neighboring family for two years through a carefully planned campaign involving a hijacked Wi-Fi network to harass, frame and embarrass the next-door neighbors in every facet of their lives. Ardolf’s obsessive passive-aggression was apparently ignited in late 2008 when his neighbors, Matt and Bethany Kostolnik, filed a police report against him. The Kostolniks had a 4-year old son who wandered over to their next-door-neighbors property shortly after moving into the Minnesota suburb of Blaine. Ardolf, 46 and a father of...

A federal judge ruled that Google can be sued for wiretapping after sniffing open Wi-Fi in Wi-Spy privacy lawsuit about wardriving Street View vehicles.Looks like Google Street View cars may have been "officially" riding dirty and Google may get slapped hard for its Wi-Spy fiasco. A federal judge did not dismiss the case against Google; instead in the first such decision of its kind, the judge ruled that sniffing open Wi-Fi packets might violate the Federal Wiretap Act. Remember when intelligence gathering ability was allegedly "going dark" due to the masses moving to VoIP like Skype and the feds had...

A new interface lets you keep your phone in your pocket and use apps or answer calls by tapping your hand. Over time, using your smart-phone touch screen becomes second nature, to the point where you can even do some tasks without looking. Researchers in Germany are now working on a system that would let you perform such actions without even holding the phone—instead you'd tap your palm, and the movements would be interpreted by an "imaginary phone" system that would relay the request to your actual phone. The concept relies on a depth-sensitive camera to pick up the tapping...

Google, Apple also gather location data via computers: report SAN FRANCISCO, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Google Inc. and Apple Inc. also collect location data from computers, according to new reports in the U.S. media Tuesday amid privacy concerns over the technology giants tracking mobile phone users. The two companies obtained the information after a computer scans the area around itself for available Wi-Fi wireless networks, typically after users give a website permission to determine the computer's approximate location, The Wall Street Journal said in a report on its website. Google is believed to gather the location data through software in...

You know where this is going. They got the wrong guy. Someone else had used Covert’s wireless connection to download child porn. Law enforcement officials say the case is a cautionary tale. It sure is. I can certainly think of some lessons we might draw. One might be: Maybe the cops should check to see if a suspect’s wireless network is secure, and therefore that they have the right guy, before they break into his home and point their guns at his head. Another lesson: Maybe it’s not such a good idea to send the SWAT team after someone suspected...

A new, ultra-fast wireless Internet network is threatening to overpower GPS signals across the U.S. and interfere with everything from airplanes to police cars to consumer navigation devices. The problem stems from a recent government decision to let a Virginia company called LightSquared build a nationwide broadband network using airwaves next to those used for GPS. Manufacturers of GPS equipment warn that strong signals from the planned network could jam existing navigation systems. A technical fix could be expensive — billions of dollars by one estimate — and there's no agreement on who should pay. Government officials pledge to block...

Cell phone carriers have a secret: Although they sell us data plans on their 3G or 4G networks, the idea of us actually using data brings them out in a cold sweat. Put simply, they're struggling to find the bandwidth to cope. There are forecasts that in 2012 cellular data requirements will reach 4.56 million terabytes--double that of this year. It's down to networks designed for low-bandwidth voice calls. Some data provision was allowed in the original plans but the recent explosion in consumer smartphones was a bolt from the blue. Whereas mobile users were once happy to visit low-bandwidth...

In what amounts to the next initiative undertaken by the Obama Administration towards its ever-expanding program of government expansion and nationalization of various aspects of the lives of the American people (such as the government takeover of health care, intervention in banks, and the nationalization of various automobile companies, such as General Motors), the federal government is now embarking upon a program of government-directed wireless internet (Wi-Fi) delivery.

Carlson Wireless and the Yurok Tribe hope to begin testing a new kind of Wi-Fi technology this week, bringing connectivity to a rural area where traditional Wi-Fi has difficulty operating. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted the Arcata-based Carlson Wireless an experimental license to operate its RuralConnect IP, a TV white-space band device that extends broadband service further than traditional Wi-Fi signals. The device uses a low frequency to transmit to locations within deep valleys or areas blocked by trees, according to the company. ”The reuse of this spectrum is a part of a much bigger rural broadband initiative,”...