International Space Station gets WiFi, 404 errors very likely

We knew the US military was looking to hook up space with a WLAN router, and lo and behold, WiFi has finally launched well above the stratosphere. According to a status log from the International Space Station over the weekend, the Joint Station LAN network was transitioned to "new Netgear wireless APs, which provide the ISS with WiFi connectivity." The official report details the crew using it for very official and politically correct things (you know, testing and whatnot), but we're pretty darn sure a deathmatch or two went down as well. Or maybe those guys we saw yesterday just had some sort of gravity hack going on...

[Via Slashdot, image courtesy of LowPings]

[From My Cube @ Sep 8th 2008 7:35AM]

*attempts to use can-tenna to steal free wifi

[j_g_puff @ Sep 8th 2008 8:06AM]

In space, no-one can complain if you switch to 40MHz channel-bonding mode...

[OneLove @ Sep 8th 2008 2:17PM]

Just in time to record "prison break"

[loop @ Sep 8th 2008 7:44AM]

wireless...blah...bad ping times...they should stick to gaming on the hard wired lan

[Thi mam(kris120890) @ Sep 8th 2008 7:46AM]

Porn in space, The final frontier


da da da duh da da duh da duh


We meet aliens for the first time only to find out they've been piggy backing the space station wifi connection and watching our porn...................the dirty bastards.


send em a opy of cod4 and xbox 360.

[Platinum_Skeet @ Sep 8th 2008 4:27PM]

Thanks man I needed laugh... That was epic...lol

[Adrian @ Sep 8th 2008 7:50AM]

Here's to hoping that the SSID is something like "SKYNET"

[k3n85 @ Sep 8th 2008 11:54AM]

haha that would be the best!

[a ham sandwich @ Sep 8th 2008 1:43PM]

plus one internets for you good sir

[ka1axy73 @ Sep 8th 2008 9:03AM]

Who's going to win the prize for first successful connection from earth to ISS?

[teetdogs @ Sep 8th 2008 8:11AM]

They are really trusting the ISS wifi to a Netgear AP that seems odd and kinda cheap, you would think they would want something a little less consumer grade and go with something enterprise I.E. Cisco.

[Macro @ Sep 8th 2008 8:17AM]

Maybe they wanna reset it every day! ha

[404 @ Sep 8th 2008 8:21AM]

What are the chances of someone trying to spoof some illegal P2P to the ISS for giggles?

I'd love to see the RIAA try to sue for that!

[Thi mam(kris120890) @ Sep 8th 2008 9:06AM]

Technically they're not in any countrie or even on earth soooooooooooooooo let me think here..........





they gonna sue em but they could fight back and tell em to sue the aliens too that have been watching through the little windows.

[Fray @ Sep 8th 2008 5:21PM]

Actually a countries territory legally extends upwards to infinity so it just depends on what country they happen to be over at the time.

[TheWakeUpCall @ Sep 8th 2008 10:44AM]

They'll need to put some encryption on that, otherwise you'll get UFOs hanging around outside stealing the wireless lol. They've spent years looking for aliens, sending out radio signals, but this is what will tell the aliens to come, they'll see porn. Would you travel millions of miles to locate the source of some dodgey radio reception?

[Raphael Salgado @ Sep 8th 2008 8:53AM]

Comcast better not bitch about the bandwidth overage. It's outer space, for Chrissake!

[Jon Doe. @ Sep 8th 2008 9:44AM]

huh....WIFI in space. Ya know. With a directional sat dish and one jacked up WIFI card you might be able to...ummm I guess the term would be Warorbit. :-D Look I just collected 32,000 access points in 5 minutes. GPS would be a problem to plot them on a map though :-D

[Mobius_1 @ Sep 8th 2008 9:45AM]

I hope they don't play too much CoD or WoW!

[Benhur @ Sep 8th 2008 10:00AM]

pleasssssssssse seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed!!!!

[Rob @ Sep 8th 2008 10:14AM]

they should try and go to one of those ip address locater websites

[linuxamp @ Sep 8th 2008 11:54PM]

It'll just say "Houston, TX"

[Jesse @ Sep 8th 2008 11:00AM]

ut3 is awesome :)

[Ron Smith @ Sep 8th 2008 11:01AM]

The ISS doe not have normal internet connection. Astronauts cannot just browse any website that they please. Pages must be requested or prepared for the crew, then mission control sends the packet up on the TDRSS network of satellites. it is more of an internet protocol network, not the real deal.

[CJ @ Sep 8th 2008 1:35PM]

spoil all the fun, whydontcha...

[jupiterthunder @ Sep 8th 2008 11:03AM]

I'm posting this phone my iPhone via vwi fi...

...from space.

[AleG @ Sep 8th 2008 1:45PM]

I wonder if they'd enable WPA2 to avoid WARDriving (or should be WARPiloting?)

[chuck @ Sep 8th 2008 1:20PM]

Probably safe from wardrivers....


Probably.

[a ham sandwich @ Sep 8th 2008 1:42PM]

this is an awesome story! bravo!

[Epif @ Sep 8th 2008 4:36PM]

Since everything has to be sent from the ISS to Earth wirelessly anyways I imagine ping would be horrible.

[Nacho PATA @ Sep 10th 2008 3:01PM]

Depends on how much do you like being fodder?