an ethical dilemma
[tech]
posted by tom / September 14, 2005 / 
So the guy from whom Catherine and I are borrowing wifi (until hers is installed) — he didn't even bother to change the administrator password on his router. And it happens to be a Linksys WRT54G. Which means that I could upgrade his firmware to the Sveasoft edition. Which would allow me to boost his signal strength, which would improve the marginal reception the two of us are experiencing.
Well, I doubt I will. Maybe I'll try to figure out his email address when he gets home and send him a polite anonymous note explaining how to change his admin password. Although the fact that I just came across this link today (via hackaday) makes the situation awfully tempting...
Comments
Tom -- is Sveasoft that much better than the Linksys firmware? I have that router, too (but have changed the admin pword) and would consider upgrading it if it is an improvement. The signal's not that great in my house. Thanks.
yeah, I'd say it's worth it. You can boost your signal strength, set up wireless bridging, do logging, run an SSH server, set up cron jobs -- all kinds of stuff. Plus it seems pretty stable. It sounds like the signal strength improvement could be a big help to you.
There are other WRT54G firmwares out there, too. One of them is OpenWRT, which isn't very user-friendly, but may be the most powerful. A little googling should turn up other alternatives. I'd go ahead and give Sveasoft a try if I were you, though. I've been very pleased with it.
I primarily use it for the WDS bridging -- I have a Belkin wireless router by the TV that provides connectivity to the xbox and a desktop PC via a wireless link to the linksys (which is plugged into the broadband connection). I couldn't get this setup to work right when I was using two identical belkins, but with the linksys it's rock solid.
and of course if you bought a second WRT54G, you could probably solve your reception problems completely by using WDS.
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