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The politics of Wi-Fi names
- ComputerGuru 14y agoWe found 1140 results for "Obama" and an additional 6 that contained "Romney"" - for some reason people are far more likely to reference Obama over Romney when naming their router. Seriously? Maybe because one has been president for four years and the other is just a blip right now with the potential of either becoming president or just another has-been?
- sinak 14y agoYeah that's a very good point. We'll change that sentence now :). Edit: Updated page and added attribution.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- camiller 14y agoFor what it is worth, I think you may also be getting some overlap with collage sports. "Bama" in that context refers to the University of Alabama with "GoBama" and "NoBama" possibly being from fans and rivals respectively. Not to say that either doesn't deserve pitchfork wielding mobs...
- JamesCRR 14y agoHadn't thought of that... this is what comes of being English and not a sports fan I guess :)
- sinak 14y agoThanks for the input - we switched them over!
- unexpected 14y agoI'm not sure there are many Bama fans in NYC!
- RobAtticus 14y agoThey are one of the most popular NCAA football programs in the nation and have won 2 of the last 3 titles. I'd wager there are more than a few alum in NYC.
- camiller 14y agoI only mention it because 1) there were a lot of "GoBama" in Alabama and 2) I'm in Nebraska and the SSID of my wifi is BigRed. (Cause if I put BoilerUp I be the one worried about mobs)
- yycom 14y agoAnd now it just doesn't make sense at all: We found 1140 results for "Obama" and an additional 6 that contained "Romney"" - likely because Obama's been president for four years.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- lordlarm 14y agoFrom my hometown (Oslo) you found «Obama killed me» to be in favor of him. I'm not sure it is (or not), but still, kind of funny. Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/lGXZA.png http://i.imgur.com/lGXZA.png
- JamesCRR 14y agoHehe whoops, just changed that one, not sure what I did there. Another one I've probably got wrong is Obamanation, which I thought was good at the time, like a contraction of "Obama for the Nation" now I'm thinking it's a pun on Abomination. Not sure though!
- Steko 14y ago"Obamanation" is a pretty common wingnutism.
- JamesCRR 14y agoYep, we updated that one too! Thanks to @lordlarm for also pointing this out.
- briandear 14y agoWhat is a 'wingnutism'? Let's skip the puerilities on HN if possible.
- Steko 14y ago"What is a 'wingnutism'?" A euphamism coined by and popular with the far right US commentariat. "Let's skip the puerilities on HN if possible." So you're saying we should stop being so childish and get back to the serious discussion about the neutral term "Obamanation"? Don't get me wrong, I get what you're saying and half didn't want to publish with that word exactly but I searched and the alternative was some long clinical description. While it's important to avoid epithets it's also important to be concise and using one word to do the job of over 10 should also be striven for.
- adrianbravo 14y agoI think "obamanation" and all its variants can be interpreted either way. It is used with a negative connotation in many cases, e.g. obamanation.com or the book "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality."
- JamesCRR 14y agoI was just thinking of that earlier, I think you're right it's probably negative. Will change.
- gouranga 14y agoI could imagine that in redneck country. I always call mine something rude. It seems to effectively stop people trying to connect to it. Security by lack of obscurity. Currently it's iloveanal
- sinak 14y ago:). Stay tuned for our followup report on worldwide sentiment towards anal versus vaginal intercourse.
- blhack 14y agoPeople near me who do this usually get deauth attacked until they change their SSID. If you want to act like an inconsiderate 14 year old with your wifi, so will I!
- tedunangst 14y agoWhy exactly are you so offended by the name someone else picks for their network?
- blhack 14y agoGP specifically said that they're doing this to be rude. I'm offended by it because that was the intent.
- tedunangst 14y agoBut how do you know the intent of the other people around you? Maybe they're just making a joke. I think iloveanal sounds kind of funny. Do you ask them before conducting your deauth attack?
- gouranga 14y agoI'm the GP. I live in London, UK. I know literally noone who wouldn't think it's funny round here. People have a right to free speech, which neatly supports people having a right to be offended too but cannot do diddly to prevent saying it :) As for being deauth attacked, I'll unwind the ethernet cable from the back of my router and wham it in my laptop and sip pure unpolluted internets.
- devindotcom 14y agoHow interesting. Of course it's a very quick and crude method, but still fun. Are these DBs available for further sifting?
- JoshuaRedmond 14y agoThat's really interesting. Until recently I'd never come across people using SSIDs to express their political opinions, but one of my neighbours has just started using "Vote Labour" as theirs (Labour is the current UK opposition party). I can just about understand people expressing their like or dislike of Obama, but exactly how many floating voters will be swayed by a WiFi access point?
- pavel_lishin 14y agoHow many will be swayed by a bumper sticker, or a tweet, etc., etc? I think it's less about trying to sway people than it is about making a statement about yourself.
- aw3c2 14y agoDoes anyone where I can download their data? It says Open and uses user-supplied data so I assume it is available somewhere?
- sinak 14y agoHi aw3c2 - at the moment it's just the maps that are open (which isn't great we realize), but we have an API on our roadmap. Individual data collected by each user is exportable via the app too.
- Steko 14y agohttp://gawker.com/5832665/do-not-name-your-wifi-network-fbi-surveillance-van http://gawker.com/5832665/do-not-name-your-wifi-network-fbi-... Spoilers: I live in a very dense apartment building and my wifi network is FBI_Surveillance_Van. I totally thought of it first.
- raverbashing 14y agoNow I'm curious to find "FBI naming policy chapter V: computer networks"
- ableal 14y agoOn that vein, this may help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_of_the_Culture_setting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_of_the_Culture_se... (Iain Banks started with Nervous Energy and went downhill from there.)
- cpeterso 14y agoI like Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space ship names, such as Nostalgia for Infinity or Gnostic Ascension.
- dmix 14y agoWhy even broadcast a signal? You just opening your router to get hacked... I learned that lesson twice.
- CamperBob2 14y agoConventional wisdom is that turning off SSID broadcasts does absolutely nothing to deter people using hacking tools.
- dmix 14y agoOf course it wouldn't deter a someone with skill but it deters a bunch of people from googling how to use Reaver. I also filter mac addresses as plan b.
- NoPerspective 14y agoDoes this fit into the theory that when it comes to politics Americans vote out of spite. That Americans to a large degree vote against someone rather than for someone as a result of the limited amount of choices(2).
- frankydp 14y agogobama != G Obama gobama = Go Alabama Almost all of the entrees in Alabama were GoBama :)
- JamesCRR 14y agoUpdated!
- bartbes 14y agoI can't help but wonder why you'd name your wifi something negative. I mean, I can get into showing your support, but I wouldn't even think of someone I hated while naming my network.
- cpeterso 14y agoWhat is OpenSignalMaps' business model? Do they sell the cell coverage data to network providers who are looking to improve coverage? The company has been around since 2010, so they must be making some money.
- 18pfsmt 14y agoI find the naming of access points interesting; I've chosen a unique name for my AP, and wonder how common that is among the HN crowd? Most of the APs in my neighborhood are "myqwest.xxxx" and I've always thought that was a function of laziness/ apathy, but perhaps it is in the interest of not standing out? Probably not, but I wish more people took interest in their routers as they are becoming quite capable nowadays. Fon was/ is a cool idea, and I think some company should try to take it to the next level since Fon seems to have stopped innovating.
- hrrsn 14y agoI left the default name (Apple Network c0bfcc) precisely so it wouldn't stand out.
- JVIDEL 14y agoHaha man, today was "one of those days" here in Argentina, and now this. Can you believe Cristina (you know, the president) literally went and told a senator from her party in the middle of a speech "hey go easy with the nose candy" Yeah so they guy went a little apeshit during an interview before that, but can you imagine a president telling that to a senator, from her own party, during a speech live on national TV? That's Cristina, just to show the politicians in your country aren't as bad as you think.
- RandallBrown 14y agoI've been meaning to write a script to update a wifi access point every time I tweet but I've never gotten around to figuring out how to do it. In college, my roommates and I spent at least 2 days trying to figure out the name for our router. We settled on "The girls upstairs suck" because some girls lived above us and we were college guys trying to be funny. Later on, it turned out they weren't paying for Internet and they were using ours. (We gave them the password so they could have Internet while theirs was getting "fixed") I always try to name it something that passive aggressively yells at my neighbors. "Clean up after your dogs" "Don't be loud at 4AM". Right now it's called "Frasier Crane" because I just moved to Seattle and thought and used to like watching Frasier. I love wi-fi names.
- cameron_price 14y agoI'm guessing the "obama is a trini" in ozone park brooklyn is actually positive... that's quite near a big trinidadian population.