802.11a, SSSCA links
Sunday, September 9th, 2001Pages about the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act
Wired News: New Copyright Bill Headed to DC. Declan McCullagh’s own site has the
text of the bill and more of his usual insightful analysis.
Wired magazine: You’re Gonna Pay for This. Not specifically about SSSCA, but a well-reported story on manufacturers’ plans to ship hardware that only plays properly licensed media. The sidebars are good, too: One details the possible life cycle of a DRM-protected file. The other is a great parody of software license agreements applied to a magazine article. In the printed magazine, the agreement covers a paper seal you need to break in order to read the article.
802.11a coming in November
The 72Mbps Atheros 802.11a prototype we photographed for Wired’s July issue (”
Bandwidth Blaster“) will be available in November through Intel, albeit at a street-legal 54Mbps. The only disappointment is that 802.11a and 802.11b are different enough that there won’t be dual-compatibility wireless cards or bases available just yet. There’s a proposal before the IEEE for a dual-band wireless card, but it could be a year or more away. Looking a few years further out, software-defined radio devices could reduce the number of times we all have to change hardware or choose between systems.
