Personal Telco University DVD
This is a place to plan and document the PTPU-DVD.
History
PersonalTelcoUniversity was a program started under DarrenEdin'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.
- Make a list of possible classes
Check for usable material on MIT's OpenCourseware et al.
- Get people to agree to teach them (PTP members and local 'talent')
- Determine logistics
- Where
- How
- What equipment
- When
- Who
- What topics
- Compile a good camera and some equipment
- Shoot a bunch of video
- Edit the video
- Get an initial copy of the material out for review, collect feedback
- More editing in response to feedback
- Put on a DVD, pass it out, get more feedback
- Make a final copy
- Make lots-o-copies and give one to anyone who wants one
Classes
An evolving list of classes which may be featured on the DVD.
Topic |
Teacher |
Confirmed |
Scheduled |
Filmed |
Edited |
About PersonalTelco |
your name here |
no |
no |
no |
no |
Site Survey |
your name here |
no |
no |
no |
no |
About Wireless Networks |
your name here |
no |
no |
no |
no |
Operational Security |
your name here |
no |
no |
no |
no |
PersonalTelco Node Maintenance |
your name here |
no |
no |
no |
no |
PersonalTelco Node Construction |
your name here |
no |
no |
no |
no |
Basic Radio Physics |
your name here |
no |
no |
no |
no |
802.11 Physical Layer |
your name here |
no |
no |
no |
no |
Basic Digital Communications |
your name here |
no |
no |
no |
no |
OpenWRT/OpenWGT |
your name here |
no |
no |
no |
no |
Linux |
your name here |
no |
no |
no |
no |
Abusing 802.11 |
your name here |
no |
no |
no |
no |
Class Descriptions
About PersonalTelco: Previously taught by DarrinEden. 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.
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.).
PersonalTelco Node Maintenance: Coverage of some of the tools we use to maintain nodes, and whatever else the instructor thinks is worth noting about the feed and care of a PTP Node.
PersonalTelco Node Construction: Previously taught by AaronBaer. Walk through using Builder to setup a typical Debian-based captive portal. How will this work with non-anonymous Subversion access? Is this topic out of date?
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.
Basic Digital Communications: Modulation and demodulation. Fourier stuff.
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?
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.