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Showing posts from September, 2013

A Fish in the Desert: Chromecast, Sniffed

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It's a rough world out there, folks.  The economy stinks (or, is great if you live in western North Dakota), finding love is harder than ever (or, easier than ever if you use online dating) and WiFi bandwidth is scarce (or, plentiful if you use the 5 GHz band).  Into this quagmire wades the Google Chromecast.  A cheap ($35 USD), little (about the size of an e-cigarette case) gadget that allows you to mirror your smartphone/tablet/computer screen to your television.  If you want to feel like a member of the 1% (at least, the top 1% of WiFi spectrum consumers), this is the gadget for you. Reviews, tutorials and takes on Google's Chromecast are plentiful, so let's skip that.  On this blog we don't care whether people like the gadget.  We care about what the gadget does to the WiFi.  Does it suck up bandwidth?  Is it chatty during down times?  Does it interfere with existing networks? Let's take the first question last ( Charles Van Doren voice).  The Chromecast w