Personal Telco University DVD

This is a place to plan and document the PTPU-DVD.

TableOfContents

History

PersonalTelcoUniversity was a program started under [:DarrinEden:DarrinEden]'s presidential term and had sessions in 2004 and 2005. The goal was to have a series of somewhat-formal classes that could be taken by anyone (for a small tuition fee) and would be taught by PersonalTelco members. Upon the completion of the class, students would be prepared to build wireless networks. Despite meager attendance, the program succeeded in it's overall goal to educate those who wanted to be educated.

What's This?

The PersonalTelcoUniversityDVD is an attempt to take everything good about PersonalTelcoUniversity and distill it onto a digital medium so that classes can be seen by anyone, not just those with geographical or chronological proximity. Credit goes to Mr. TomHiggins who birthed the concept. Today, it is the primary project of CalebPhillips in his (not-yet-announced) role of DirectorOfEducation.

To Do

This is in chronological order, a sort of timeline.

Classes

An evolving list of classes which may be featured on the DVD.

Topic

Teacher

Confirmed

Scheduled

Filmed

Edited

About PersonalTelco

DonPark

no

no

no

no

TCP/IP Networking

RussellSenior

no

no

no

no

About Wireless Networks

RickLindahl

no

no

no

no

Basic Radio Physics

TroyJaqua

no

no

no

no

802.11 Physical Layer

CalebPhillips

no

no

no

no

Site Survey

JasonMcArthur?

no

no

no

no

Linux

AdrianDavis?

no

no

no

no

Installing and Maintaining Debian Linux

your name here

no

no

no

no

OpenWRT/OpenWGT

RussellSenior

no

no

no

no

Network Maintenance

your name here

no

no

no

no

Operational Security

your name here

no

no

no

no

Class Descriptions

About PersonalTelco: Previously taught by DarrinEden at PersonalTelcoUniversityFall2004. Gives an overview of the organizational structure of the Personal Telco Project including it's mission, history, business structure, and operations.

Site Survey: Previously taught by JasonMcArther. Everything you need to know to do a site survey including coverage of Kismet (and other software sniffers), interference, and multi-path fading. Previously taught at PersonalTelcoUniversity.

About Wireless Networks: A high level introduction on how to use an access point (PersonalTelco's or otherwise) and how to set one up.

Operational Security: Cryptography and why you should love it and use it. Including useful things like use of gnupg, application layer security, and Link-layer security (WEP, WPA, etc.). Previously taught at PersonalTelcoUniversity.

Installing and Maintaining Debian Linux: Walk through the install process. Using apt-get etc. Previously taught at: PersonalTelcoUniversityFall2004.

Basic Radio Physics: Some refreshing math! Watts and Decibels. Frii's equation and free-space propogation loss. Antennae. Cable/equipment insertion loss. Fresnell issues. Other fun stuff! I am going to try to rope TroyJaqua or Russell Senior into this.

802.11 Physical Layer: 802.11 without all the boring MAC stuff. Spread-spectrum techniques and Digital modulation.

OpenWGT/OpenWRT Fun: How to make off-the-shelf embedded hardware run linux and do useful things. OpenWGTStumbler, OpenWGTRepeater, OpenWGTNode.

Linux: Introduction to linux. Some history and discussion of software-freeness is a must. Can we get the FreeGeek people or PLUG to do this one?

Field Day 2006 - Abusing 802.11: A short documentary on the Personal telco field-day and how we tried (and succeeded) at making 802.11 do something it should never be able to do.

TCP/IP Networking: TCP/IP, the 7 layer view, network components. Previously taught at: PersonalTelcoUniversityFall2004.

Network Maintanence: How to use tools like Cacti and Nagios to maintain a healthy network. Previously taught at: PersonalTelcoUniversityFall2004.

MIT OpenCourseWare Overlap

[http://ocw.mit.edu MIT OpenCourseWare] was a direct inspiration for this project. If at all possible, we would like to make use of thier content instead of overlapping it - no reason to reinvent the wheel, afterall. After looking, it appears that there isn't much overlap. Here are applicable classes, none of which contain audio or video, only (quite detailed) lecture notes:

Class

Overlaps/Complements

Media Available

[http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-263JData-Communication-NetworksFall2002/CourseHome/index.htm Data Communication Networks]

Overlaps with "TCP/IP Networking"

Lecture Notes, Problem Sets

[http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Engineering-Systems-Division/ESD-68JSpring-2006/CourseHome/index.htm Communications and Information Policy]

Complements "About Personal Telco"

Lecture Notes, Readings List, Assignments

[http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Aeronautics-and-Astronautics/16-36Communication-Systems-EngineeringSpring2003/CourseHome/index.htm Communications Systems Engineering]

Complements "802.11 PHY" and "Radio Physics"

Lecture Notes, Problem Sets

[CategoryEducation]