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Yeah I went back and read your comment again and see how you meant "evolution", which is perfectly valid (i.e., special case of emergent behavior). However, I k

by mayank 16y ago

Yeah I went back and read your comment again and see how you meant "evolution", which is perfectly valid (i.e., special case of emergent behavior). However, I know this is going to get increasingly pedantic, but evolution usually implies some sort of survival-of-the-fittest rule, which seems to stretch the definition here: > That creates selective pressure on the name of ad-hoc networks in that convincing more users to click on them causes further replication. I was thinking in a more formal mathematical sense. You can write a fairly short agent-based model (for example) to simulate the spread of "Free Public Wifi" and look for conditions where it remains suspended in the population. The analogy is closer to a virus than evolution. But hey, I didn't mean to imply that what you were saying was wrong or --gasp-- a bad analogy in anyway, and I warned you that this was going to get pedantic. :)

tommusic 16y ago
I wonder if this virus has been able to effectively spread to Madagascar. To put it another way: I wonder if "Free Public Wifi" was the surviving ad-hoc phantom in countries where the primary language isn't English.
- Cushman 16y ago
  Wow... that's a cool thought. Even cooler is if you did manage to find a Madagascar that hadn't developed any widespread variant of its own either, you'd have the chance to design and introduce it. It'd be a neat social hack.
  - mayank 16y ago
    That's an interesting algorithmic problem. Assuming that you knew the structure of ad-hoc networks in terms of wifi range in a smallish region (for example, by wardriving in a dense urban area), you could pick geographical regions to target for introducing your local "adhoc network meme", which would just involve standing in strategically placed locations broadcasting that ad-hoc network SSID. That would vary with the geographical distribution of WinXP computers in the region. I think the whole social hack could be doable with detailed wifi maps of a region and a laptop. Wonder how much work it would be to implement.

by mayank 16y ago

tommusic 16y ago

I wonder if this virus has been able to effectively spread to Madagascar. To put it another way: I wonder if "Free Public Wifi" was the surviving ad-hoc phantom in countries where the primary language isn't English.

Cushman 16y ago
Wow... that's a cool thought. Even cooler is if you did manage to find a Madagascar that hadn't developed any widespread variant of its own either, you'd have the chance to design and introduce it. It'd be a neat social hack.
- mayank 16y ago
  That's an interesting algorithmic problem. Assuming that you knew the structure of ad-hoc networks in terms of wifi range in a smallish region (for example, by wardriving in a dense urban area), you could pick geographical regions to target for introducing your local "adhoc network meme", which would just involve standing in strategically placed locations broadcasting that ad-hoc network SSID. That would vary with the geographical distribution of WinXP computers in the region. I think the whole social hack could be doable with detailed wifi maps of a region and a laptop. Wonder how much work it would be to implement.