So this is basically a self-propagating virus started by someone indeed offering Free Public WiFi, now kept alive by hopeful XP users clicking on the network?
That is so wild. It's like the ad-hoc wifi equivalent of a chain letter.
Edit: Thinking about it, it's even crazier... Because the bug only happens when there aren't any available networks, it springs up in situations when there are a lot of people looking for wireless, but there isn't any— on buses, conferences, etc. The exact sort of situations where people are most likely to try out "Free Public WiFi", so the virus is more likely to propagate.
Furthermore, the name is important. In order for it to become a widespread phenomenon, it has to be a name a lot of people will click on. But we can imagine that a lot of people have set up ad-hoc networks with different names that wound up being temporarily duplicated by the bug. Some of those with attractive names may have caused further duplication before finally disappearing. The more attractive the name, the more likely it is to be duplicated before being overwritten. In effect, the name "Free Public WiFi" has been selected for.
I'm calling it: This is the first (global?) distributed wireless network that evolved on its own. Unfortunately, evolution doesn't require that it actually be useful to people :P
> This is the first (global?) distributed wireless network that evolved on its own.
Not really. It's emergent behavior in a complex system. You have a lot of entities (in this case, unpatched Windows XP SP2 and below systems), and a set of very simple local rules (if (winxp and no wifi) then create last adhoc network, if (human and see "free public wifi") then click link).
The fascinating behavior that emerges from the interplay of these local rules is the global "virus" if you will. It's a fascinating area of research, and even aside from the inflated egos of some physicists in the area, I'm glad I'm studying the field.
Read Duncan Watts' book "Six degrees" for a decent popsci introduction to the field (you might have to skip some self-aggrandizing of physics as the Savior of Intellectual Thought though).
Edit: cellular automata are a more recognizable CS example of this.
That's not contradicting me? Evolution is a special case of emergent behavior in a complex system.
The rules of the buggy system mean that any ad-hoc network can be replicated if a user connects to it. That creates selective pressure on the name of ad-hoc networks in that convincing more users to click on them causes further replication.
So we have a (somewhat) self-replicating entity, with variation, and a selective process applied to that variation. Sounds like evolution to me.
(Of course the names are originally made by people; but if we assume that ad-hoc networks aren't named with the intention of creating a self-replicating pattern, they're effectively random from the perspective of the ecosystem. The success of "Free Public WiFi" is a product of selection, not human design.)
Technically evolution does not require survival of the fittest or mutation. Evolution is merely the change in allelic frequency in a population over time.
Without selective pressure (i.e., "survival of the fittest") you can still have evolution via drift, the founder effect, etc. Drift is a very important source of evolution in a lot of situations (during my PhD I studied how a source of seeming drift in the coding regions of genes was actually caused by selective pressure in some cases).
Without mutation a population can still evolve, too - for example, if a disease struck and there was no mutation, an allele that protected against the disease would quickly dominate the population. This is a much more pedantic thing to point out (on my part), though, since every stretch of every organism's DNA mutates. The different mutation rates of viruses, bacteria, and humans due to replication errors (and the resulting effect on evolution) is a pretty fascinating topic, though.
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. :)
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.
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.
When a computer running an older version of XP can't find any of its "favorite" wireless networks, it will automatically create an ad hoc network with the same name as the last one it connected to -- in this case, "Free Public WiFi." Other computers within range of that new ad hoc network can see it, luring other users to connect. [...] Computers with the XP bug that try to connect to the Internet will remember the name, create their own ad hoc networks and entice other users wherever they go.
If this was the case, wouldn't we see all manner of oddly named hotspots at airport locations, and wouldn't they also propagate as people try to connect to them?
I suspect this story may have been "simplified" to the point where the interesting details have been lost.
Nope - because people very rarely create ad-hoc networks these days - full infrastrucure-mode APs are everywhere - the only time people tend to select ad-hoc without realizing it tends to be he one called "Free Public Wifi" - it just happens to show up in airports and hotels and is passed around from machine to machine because of the name. Lots of people try it out (it never actually works) - but it's enough for the netowork name to keep propagating.
Strange that they say it's only been around for 4 years. I seem to remember the first time this story came through Reddit was about 4 years ago, and the phenomenon it described had been going for several years at that point.
It's actually surprising to see it here now. I was expecting to see a [2007] tacked on to it.
Addison, TX provided city-wide WiFi for residents for awhile, but I think they're phasing it out this month. Their reasoning was that 3G was ubiquitous, so there was really no reason to provide WiFi any longer.
XP simply remembers the last ad-hoc network you connected to, to be used when there are no actual APs around. As a blindingly obvious differentiation, ad-hoc networks have a different icon and say "computer-to-computer network".
Back when Windows XP was introduced, ad-hoc was extremely useful as lots of places didn't have wireless internet access. My friends and I often used it to swap files or play network games.
If anything I would call this an unintended phenomenon of people just clicking something and hoping it worked. The network does not spread because of Windows, it spreads because people select an ad-hoc network without knowing what is.
Why we as a society think its totally great to be completely ignorant and reckless with our computers, I'll never understand.
It's an emergent behaviour of a complex system involving people and machines. What's fascinating is how this non-functional string/ad-hoc netowork beacon, whatever oyu want ot call it, with this specific name, has spread globally to every corner of the world as far as we can tell. Hit any airport or hotel lobby in the world where there are laptops around, and odds are you won't have to wait long before you see "Free Public WiFi" pop up. That, in and of itself, is fascinating. It's been going on for a decade.
That is so wild. It's like the ad-hoc wifi equivalent of a chain letter.
Edit: Thinking about it, it's even crazier... Because the bug only happens when there aren't any available networks, it springs up in situations when there are a lot of people looking for wireless, but there isn't any— on buses, conferences, etc. The exact sort of situations where people are most likely to try out "Free Public WiFi", so the virus is more likely to propagate.
Furthermore, the name is important. In order for it to become a widespread phenomenon, it has to be a name a lot of people will click on. But we can imagine that a lot of people have set up ad-hoc networks with different names that wound up being temporarily duplicated by the bug. Some of those with attractive names may have caused further duplication before finally disappearing. The more attractive the name, the more likely it is to be duplicated before being overwritten. In effect, the name "Free Public WiFi" has been selected for.
I'm calling it: This is the first (global?) distributed wireless network that evolved on its own. Unfortunately, evolution doesn't require that it actually be useful to people :P