I can't believe I missed it. I had a ghost slip right through my fingers!

When I came to work, I fired up my list of morning bookmarks. After checking email and half a dozen news and message boards, I got around to Slashdot. I ctl-shift-clicked the two red links and went on to read another dozen or so sites, and even went and got some work done.

When I happened to click the Slashdot links in another window, I saw "Nothing to see here. Please move along." Yikes! That meant that between when I first fired up the browser and when I shift-ctl-clicked, the article met its untimely (or perhaps just-in-timely) demise.

But there's nothing left of the ghost. I'd already gone on to read other Slashdot articles, and Opera 9 no longer seems to keep cached versions of pages -- when you hit "Back", it reloads with the current version.

I don't even know the original title of the article. All I have is the URL... like a feeling of cold in a creaky old house on a warm summer night.

Rest in peace, http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl? sid=07/03/06/1227222

Ghosts of Slashdot: 02/08/2007
[This is the second ghost in two days, but this time it's likely to stay dead. It's a dupe of yesterday's OLPC security article -- which was still on the front page.]

The Radical OLPC Security System
Posted by kdawson in The Mysterious Future!
from the tighter-than-yours dept.

CHaN_316 recommends a Wired article about the One Laptop Per Child project entitled "High Security for $100 Laptop":

"The laptop... will premiere a security system that takes a radical approach to computer protection. Krstic's system, known as the BitFrost platform, imposes limits on every program's powers. Every program runs in its own virtual machine with a limited set of permissions... Krstic contrasts this approach to Microsoft's Windows XP where every program, including Solitaire, has the right to access the web, turn on the video camera, open spreadsheets and send e-mail... 'This kind of model makes it more difficult for glue between applications to be built,' Krstic said. 'But 99 percent don't need glue.'"

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

By the way, any Subscriber can join the Ghost Hunt, but so far only morcheeba has shown the requisite sensitivity to ectoplasmic vibrations.

Ghosts of Slashdot: 02/06/2007
[Wow, it's been a ghost-free new year up until now. Kinda dead, you know. (groan) But here's one, though it may come back from the dead -- I suspect it got pushed from the front page in favor of the news of the DNS Root Server attack. The DNS story is also posted by "kdawson" who, oddly, doesn't have a link for his/her name -- perhaps it's this one? :) ]

Ogg Vorbis Gaining Industry Support
Posted by kdawson in The Mysterious Future!
from the chicken-or-the-ogg dept.

An anonymous reader writes

"While Ogg Vorbis format has not gained much adoption in music sales and portable players, it is not an unsupported format in the industry. Toy manufacturers (e.g. speaking dolls), voice warning systems, and reactive audio devices exploit Ogg Vorbis for its good quality at small bit-rates. As a sign of this, VLSI Solution Oy has just announced VS1000, the first 16 bits DSP device for playing Ogg Vorbis on low-power and high-volume products. Earlier Ogg Vorbis chips use 32 bits for decoding, which consumes more energy than a 16-bit device does. See the Xiph wiki page for a list of Ogg Vorbis chips."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

By the way, any Subscriber can join the Ghost Hunt, but so far only morcheeba has shown the requisite sensitivity to ectoplasmic vibrations.

In the early 1800s, sparsely populated southwestern Missouri was shaken by the largest earthquake recorded in the continental US: the New Madrid Earthquake, estimated at an 8.0 on the Richter scale. Since then, cities along the Mississippi River from Memphis to St. Louis have wondered when the next one would hit. Maybe never, say researchers at Northwestern University. The rock deep underground is cold and dead, and 1812 may have been the fault's dying gasp.

Ghosts of Slashdot: 10/02/2006
[Halloween month begins with a ghost sighting. Sucks that I don't know enough about the Mac world to know why it was banished. Maybe another editor saw "A research conducted by..." and reflexively hit the "kill" button. Update: Yaz found the original article from two weeks ago -- it's a dupe after all. Good catch by somebody in the Mac world. And as Kalak noted, it leaned towards the FUD side anyway.]

Mac OS X Market Share Declining?
Posted by CmdrTaco in The Mysterious Future!
from the more-for-me dept.

tommm writes

"A research conducted by Net Applications suggests that Mac OS X market share has declined compared to last year. From the article: "With the way things are going, is that even possible? Well, according to Net Applications, it sure is. While OS X appeared to be having a small increase in usage during the later part of last year, the numbers show that OS X market share fell from 4.35 percent in December 2005 to 4.33 percent in August 2006, and that figure includes the usage of Mac Intel machines. If you subtracted the increase in that area, then you'd actually be left with a lower number that would sit right at 3.71 percent."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

By the way, any Subscriber can join the Ghost Hunt, but so far only morcheeba has shown the requisite sensitivity to ectoplasmic vibrations.

Another day, another rejected article. Well, we can't all be Roland Piquepaille (aka "tag as pigpile"), can we? :)

While the rest of the world was watching Space Shuttle Atlantis dock with the International Space Station, the Chinese space agency was sending 474 pounds of seeds and fungi into orbit. The craft is due to return to earth in two weeks. Mission planners may be setting themselves up for an Ig Nobel prize, though, for the mission's stated goal: 'Chinese officials contend that seeds exposed to space radiation and microgravity contain more vitamins and other crucial minerals.'

Ghosts of Slashdot: 09/07/2006
[This particular issue, in particular the part about using Facebook's Groups as a protest mechanism, was covered a couple of days ago -- as a YRO rather than an Ask Slashdot, and rather more concisely to boot. Hadn't seen any ghosts in a while, so it's good to hear their mournful moans again. One strange note: there is no "from the X dept." quip, at least not one that I was able to retrieve.]

Facebook and Online Privacy?
Posted by Cliff in The Mysterious Future!

Donal writes

"Over the last year, the social networking site Facebook has become well known, both for it's popularity among students in the United States, United Kingdom and elsewhere and for it's use by law enforcement for information gathering. However, new non-optional features introduced today, in the form of 'news feed' and 'mini feed' allow all friends of any given person to follow that persons actions on an hour-by-hour, day-by-day basis, in what many people are describing as 'stalker-ish' descriptions of people's activities. This has produced widespread outrage, including petitions such as this, and countless people using Facebook's own 'groups' feature to protest against the site's new features. Whilst acknowledging that people using Facebook actively sign up and contribute information about themselves to the site, are social networking sites becoming the stuff of data miner's dreams, and is it becoming too easy for organizations to gather information on people's whereabouts and activities, without those people necessarily being aware of how much personal data is being collated?"

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

By the way, any Subscriber can join the Ghost Hunt, but so far only morcheeba has shown the requisite sensitivity to ectoplasmic vibrations.

Oops... I forgot that you can submit from your journal! That's ok, 'cause the resulting articles look rather lame, anyway. Anyway, here's my latest submission, in case the situation is too common to bother reporting any more.

Update: Rejected. But it took almost 12 hours, and from what I hear, that's almost as good as being accepted! Maybe it'll show up in a Slashback or something.

While some librarians are fighting for individual rights, others appear to be welcoming Big Brother with open arms. In suburban Dallas, a library patron requesting Internet access was given a choice, of sorts: Censored, or Extra Censored. One filters out "obscenity only", while the other filters out both "obscenity" and "material considered to be unlawful". As a helpful aside, the library's Internet policy acknowledgement form notes that both terms "are defined by the Texas Penal Code". The librarian's reaction to his request for "No Censorship" would be funny, if it weren't so telling.

You know, I never thought it would be possible to pwnxxor CmdrTaco, founder and User Number 1 of Slashdot. So when I put the domain name cmdrtaco.com on my Watch List at DomainTools.com (formerly whois.sc), I figured I'd just get to watch as CmdrTaco himself, or one of the nearly-a-million Slashdotters snagged it from domain limbo. The only question, I thought, was whether it would be used for good (like a pointer back to Slashdot) or for evil (personal attacks against CmdrTaco, malware trap, etc), or for something entirely unrelated.

Imagine my surprise when I come back from a 2-week vacation and find that the domain has become available! I didn't even grab it right away, because I figured the data was outdated -- DomainTools doesn't always have the latest information, though they do better on .com than on .org. But sure enough, I went to Gandi and voila, it worked! So now I pwn CmdrTaco. Kinda. At least I totally pwn CmdrTaco.com. Until he asks for it back.

I'm a collector, not a poacher or a squatter. Other domains I own include RCDV.org, a domain that made national headlines when a women's shelter forgot to renew it and it ended up as a porn portal. The squatter dropped the offensive content almost immediately and let the domain slip -- and I snagged it and made it a pointer to the correct site. Since the folks at the shelter aren't terribly web-savvy, I just keep renewing it.

The esteemed Father of Slashdot still has his own site at the nominally geekier domain name CmdrTaco.NET. The all-new CmdrTaco.COM points to Slashdot. Well, kinda. Remember OMG!!! PONIES!!!? bwa ha ha!

Update: I offered CmdrTaco the domain for the price I paid, and because he's an all-around cool dude, he accepted! Either that or because the poneys filled him with ph34r. w00t. It's for the best, really... pwning such a k3wl d0ma1n was just too much 1337n355 for one man to bear. Makes me tired just typing it.

Ghosts of Slashdot: 04/26/2006
[I heard about this on the (non-techie) radio this morning. I figure it got pulled because it's a dupe, but I'm busy at work and can't research it at the moment. Darned work. Gets in the way of my surfing.]

750GB Hard Drives from Seagate
Posted by CmdrTaco in The Mysterious Future!
from the enough-for-everyone's-mp3s dept.

duckets writes "Just when you thought you were running out of room to store all your music/movies/code/etc, Seagate announced on Wednesday April 26, 2006 that will introduce a 750 gig hard drive. Thats 375 hours of standard-definition television programming, about 75 hours of high-definition video, or more than 10,000 music CDs converted to the MP3 digital audio format. According to the Associated Press article the Barracuda 7200.10 will sale for a suggested retail price of $599."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Ghosts of Slashdot: 04/14/2006
[I'm posting this journal entry while the article is still alive... because it's *got* to go away. I knew this one was a dupe right away -- because I scored a +5, Informative on it (before some bozo called it "Flamebait" -- if anything, it should have been "Offtopic"...). But it's from a week ago, so it's understandable. I sent a note to DaddyPants, so give me an Assist if you're keeping score at home. Update: I guess I jinxed it by posting this entry too soon, because the article went live! I guess DaddyPants is taking a 3-day Easter weekend... maybe I'll see him at sunrise service.]

Microsoft Tool To Help Users Avoid Typo Domains
Posted by Zonk in The Mysterious Future!
from the slashdot-is-not-a-typo dept.

blueZ3 writes "ZDnet is running a story on a new tool from Microsoft that aims to inform users when they reach 'typo domains'. Apparently, there's concern in Redmond that IE users are being exploited by companies running ad farms on typo domains. The tool uses an automated search routine to look for domains with particular types of typographical errors--transpositions, incorrect TLDs, missing letters--and then adds the domains to a database. The eventual goal (though this isn't clear from the article) seems to be something akin to Verisign's URL redirecting, where typo domains are blocked."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Ghosts of Slashdot: 04/11/2006
[How strange -- this is the second "States Gone Wild!" story by ScuttleMonkey to be terminated prematurely, in just the past week. Was it judged too "local", or too paranoid? Update: It's back on the front page after all. Timing is everything, I suppose.]

Microsoft Helps Write Oklahoma's Anti-Spyware Law
Posted by ScuttleMonkey in The Mysterious Future!
from the things-not-to-farm-out dept.

groovy.ambuj writes "The Inquirer reports that Microsoft has developed Oklahoma's 'Computer Spyware protection Act'. The law will supposedly protect people from unwarranted hackers or virus attacks and can fine individuals up to $1M who are found guilty of breaking into a computer without the owners knowledge. At the same time, it also allows some of the better known capable companies to 'look' into your computer for possible virus/spyware and fix the problem without informing you. And, while these friends are doing their job, they can also take the moment to do other things. "

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Ghosts of Slashdot: 04/07/2006
[Darn it! I just completed a detailed explanation of why this may be a tempest in a teapot, but also why it's an indictment of our current governor. I hit Refresh, and poof! The article disappeared into the great beyond. Well, I guess I'm left with posting my +5, Informative reply in the comments of this journal. If this ghost returns from the dead, I hope someone could copy it into their own reply -- enjoy the Karma! Oh, and Go Kinky! ]

Texas Governor Outlaws Peer-to-Peer Software
Posted by samzenpus in The Mysterious Future!
from the I'm-sure-this-will-work dept.

servergott writes "Texas Governor Rick Perry issued Executive Order RP-58 relating to peer-to-peer file-sharing software. The most interesting items are A) his definition of p2p software: "For purposes of this executive order, "peer-to-peer file-sharing software" means computer software, other than computer and network operating systems, that has as its primary function the capability of allowing the computer on which the software is used to designate files available for transmission to another computer using the software, to transmit files directly to another computer using the software, and to request transmission of files from another computer using the software." This overly broad definition could easily include HTTP and FTP. And B) the fact that the University systems are included in this Order (UT Austin, UT Dallas, etc.) P2P used for academic purposes has just been deemed illegal! Just another issue of poorly informed politicians jumping on the "Bad Internet" wagon. SG"

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Would that it were still April Fool's Day. The Bad Astronomer reports that two Intelligent Design advocates, already unclear on the difference between "theory" and "fact", have reported a scientist to the Department of Homeland Security for suggesting that humanity may be facing a population crash. ID activist William Dembski interpreted a speech including the terms "Ebola" and "90% mortality" as a threat by Evil Scientists to destroy the world, and dutifully notified the authorities, who replied that "they are aware of it." As a Christian myself, it disturbs me when people behave this stupidly on my behalf, just because the Red Heifer thing didn't pan out.

I was going to post this at the Puppy Linux forum, but I realized it was more of a journal entry than a useful reply. So here's a story, of a box named Puppy...

Well, after getting a cheap 802.11b card (linksys WPC11 v.4) and seeing almost two dozen networks (1/3 nonencrypted) just using WAG, I figured it would be fun to try out this wardriving thing. I've had my laptop puppy running around the house for a month or so, and he's responding well to paper training... he seldom dumps unexpectedly. :) So I'm going to try installing kismet, my first installation of something in Linux other than a ready-to-execute program, a dotpup, or a Debian .deb install (when I was running slow-as-molasses Knoppix).

* Go to http://www.kismetwireless.net/ and read the documentation.
Great, I'm going to compile a C program! I'm a programmer, so I should be able to do this. But I haven't compiled from the command line since DOS...

* Download the file.
I have to do this from my Win2K box, because my laptop isn't connected to the network... at least, not yet. For some strange reason, the file is named with .tar.tar on the end.

* Rename the file.
Attempts to extract the .tar.tar file are fruitless in Windows and on the Puppy. Then, I notice that the file name I'm clicking on ends with .tar.gz -- but Opera keeps renaming it to .tar.tar. Once I rename it back to .tar.gz, it extracts just fine. Did they add this step to throw off n00bs? ph34r my 1337 haxx0r sk177z!

* Wonder if I extracted to a good place
I ended up with the files in /my-applications/kismet/kismet-2005-08-R1/ -- though I wonder if that's really the best place, I press forward anyway.

* Run ./configure
And get the message "No acceptable C compiler found". Did some searching and found out about usr_devx.sfs. Download-copy-reboot.

* Run ./configure again
Well, the compiler was found, and a bunch of other things were found, but I saw some messages scroll by saying "no" and saying that somethings might not work. The Kismet site says "If Kismet cannot find all the headers and libraries it needs, it won't be able to do many things." I decide that since I don't need it to do many things, I'll press forward.

* Run "make"
I go straight to this step instead of following the instructions given by the output from ./configure, because that's what the Kismet site says to do. Messages go by, and I decide that I'd better go out to the car and get the battery charger that I inadvertently left when I came into the office. Nothing like powering down in the middle of a build to ruin your day! By the time I get back, it's done, and I don't see any obvious errors... of course, I can only scroll back so far...

* make suidinstall
After reading all the dire warnings, I think the suidinstall is more compatible with Puppy Linux. One of the distro's features is that it's single-user -- everything runs as root, which tends to drive Linux purists batty. This step also seemed to complete without errors, but of course with a dire warning about how other users on the system could Break Things.

* edit kismet.conf (and fake a user)
The original thread included one very helpful hint. Puppy doesn't have users, but kismet expects them. So I looked for the /home directory... and didn't find one. A quick search showed a /mnt/home, but no /home. So I created it, and then created /home/kismet (as though there were a user named "kismet"). Then, I edited kismet.conf to include "suiduser=kismet". I also put /home/kismet in front of the logtemplate= variable.

* Reboot
Although the Kismet site says to run it, I'm sure I won't hurt anything by rebooting. Besides, I suppose I need to put my wireless card in the slot now. It's times like these that I love Puppy -- reboots are quick.

* Run it!
I open an xterm window in the /home/kismet directory (just in case it needs me to be there), and enter "kismet". I get the message "FATAL: Could not find user 'your_user_name' for dropping priviledges [sic]." I look at the kismet.conf file again and sure enough, I forgot to actually *do* the step above. I changed the log path, but not the suiduser= setting.

* Run it again, and do it right this time?
Bzzt. "FATAL: Could not find user 'kismet' for dropping priviledges." I take comfort in knowing how to spell "privileges", but not in my ability to use Linux.

*Sigh*

Back to the original thread, to ask if anyone has any suggestions. But at least they only have to read this installation epic if they really want to. Updates coming soon (hopefully).

Updates, as hoped

In the thread, user "spot" is used as the fake Kismet user. What I didn't know was that "spot" isn't fake -- it's configured as a real user. That means it'll be in the /etc/passwd and related files (as suggested in the replies to this journal entry). So I changed kismet.conf to reference suiduser=spot (like the original example). Just in case, I also changed the log path to reference /home/spot, and renamed the /home/kismetspot directory to /home/spot. Although "spot" is a user, the poor thing has no home. There's a lost puppy joke in there somewhere.

Result: It didn't fail on dropping privileges!

It failed somewhere else. "FATAL: Please configure at least one packet source." I'll have to go get some work done (the kind I get paid for), but it looks like I'm getting closer.

Back again

Thanks to the Puppy forum, I've set up my source parameter to source=rt8180,eth0,addme. Sure, "addme" isn't a terribly descriptive name, but I can always change it after I find out what it's actually used for.

Didn't work. "FATAL: mode get ioctl failed 95:Operation not supported". I hope this doesn't mean that the card doesn't support "monitor mode"!

Tried:

* Change to eth1. That wasn't it ("No such device")

* Use a different sourcetype, one that shouldn't match at all. Got the same error. That's a good sign... maybe "rt8180" is just the wrong sourcetype for the card? But Googling on Linksys WPC11 and rt8180 shows that it should be correct.

* Tried a bogus sourcetype. "FATAL: Unknown capture source type 'dohhhh'. At least I know I didn't misspell it.

* Tried running WAG (Puppy's Wireless Access Gadget), then Kismet. No difference.

I'm hoping that it doesn't turn out that this card doesn't support monitor mode. I think there's a way to find this out from the terminal window...

OK, some searching mentioned "iwconfig", which I've run before but not with any parameters. I knew that was safe, so I tried it. It showed what it usually does, eth0 "no wireless extensions" and wlan0 with all the business.

Wait. wlan0? Aw crap. I change the kismet.conf source param to rt8180,wlan0,addme and... I get an all-new error.

FATAL: Failed to set monitor mode: Invalid argument. This usually means your drivers either do not support monitor mode...

Argh. Will keep poking around.

* I find some indications that wireless cards don't often support monitor mode and regular mode at the same time. So I reboot and try again... no luck.

* I finally read the man page for iwconfig, and try: iwconfig wlan0 mode monitor. Result: "SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument." Oddly, though, setting a totally bogus mode gives a different error: "invalid argument "bogusmode"." So there's something going on.

* Googling like crazy, it looks like the WPC11 v4 may use a Prism2 chipset, which the Kismet site lists as using the "hostap" source. Try that in the .conf file. Same result as before.

* Also try wlanng. That gives a whole new bunch of errors, including 4x "wlanctl-ng: No such file or directory" and ending with "FATAL: pcap reported netlink type 1 (EN10MB) for wlan0. This probably means you're not in RFMON mode..." Try rebooting, in case the previous dinking with iwconfig messed things up. Same error. Try with wlanng_avs (noted as a newer version). Ditto.

Sigh. Back to work.

Update!

I had to do two things to get Monitor Mode to work: load a different set of driver modules (helpfully supplied by a forum member), and remove the rc.local commands that I added to support the SMC 802.11a wireless card I use at home.

Then, it failed because of permission problems in that newly-created /users/spot directory. Fixing that let the program start running all the way to where it opens up the user interface. And then:

ERROR: Panels support not compiled in.

The quote from above comes back to haunt me: "If Kismet cannot find all the headers and libraries it needs, it won't be able to do many things." Apparently, one of those many things includes the ability to run. Panels is a library for window management, apparently.

I don't really *need* a graphical interface, though. I'd be happy with a scrolling screen of text showing what's happening in the neighborhood. Some poking around the documentation shows that there's something called a "drone" that just writes logs, so maybe there's a way to set up like that... but it's also pretty clear that Kismet is designed to be a window-y application.

More to come...

It works!

I've been so busy enjoying Kismet, I forgot to post an update. Sure enough, I needed the Panels libraries, but the folks on the forum were kind enough to put together a zipfile^W tarball with the libraries. Once I realized that library means "recompile" (you'd think I'd never run a makefile from the DOS prompt), Kismet was up and running!

So far, all I've been able to do is marvel at the number of networks found on a drive across town. Two interesting correlations I've found:

* The total number of networks is directly proportional to the income level. Tons more networks on the more properous side of town.

* The security of the networks is inversely proportional to the income level. You're a lot more likely to see red lines on the Kismet display (indicating factory-default AP configurations) on the poor side of town, especially compared to the smaller number of total networks.

I'm a total wireless n00b, but I learn something every time I hit the "H" key for onscreen help. See you on the road!