On Sun, Jul 17, 2005 at 12:38:03PM +0300, Shlomo Solomon wrote: > Thanks for your reply, but now I'm confused. What are all the dongles being > sold in stores? I realize that there may be some stores selling these things > illegally, as you say. But I doubt that large chains like BUG and Office > Depot would sell illegal devices. Also, a quick search on ZAP shows 133 > devices available. Are they all illegal?
Some may be. For example 900mHz phones are illegal to own, import or use in Israel. Someone gave me a very nice GE one that had a dead battery. I was going to toss it until I noticed it had a sticker from a large importer of cordless phones in Talpiot on it. I figure if I ever get caught, I'll just point to the sitcker and play stupid. Another case I know of is some 430mHz handheld ham radios that were imported and sold by a company in the center of the country. They were sold via newspaper ads claiming them to be 10,000 channel CB walkie-talkies. Eventualy hams complained and the ministry of communicatons closed them down. However they were not required to contact the buyers and get the radios back if they were not licensed. POSSESSOION of the radios without a license is illegal, but no one seemed to really care. WiFi is in a similar state. By law you are limited to channels 4-8 (of 1-14) and 100mW RADIATED power. That means if you have an antenna that increases the signal by being more effiecient you must reduce the power of the transmitter an equal amount or use a long feedline that looses some of the signal. Yet I have never seen any ads that mentioned this when they sell gain antennas or any notes included with WiFi cards or hubs, except from 3COM that mention the channel limitation. Bluetooth and WiFi are different from the others in someways. The frequencies that are in the forbidden channels are used heavily by the IDF. 100mW signal will probably not interfere with their much more powerfull equipment but if it does expect a not very friendly visit from the IDF. I often find that IDF air to ground radar wipes out my WiFi network. :-) > BTW - some of the dongles on ZAP claim to have 100 meter range. What's that > all about? 100 meter range. In labratory conditions. But then there was the time my Orange cell phone tried to roam onto a Lebanese network. It had detected the signal and decided it was stronger than Orange's. I was on a bus on the Jerusalem Tel-Aviv highway at the time. > OK - that I know. But with such a short range, I don't see a real security > problem using one to sync my PALM in my home. After all, if the range is only > 3 meters, the potential hacker would have to be in the same room as me. And, > of course, I'd remove the dongle when not in use ;-) Sure, but wouldn't a USB cable be a better bet? A lot cheaper, no radiation, no signal to jam (2.4gHz cordless phones are notorious for this), no network to hack, etc. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel [EMAIL PROTECTED] N3OWJ/4X1GM IL Voice: (077)-424-1667 IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 VoN Skype: mendelsonfamily. Looking for work as a CTO or consultant in handheld gaming, large systems development, handheld device construction, etc. Support amateur (ham) radio, boycott Google!!! ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
