Super WiFi Can Take Broadband Virtually Anywhere

Super WiFi
A WiFi technology capable of covering an area with a 50 mile radius is likely to revolutionise broadband internet for rural and semi-rural areas. One of the early adopters of the technology is the Yurok American Indian reservation in Northern California, near the Oregon border.

For a glimpse of the wireless future, take a look at the Yurok Indian reservation, an out-of-the-way spot just south of the California-Oregon border at the mouth of the Klamath River. There, among the giant redwoods, stand three new towers built to create a new type of wireless network, known as "super Wi-Fi." If the U.S. Federal Communications Commission gets its way, super Wi-Fi will become a key part of rural America's digital infrastructure.


Most people living on the Yurok's 63,000-acre reservation lack phone service. Almost none have high-speed Internet. The new towers aim to fix both problems. Unlike regular Wi-Fi networks, which are generally limited to beaming high-speed Internet around a house, super Wi-Fi promises to blanket entire neighborhoods with high-speed access.


A Yurok tribal spokesman says the new signals will reach even into the steep-walled valleys that play havoc with most wireless signals.


...Unlike most wireless advances, super Wi-Fi's much-improved range has little to do with better technology. Instead, the dramatic jump comes from the FCC's decision to free up airwaves that have long been reserved exclusively for local TV broadcasts. Those TV airwaves are lower in frequency than standard cellular and Wi-Fi airwaves and thus better able to penetrate buildings and other objects.


...Since rural America has fewer local TV stations, it will have far more of these empty "white spaces" to fill with new wireless signals, points out Alex Besen, who runs an industry consultancy, the Besen Group. In many rural areas, super Wi-Fi will have access to well over 200 megahertz of spectrum, he estimates—more capacity than Verizon and AT&T combined. That huge injection of spectrum could revolutionize the digital infrastructure of rural America, Besen says. _TechnologyReview

Google thinks that Super WiFi will be revolutionary in impact. When you consider what go-anywhere broadband internet could do for global communications, it is hard to disagree.

In other consumer electronics technology news, the tablet computer field will receive some new entries at the 14 Feb 2011 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The stage is set for a battle among new tablet PCs at the Mobile World Congress which will kick off in Barcelona on Feb. 14. Major companies including Samsung, LG, Motorola and HTC are expected to show off their new devices running on the Honeycomb version of Google's Android OS at the show. Honeycomb is better suited to the larger screens of tablets rather than smartphones and supports 3D Google maps and video chat.

...While the iPad will likely stick with its 9.7-inch screen, Samsung is trying to reach a more broad spectrum of customers by targeting different segments with products of different sizes, industry experts say. Samsung's new tablets are equipped with two CPUs and include a high-definition 8-megapixel camera.

LG Electronics is set to release its 8.9-inch Optimus Pad that it revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month, while Motorola Mobility is launching its flagship 10-inch Xoom tablet, which was highly acclaimed at CES.

Meanwhile, Apple is expected to unveil the successor to the iPad in March or April in San Francisco._Chosun

Previously published at Al Fin Potpourri

What's In It for China?

According to the report, the intruders used widely available attack methods known as SQL injection and spear phishing to compromise their targets. Once they gained access to computers on internal company networks, they would install remote administration software that gave them complete control of those systems. That made it possible for the intruders to search for documents as well as stage attacks on other computers connected to corporate networks.

In addition to their parallels to the Google attacks of last year, the intrusions resembled a Chinese-based electronic espionage network that was found in 2009 and named GhostNet. In that case, researchers at the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto uncovered an elaborate network aimed at government computers as well as those of nongovernmental organizations like the office of the Dalai Lama. The researchers concluded that the control servers of the attack system were based on the island of Hainan, which is part of China. _NYT

It is bad enough that tin-pot oil dictatorships such as Venezuela and Russa systematically lure international oil&gas companies into partnerships -- only to nationalise all of the multinational's in-country assets. Over and over again. Now China has been caught red-handed attempting to use computer hacking tools to disrupt multinational oil & gas operations. What is in it for the Chinese?

At least five multinational oil and gas companies suffered computer network intrusions from a persistent group of computer hackers based in China, according to a report released Wednesday night by a Silicon Valley computer security firm.

...Operating from what was a base apparently in Beijing, the intruders established control servers in the United States and Netherlands to break into computers in Kazakhstan, Taiwan, Greece and the United States, according to a report, “Global Energy Cyberattacks: ‘Night Dragon.’ ”

The focus of the intrusions was on oil and gas field production systems as well as financial documents related to field exploration and bidding for new oil and gas leases, according to the report. The attackers also stole information related to industrial control systems, the researchers noted, but no efforts to tamper with these systems were observed.

McAfee executives declined to name the victim companies, citing nondisclosure agreements it signed before being hired to patch the vulnerabilities revealed by the intrusions. Last year, when Google announced that intellectual property had been stolen by Chinese intruders, it expressed frustration that while it had observed break-ins at a variety of other United States companies, virtually none of the other companies were willing to acknowledge that they had been compromised. _NYT

The opportunities for western oil&gas companies seem to be expanding almost exponentially, given new drilling and exploration techniques. Oil & gas production in the US and elsewhere around the world are set to rise as a result, with much growth in exploration and production sectors.

What can China expect to gain from disrupting western and multinational oil & gas enterprises? Is is nothing more than a show of force projection, far beyond Chinese borders? Is it a warning? Or is it rehearsal and preparation for a more integrated effort to disrupt western energy supplies and critical information systems?

China is known for its industrial sabotage, its product counterfeiting, its outright theft of technologies from partners, and its iron-fisted control over information sources and expression inside its borders. Is China experimenting with similar exertion of control over global information streamways, with a hoped-for domination over energy, financial, information, and political flow of data?

Clearly, with China one must never let down his guard.

Cross-posted to Al Fin Energy

More: Brian Wang looks at China's ambitious plans for innovative -- perhaps technologically revolutionary -- change over the next decade. According to Brian, "Special emphasis is on four key areas, namely space science, information technology, energy and health." In addition, China is looking at US$ 1.5 trillion in investments into other potentially disruptive technologies.

The western world runs on high-speed information. Were China to learn to tap into, control, or largely disrupt the massive flow of information which forms the foundation of modern western prosperity, the entire global future would be up for grabs.

The Unutterable Stupidity of Obama's "Smart Grid"

President Barack Obama’s talk about the need for a “smart grid” sounds, well, smart...As currently envisaged, however, it’s a dangerously dumb idea. _SciAm

SciAm

President Obama tends to be attracted to ideas that sound good on the surface, but which are incredibly stupid and destructive at their core. The so-called "smart grid" is yet one more in a long line of such stupid and destructive ideas coming from the Obama White House.

The problem is cybersecurity. Achieving greater efficiency and control requires hooking almost every aspect of the electricity grid up to the Internet—from the smart meter that will go into each home to the power transmission lines themselves. Connecting what are now isolated systems to the Internet will make it possible to gain access to remote sites through the use of modems, wireless networks, and both private and public networks. And yet little is being done to make it all secure.

The grid is already more open to cyberattacks than it was just a few years ago. The federal government has catalogued tens of thousands of reported vulnerabilities in the 200,000-plus miles of high-voltage transmission lines, thousands of generation plants and millions of digital controls. Utilities and private power firms have failed to install patches in security software against malware threats. Information about vendors, user names and passwords has gone unsecured. Logon information is sometimes unencrypted. Some crucial systems allow unlimited entry attempts from outside.

As the power industry continues to invest in information technology, these vulnerabilities will only get worse. Smart meters with designated public IP addresses may be susceptible to denial of service attacks, in which the devices are overwhelmed with spurious requests—the same kind of attacks now made on Web sites. Such an attack could result in loss of communication between the utility and meters—and the subsequent denial of power to your home or business.

The smart grid would also provide hackers with a potential source of private information to steal. Just as they use phishing attacks to elicit passwords, credit-card numbers and other data stored on home computers, hackers could find ways of intercepting customer data from smart meters. A sophisticated burglar might use these data to figure out when you’re away on vacation, the better to rob your house.

Customer data could also give hackers a way to bring down the grid. Smart meters injected with malware, for instance, could disrupt the grid just as networks of PC botnets—home computers hijacked by viruses—now disrupt the Internet. A network of drone smart meters could cause a swath of the grid to power down, throwing off the grid’s electrical load. The imbalance would send large flows of electricity back to generators, severely damaging them or even blowing them up. _SciAm

The integrated electronics in the "smart grid" will also make the Obama Grid more prone to devastating damage from an EMP attack or a solar storm.

In uncertain economic times such as the current Obama Depression, it makes more sense to toughen the power grid to make it more resistant to hacking and the various forms of catastrophic failure. Instead, it seems almost as if the Obama regime wants to make the US more vulnerable, rather than less.

cross-posted to Al Fin Energy

Homeschooling Becoming Just Another Option

The increase in homeschooled students, has given rise to two major things: more educational resources for homeschoolers and more support for their parents.

Several publishers, museums, parks and communities are capitalizing on the need for homeschooling curricula and programs. And parent-formed support groups that provide social interaction and opportunities for shared learning for homeschooled children are sprouting up in diverse communities. _ImpactLab

Homeschooling in the US has doubled over the past 10 years, with well over 2 million active homeschooling families. The resources to assist a parent to provide quality schooling to children have never been more widely available or of such high quality. And an ever-larger number of institutions of higher learning are catching on to the fact that homeschooled students are often among the best applicants available.

Back-to-school time for Heidi Pair of Milford means enrolling her two children in online classes, scheduling 4-H meetings, karate classes and Lego League, picking out math curricula and planning field trips. Pair, 40, is a homeschooler -- one of an estimated 2.3 million in the U.S., a number that has doubled during the last 10 years, according to the National Home Education Research Institute.

With a sea of available resources and a ballooning network of supporters, homeschooling is becoming more mainstream.

...A report in the summer 2010 edition of the Journal of College Admission showed that homeschooled students had higher ACT scores, GPAs and graduation rates when compared with traditionally educated peers.

Cotter said that it might be because of the homeschooling mastery philosophy -- with time and autonomy, students can keep at a subject or topic until they fully grasp it.

Although most of the past homeschool applicants have typically used a religious curriculum, Cotter said, the recent applicant pool of homeschoolers is split between religious and secular backgrounds.

...Pair said her kids are constantly around other children of all ages, from different backgrounds. They also are often out taking field trips and classes in the community.

"Teachers often work to create activities that teach kids about life," Pair said. "Homeschoolers do the same -- it is just easier for us because our kids are already in the real world observing adults in real-life situations. It is fairly easy to add in classroom experiences and test deadlines." _FreeP _via_ImpactLab

Government education is becoming a high priced ticket to perpetual failure for more and more attendees. While unionised teachers go on strike for ever higher wages, benefits and pensions -- which threaten to bankrupt municipalities, counties, and states -- students are at the mercy of a system which cares more for its own size and political clout than for the future of the children entrusted to it.

For parents who are working from home or fortunate enough to not have to go away from home every day to work, the options available for homeschooling in the internet age are making the process much easier, and not so very expensive. For parents who go that route, at least they have an excellent idea what their kids are being taught and how they spend their time during the day. Opportunities for building close family ties in such a situation are much more frequent. And if you want to teach your children practical competencies which you suspect will stand them in good stead -- but which government schools are not teaching these days -- teaching them at home would offer a good opportunity.