2199: Cryptic Wifi Networks

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Cryptic Wifi Networks

Title text: They actually showed up on the first scan by the first WiFi-capable device.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a Toshiba-U2187-OfficeLink-Net46UHZ. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

In the comic, a character with a knit cap is on top of a high mountain in a remote location. He sees a Wifi network name listed on his handheld device, perhaps a cellular telephone. Cryptic Wi-Fi (or Wifi) network names, called SSIDs, are the source of a joke about not knowing where the corresponding wireless router is located, suggesting they are unexplained phenomenon of some sort instead of wireless radio devices. The history of WiFi spans 20 years as a subsequent but not successor development to 1990s short-range wireless networks like Bluetooth and 1980s wireless internet broadband protocols like KA9Q. Some of earliest Internet of Things (IoT) devices, including printers and internet routers, advertised cryptic SSIDs. Humorous SSID names are not uncommon.

The name of the network displayed, called its SSID, which stands for "service set," is "Toshiba-U2187-OfficeLink-Net46UHZ" -- 33 characters long, which is one character more than are allowed. Toshiba is a multinational electronics conglomerate manufacturing many products including hundreds of different kinds of printers. Such devices often have embedded wireless access points including the manufacturer name in the SSID. Many network names contain words like Net, Office or Link. The code might indicate a model U2178 device from Toshiba named (or having an interface program named) OfficeLink, which has a sub-model number or operates on a wireless network designated 46UHZ. That "Hz" is an abbreviation for Hertz suggests that the designation may or may not have something to do with the frequency on which the transmitting device operates, or on which it wishes it might some day operate. We don't know whether the SSID is a network of more than one or just one device. While the most likely explanation might be a printer plugged in somewhere nearby, other possibilities include a television, speaker, pacemaker, refrigerator, alarm system, fashion accessory, hobby project, surveillance device, vending machine, autonomous exoskeleton, hypothetical visiting interstellar civilization, interstate power-to-gas pipeline valve, or any other "thing" in the IoT. Sometimes, the ionosphere reflects radio waves, vastly increasing the distance that they can travel to and from remote locations far from the crowded radio frequency landscapes.

Network names can be used to track the geographic locations of mobile devices, for example in the Wi-Fi positioning system. Google street view equipment records locations of networks to assist with geolocation. Spyware such as "war-drivers" collects network location information, which can be searched in tools like wigle.net. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) committee number for Wifi is 802.11. That committee is composed of sub-committees such as 802.11ad, designing the 60 GHz Multiple Gigabit Wireless System (MGWS) and 802.11ay working on multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) bandwidth enhancement. Sometimes Wifi technologies come from different committees, like IEEE 802.20. The software which produces SSID listings is administered by network communities and mesh configurations. Alternatives include bluetooth mesh networks and other ad hoc networks to provide internet connectivity services.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[A human with a knit cap and a backpack is checking his phone at the highest mountain in a mountainous landscape.]

Phone: Available WiFi Networks

Phone: Toshiba-U2187-OfficeLink-Net46UHZ

Phone: [in gray] Join other network

[Caption below the comic:]

Tech Trivia: No one actually knows what devices produce those cryptic WiFi networks. They just appear at random across the Earth's surface.

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Discussion

Reminds me of these :) BytEfLUSh (talk) 00:17, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

It would be nice to check to see if this SSID exists already (using LocationAPI.org, Combain Positioning Service, Google location services, Wiggle, etc.). Could also be interesting to track use of this SSID over time. Of course takes a while for any changes to show up in the search engines. 108.162.245.166 02:17, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the SSID is one character too long to be used :( Qwikster (talk) 02:10, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Is there a way to make a https://github.com/freifunk/openwifimap-api/blob/master/API.md query out of a URL? 162.158.255.82 14:45, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Soon those names will be e.g. "StarLink_6514". ;) Fabian42 (talk) 09:46, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Could the 46UHZ be a reference to the frequency band, i.e. 5GHz? Maybe this WiFi network was originally configured to operate on an unknown-to-us 46μHz band. 172.68.38.88 18:49, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

46 microHz would be in the submarine communications area. Unlikely to exist on a mountain top. 162.158.123.199 (talk) 10:23, 8 September 2019 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Furthermore, since the data transmission rate is limited by the signal frequency, a 46 microHz signal would have extremely dismal performance - many magnitudes slower than 56K dialup modems. At ~6 hours per cycle, you probably couldn't even get 1 byte of data per day. I don't think that would be useful at all! Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 20:52, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

But think of the range! 162.158.107.25 15:54, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

I live in the middle of the forest, even in the winter when there are no leaves to block the way there's only one house even within sight, and yet there are five 802.11* networks in my scan right now. I mean, they're all mine, but still...—Kazvorpal (talk) 23:09, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

"a character with a knit cap is on top of a high mountain in a remote location. He sees" How do we know that Knit Cap is a "he"? We don't, actually . . . . 162.158.214.136 12:19, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

My favorite ISP is linksys! RandalSchwartz (talk) 17:42, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Knit Cap may just have forgotten they have a Toshiba device in their backpack, set to 'hot spot' mode, so it would seem like this cryptic WiFi network is following them, making them feel spooky for no reason. -- Malgond (talk) 07:57, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

This "explanation" is mostly incomprehensible to non-tech people. Can someone create a site ExplainExplainxkcd? Or translate the jargon into English? 162.158.39.11 (talk) 04:54, 9 September 2019 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I agree the explanation has devolved into a history lesson in wireless communications, and most of the latter paragraphs are largely unnecessary. The alternate explanations paragraph seems to have grown into a list of ridiculous possibilities. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 12:43, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Ridiculous or carefully selected from mindful curation? 172.68.142.83 07:11, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Trivia could be a reference to number radio stations that were allegedly tuned on the first receivers before regular broadcasts started. I've heard such (false, obviously) claim somewhere, but cannot find it anywhere. 172.68.50.32 11:23, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

u2187 could refer to a unicode character?

That's funny, it renders on Android Chrome but not OSX Safari. 162.158.146.166 21:44, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

What is 48 UHz in lightspeed wavelength? 172.69.22.134 23:55, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

48 microhertz corresponds to a wavelength of 6,200 Gm or 41 AU.[1] The period is 4.1 per day, 5h50m or 29 per week. The alien colony ship? 172.68.46.245 22:31, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Sounds like SCP material CCCVVVA (talk) 06:07, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

User:CCCVVVA are there any SCP numbers assigned for ordinary visiting alien colony ships yet? 172.68.142.161 06:59, 29 October 2019 (UTC)