I was invited to present at the UETN Tech Summit on the topic of Wi-Fi tools. The presentation went great, thanks to all of my peers who helped with ideas and research. Here are my slides.
When Keith Parsons of Wireless LAN Professionals heard about my talk, he was kind enough to offer two Link Sprinter 300 network test tools to use as door prizes. Congratulations to Luis and Mark for being the lucky winners.
Registration for Cisco Live 2015 NetVets opened today and will be open for all attendees in a week. The scheduler is located at https://www.ciscolive2015.com/connect/mySchedule.ww.
So without further ado, here is the current version of my schedule:
I still need to trim a session or two to make room for the free certification test and social networking. Since so many of the sessions I’m interested in are in small rooms this year, I wanted to get a schedule set and then trim as needed rather than try to add sessions later.
If you’re still up in the air about a techtorial for Sunday, I’d highly recommend TECEWN-3002 – Advanced Enterprise WLAN Deployment. I took it last year and will be taking it again in the future. In general I try to mix up which sessions and techtorials I take to keep things fresh, so I’m signed up for the ISE 1.3 session this year.
Two other must attend sessions for wireless folks are BRKEWN-3010 – Improve enterprise WLAN spectrum quality with Cisco’s advanced RF capacities (RRM, CleanAir, ClientLink, etc) with Jim Florwick, and BRKSPM-2013 – High Density WiFi for Stadiums and Large Public Venues with Joshua Suhr and Matt Swartz.
If you’re going to be going to Cisco Live for the first time, make sure to check out Scott McDermott’s great guide at http://www.mostlynetworks.com/guide-cisco-live/.
Update 1 (25 March 2015): At the recommendation of @mrncciew, I swapped in BRKCRS-3900 in place of BRKSEC-3697 for my Wednesday at 1pm slot.
Since today is Valentine’s Day I thought I’d do a post about love.
I have much love for my Wi-Fi buddies; they have taught me so much and continue to teach me new things on a regular basis. I also have lots of love for all of the companies out there making awesome Wi-Fi gear and tools. They make our jobs easier and more interesting.
However there is one relationship that I’d like to be a matchmaker for. I’d like to introduce this guy who is doing these awesome Wi-Fi visualizations using a tiny Wi-Fi module, a camera in long exposure mode, and some amazing code:
And I’d introduce him to the fine folks at iRobot who make great autonomous robots like the Roomba and the Ava. My hope is that they would make a Wi-Fi surveying robot baby.
Sure, the name of the game in Wi-Fi design work has changed from coverage to density, but there is still a need to do post-installation surveys to make sure that you’re not missing the forest for the trees. I’d love to have a rugged outdoor rover or drone that could do regular surveys of outdoor coverage of my campus.
So it might be too late to get such a relationship arranged in time for the festivities today. But perhaps in a few years, we might see a Wi-Fi survey-bot deliver a Father’s Day card to Charles.
On Friday the FCC published DA 14-1444 consisting of an Order and a Consent Decree. Marriott, or specifically the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, was de-authenticating customer mobile hotspots in the conference areas of the property. This angered our FCC overlords. The ruling has sparked a huge amount of discussion on Twitter.
You can read the FCC order and consent decree here: http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2014/db1003/DA-14-1444A1.pdf
And the statement from Marriott here: http://news.marriott.com/2014/10/marriott-internationals-statement-on-fcc-ruling.html
Opinions on twitter have been quite mixed. There are some who think that Marriott is evil for interfering with the use of personal devices; and others who think that by simply using up precious RF resources, these devices are pose a security risk and the de-authing is justified.
There have been some good blog posts going further in depth than 140 characters will allow. Hement Chaskar of AirTight Networks does a good job breaking down some of the finer points of the order and consent decree here: http://blog.airtightnetworks.com/fcc-wi-fi-rogue-containment/
Robert Graham brings up a great point about how the FCC is selectively enforcing Section 333 of the Communications Act in his post: http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/10/two-minutes-of-hate-marriot-deauthing.html
I think that an element that often gets overlooked in discussions like these is that certain behaviors on private property, while themselves legal, are still predicated on continued permission to be on said private property. An element of this was brought up in 4th paragraph of the consent decree with the language “… they are not required to purchase these services from Marriott but can instead use other vendors.” If the contract between Marriott and their customers had included language about requiring the use of their services, or prohibiting the use of APs/hotspots while on their property, then this case would either read much differently than it does or it might not exist at all.
The other huge thing that folks aren’t giving enough weight to is that this was not a notice of apparent liability for forfeiture, but a settlement. Large corporations often look at all of the costs of fighting a situation like this, including not just financial costs but also time and public opinion, and weight them against what it takes to “make the problem go away.” It seems to me that this is the situation here. $600,000 isn’t chump change, even for a large multinational, but it was likely the cheaper of the two options.
I’ve seen a lot of use of the word “precedence” used on twitter. I think that there is only one thing that we can call precedence here, and that is that the FCC thought it prudent to take up a case like this and they might do so again. From paragraph 24 of the consent decree: “The Parties further agree that this Consent Decree does not constitute either an adjudication on the merits or a factual or legal finding or determination regarding any compliance or noncompliance with the Communications Laws.” This was Marriott wanting to take their licks and move on rather than being the example case that clarifies if using the 802.11 protocol against someone is jamming.
It will be interesting to see how this evolves; I know I’ll be double-checking my containment settings on Monday. And like many have said, I do hope that the FCC does go through the proper rule making procedure to clarify this situation rather than certifying devices that they later claim to be jammers.
16:40MDT 5 October 2014 – Update: Keith Parsons brought up a good point with the Continental Airlines/Logan Airport FCC Opinion – FCC 06-157. I don’t completely agree that this is the same situation as in FCC 06-157, as the Marriott situation was not a long term lease, and the complainant was an attendee. Still, it was an example of the FCC getting involved in a very similar situation.
I purchased wifiluke.com (as well as .net and .org) on a whim one morning because I wanted to test out Google Domains and all of my domains where stuck in transfer limbo. I’d been thinking about setting up a Wi-Fi related blog for a while, I just hadn’t ever been pushed over the edge to do so. Well, it looks like that was what I needed. Big thanks to Dave for the hosting and WordPress minding.
My name is Luke Jenkins and I am a Wi-Fi Engineer by trade. My day job is at a state university in Utah, but I do moonlight from time to time. Most of that has been doing conference & event Wi-Fi for various non-profits, cultural events, and corporate trade shows. I owe much of my Wi-Fi chops to the folks that I’ve worked these shows with, as well as the awesome Wi-Fi folks on twitter.
I might veer off course into the realm of not 100% Wi-Fi related topics, if I think them of interest to a decent number of Wi-Fi folks. Expect the occasional post about network security, electronics, ham radio, and such things. I’ll do my best to keep any posts about family or pets to a minimum.
Everything I say on this blog is my personal opinion, and not that of any employer, company, or organization. I’ll list any conflicts of interest on my About page if I become encumbered by any.