
The politics of Wi-Fi names - JamesCRR
http://opensignalmaps.com/reports/politics-of-wifi-names.php
======
ComputerGuru
_We 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
Yeah that's a very good point. We'll change that sentence now :).

Edit: Updated page and added attribution.

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camiller
For 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...

~~~
unexpected
I'm not sure there are many Bama fans in NYC!

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RobAtticus
They 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.

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lordlarm
From 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>

~~~
JamesCRR
Hehe 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
"Obamanation" is a pretty common wingnutism.

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briandear
What is a 'wingnutism'? Let's skip the puerilities on HN if possible.

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Steko
"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.

~~~
zem
the word you're looking for is "neologism", not "euphemism" - a euphemism is
the replacement of a word or phrase with a synonym considered less offensive,
while retaining the meaning. (e.g. "poo" rather than "shit"). see wikipedia
for a good discussion: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism>

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Steko
[http://gawker.com/5832665/do-not-name-your-wifi-network-
fbi-...](http://gawker.com/5832665/do-not-name-your-wifi-network-fbi-
surveillance-van)

Spoilers: I live in a very dense apartment building and my wifi network is
FBI_Surveillance_Van. I totally thought of it first.

~~~
dmix
Why even broadcast a signal? You just opening your router to get hacked... I
learned that lesson twice.

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CamperBob2
Conventional wisdom is that turning off SSID broadcasts does absolutely
nothing to deter people using hacking tools.

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dmix
Of 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.

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adrianbravo
I 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
I was just thinking of that earlier, I think you're right it's probably
negative. Will change.

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JVIDEL
Haha 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.

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frankydp
gobama != G Obama

gobama = Go Alabama

Almost all of the entrees in Alabama were GoBama :)

~~~
JamesCRR
Updated!

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RandallBrown
I'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.

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cpeterso
What 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.

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18pfsmt
I 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
I left the default name (Apple Network c0bfcc) precisely so it wouldn't stand
out.

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JoshuaRedmond
That'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
How 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.

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aw3c2
Does anyone where I can download their data? It says Open and uses user-
supplied data so I assume it is available somewhere?

~~~
sinak
Hi 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.

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NoPerspective
Does 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).

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bartbes
I 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.

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gouranga
I 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

~~~
blhack
People 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!

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tedunangst
Why exactly are you so offended by the name someone else picks for their
network?

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nupark2
They are broadcasting it to all of their neighbors. In our apartment building,
I see about 30 WiFi networks.

~~~
tedunangst
If somebody had a "fuck you" bumper sticker, would you smash their taillight?
Even if you're a technically sophisticated asshole, you're still an asshole...

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cameron_price
I'm guessing the "obama is a trini" in ozone park brooklyn is actually
positive... that's quite near a big trinidadian population.

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devindotcom
How interesting. Of course it's a very quick and crude method, but still fun.
Are these DBs available for further sifting?

