Let me just add here that several replacement firmwares have been developed for this router, and one of these allows users to increase transmit power by 900%, run the router with more robust routing logic, and even get shell access. (One day we'll all have shell access to our cars and coffee makers, but for now it's just to our routers, DVRs, and some of our computers.) Sveasoft.com developed the firmware and offers it under a suspect version of the GNU general license, but you can download your own copy here.

If you were as network obsessed as me, what would you do? Would you reflash the firmware of the neighbor's router, even if you weren't entirely sure what would happen or whether you were going to render it inoperable? What if the reflash was successful, would you then kick up its broadcast power by 900% and then go under the cover of night on a range test with your laptop? Wouldn't it be just like discovering you had taken the controls of a probe in deep space? It would be physically inaccessible yet under your complete control and having powers to directly affect your computational environment. It would be like a semi-virtual equivalent of the Stick Trail, a logical and semi-physical passageway through the territory of others that takes direction from no one but you, because you're the only one who knows or cares that it exists or has capabilities at all.

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