Category: Wireless

I Will Best You, Mr. Dunker!

Lorin Olsen

It’s been an interesting few weeks for me.  As I noted a few posts ago, I’ve been using my Droid (and Wigle.net‘s Android tools) to do a little war-biking.  As of this evening, I’ve found over 5,000 new access points around my travelling routes (see the map above).  And it has been a heck of  lot of fun.
I’ve done more pedaling in the last month than I’ve done in the previous year.  And with the various pieces of tech I’m playing with, I can really see where I’ve been.  Anyone watching my blog can tell when I’ve ridden a new route.  And I can tell the difference in my attitude and my energy levels.  Of course, I’ve also found that I’m having more 2PM bouts of drowsiness.  Too bad I can’t exploit caffeine any longer.
I’ll provide a final tally for the month in a few days.  But between now and then, please know that I am having fun mapping WiFi access points in Johnson County, Kansas.  I won’t catch up with Google’s “StreetView” numbers, but I am within striking distance of Noah.  Of course, when he did most of his war-driving, he was in a car delivering pizza – and every AP he ran across was new.  In my case, I am only picking up the new radios that have not been previously loaded into Wigle.net’s database.  But I am determined to best you, Mr. Dunker!
-Roo

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DoubleTwist = Android Sync + Markets

Lorin Olsen


A few years ago, a fellow named Jon Johansen (aka, DVD Jon) exploded onto the scene with some really cool technology: he released DeCSS as a means to “liberate” DVD films from onerous copy protection.  I don’t want to go through the legal and moral arguments that his actions provoked.  But later, he became more legit when he helped to form DoubleTwist.
When DoubleTwist first hit the market, it was a means of decrypting iTunes music files for use by other applications on your PC.  This meant that it was a very speculative venture.  First, it was taking aim at folks who were ostensibly “protecting” musicians and their copyrighted works.  Second, the folks who needed decrypted versions of music (on their desktops) were a limited community: most of them were using songs that they had purchased as input to other programs (e.g., DVD authoring tools, etc).  So while I tried the product, I decided to buy music from Amazon instead.  So until recently, DoubleTwist was cool – but not very useful for me.
But Jon & Co. have finally pulled together a more expansive reason for DoubleTwist: syncing media with Android devices.  DoubleTwist is now a free product that can sync any (or all) of your iTunes files with your Android device.  The product is free to use.  So DoubleTwist is making its money in a different way – it is now a distribution channel and an advertising platform.  For those that have an Android device, you can buy apps from within DoubleTwist.  And you can also buy music and movies from Amazon through the DoubleTwist tool.
So the way that you can legitimize a hacking tool (that decrypts protected media) is to become a media intermediary.  I am sure that DoubleTwist is giving the media “market” owners a “cut” of their business.  That way, a previously offensive technology is now legitimized.
But is it a good tool?  After a few hours of playing with the tool, I am thrilled to have a free tool like this.  Yes, you can buy tools to sync with Android phones.  But I am happy to recommend this tool.  It syncs the music I want to sync.  It scrobbles to Last.fm.  It allows you to set songs as ringtones.  It also downloads and displays album art with ease.  After a few more weeks, I may revise and extend the recommendation.  But for now, I give DoubleTwist a qualified “thumbs up” on the Roo-meter.
-Roo

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What Does Your Wife Think About Wardriving?

Lorin Olsen

For those who have read my blog for any amount of time, you already know that I am oddly fascinated with security.  Am I a certified information security professional?  No, I am not – at least, not yet.  Nevertheless, I have been fascinated by both the techniques and the ethics of hackers.
And that fascination is nothing new.  I installed my first WiFi access point last century.  And I have had WiFi access within my home ever since.  I did my first “war-walking” through my neighborhood in 2002.  Then, I had a laptop an a PCMCIA card.  And it was fun to know just how few of my neighbors had installed WiFi into their houses.  Those that had taken the plunge were woefully under-secured.
But things sure have changed in the last decade.  Now, over half of my neighbors also have WiFi.  And more importantly, most have some form of security on their networks.  At the same time, the tools I use have also changed.  I now have a Droid 2 phone.  And I am using tools like Wardrive and Wigle Wifi.
I have done two simple “wardriving” runs since I got my Droid 2.  The first was on a car drive coming home from work.  The second was on a bike ride to work.  What fascinated me was just how many access points I found within such a small area.  And more startling was the fact that I had found a thousand “new” access points and networks.  [Note: “New” means that wigle.net did not have a record of this device at the specific GPS coordinates that I provided.]
After a very long day yesterday, I decided not to ride my bike home.  I just didn’t have the heart to fight traffic after eleven hours at work.  So I rode home with my wife.  And I talked to her about my day.  When I told her that I had done some wardriving, she was appalled.
As a geek, I was perplexed by her response.  When I was riding my bike and collecting data, I was just inventorying the packets that were available from the street.  And I was not even trying to probe the defenses of these networks.  I was just cataloging the packets that my phone collected as I rode by.  Nevertheless, my wife thought that I was doing something nefarious.  I bristled at her “lack of understanding” of the simple and innocuous inventory I had collected.
But after several hours of thinking about her comments, I think I can understand her objection.  Most of the people that have WiFi access points have no idea about computer security, licensed and unlicensed RF spectrum, existing law (in the form of local, state and federal statutes) or even the curiosity of hackers.  What these users are doing is simple: they are using their home systems to perform simple tasks.  And they are expecting a certain degree of privacy – even if they are doing the equivalent of electromagnetically shouting through their windows.  Basically, people are assuming and expecting privacy.  And to collect their carelessly scattered packets is a violation of an implicit trust arrangement.
But was I a party to that trust arranggement?  No, I was not.  Nor were these people’s neighbors party to any such agreement – either implicit or explicit.  Nor was Google a party to this implicit agreement.
Nevertheless, I can hear my wife blaming Google as well as blaming myself.  Is she right?  As a geek, I scream my objections to her misunderstanding.  But when I really consider her argument, she may very well have a point.  Yes, these people are ignorantly casting their data out into the air and onto the streets.  And I willingly picked up that data.  Am I attempting penetration of their networks?  Of course I’m not doing that.  But I am sifting through the junk they are throwing out.
I’ve come to a simple conclusion: I wasn’t “wardriving” at all.  Instead, I was doing the equivalent of electronic dumpster diving.  They are leaving important trash un-shredded.  And I am rummaging through their ignorance.
Should I stop collecting such small and insignificant packets?  After all, I am not doing anything illegal.  Nevertheless, I must now carefully consider my wife’s thoughts before I do my next “wardriving” run.
And even more importantly, I must rethink whether or not this activity become illegal/immoral when someone like Google does it.  It may be tenable when it is done by a lone and curious geek.  But does it become something more “sinister” when it is done by a large and “menacing” corporation?   I don’t know.  But I’ll have to think about it.  What are your thoughts on the matter?
-Roo

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Secure Access…On the Go

Lorin Olsen


For the past few years, I’ve enjoyed the ability to log onto my home system while I’ve been at work.  The process was simple: I would launch PuTTY from my USB drive.  From there, I’d set up a encrypted tunnel through my router to my primary home system.  I would then use a VNC client to tunnel my desktop access through SSH.  But all of that changed when I started my new job.
At my new employer, I was no longer able to use SSH to access my home system.  I totally understand why port 22 was blocked.  But I really didn’t want to start tunneling stuff through DNS.  Fortunately, my new phone provided the answer to my need for desktop access.  After doing a bunch of research, I decided that I would use ConnectBot and androidVNC on my Android phone.
But there are always hiccups when doing something new.  At first, I had trouble with public key encryption to my home system.  I would never back down from this requirement.  So I let the issue sit until I had a few more hours to fiddle with parameters.  And tonight was that time.
I tried to use my existing public keys.  But that strategy was fraught with trouble – i.e., I couldn’t get it to work.  So I decided to reverse polarity on the device.  OK, I’m not Scotty.  But I decided to generate the key on the phone (via ConnectBot) and mail the public key component to myself.  I then imported the key into WinSSHd.  Unfortunately, this didn’t solve the problem.
So more research revealed that WinSSHd only supports ‘xterm’ emulation.  So I updated my ConnectBot settings and tried yet again.  And voila, my phone could connect to my home system.  So I had a command prompt.  And everything looked good.  But the job wasn’t done yet.  I wanted full screen access.  So it was time to do more research.
It was easy to set PuTTY up on my desktop.  I just needed to find out where the options were in the ConnectBot tool.  Enter the work of Wayne Perg.  His excellent tutorial pointed me to the port forwarding directives in ConnectBot.  Within a few minutes, I reconfigured androidVNC.  I am now able control my desktop from my phone.
Folks, technology is fantastic.  And it is even more fantastic when you can find the answers to your questions through the previous work of others.  If there is one thing I can still teach my kids, I hope that I can help them to use Google (or other search engines) to find real answers.  The truth is out there.
-Roo

A Little Bit of Firmware Magic…

Lorin Olsen


My Droid 2 is one month old.  And up until a few minutes ago, I was happy but not ecstatic.  That’s because I could never connect my D2 up to my home WiFi network.  Since this wasn’t my number one priority, I let the situation fester until I had a few moments – and a need to have more bandwidth at home.
Well, the time came tonight.  I had a few hours and I have been toying with the idea of rooting the D2.  I haven’t done that yet.  If I do, you will be the first folks I tell.  But I knew that if I wanted to do his, I’d need to download a lot of stuff to the phone.  So the guantlet was thrown down and I eagerly picked it up.
I did the simple stuff first:

  • I turned off MAC filtering as I didn’t know what MAC address my phone used.
  • I enabled SSID broadcasts.
  • I stepped down my default encryption to WPA.

None of these solved the problem.  So I started to do some research.  Unfortunately, there was nothing obvious in Google about DD-WRT incompatibilities that prevented Motorola D2 devices from connecting.
But I did see enough to make me scratch my head.  I thought, “what if the beta build I was using was to blame for the inability to connect.”  So I went to the DD-WRT site and noted that I was on an April test build.  I grabbed the latest build (i.e., 14896 from August).  And what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a connected D2 and a wh0le lot more cheer.  Folks, I truly love being able to research my own problems and solve them myself.  This is what systems analysis is all about.
BTW, it really is nice to have so much more bandwidth for the phone.  I can’t wait for 4G to become ubiquitous.
-Roo
 

What’s On Your Home Screen

Lorin Olsen

Now that I have a smartphone of my very own, it’s time to highlight what is on my home screen.  But before I do that, I need to note how I got the screen capture.

For those who have rooted their system, the process of a screen capture is quite simple.  But for those who are still clinging to a stock firmware build (like me), the process is slightly different. Nevertheless, the process is relatively straightforward.  You need to update your device driver on the computer system that will be connected to your phone.  Then you need to download and install the Android SDK.  Finally, you need to make sure you update your copy of the Java Development Kit.  [Note: The current Java build as I write this is JDK SE 1.6.21.]  The entire process is fully documented over at Simple Help.  And the results of my first screen capture are shown above.

So what do I have on my home screen?  Well the current favorite apps are as follows:

Location-based tools: Navigation (from Google), Places Directory (from Google), Yelp, and Foursquare.

  • With Navigation, my phone can literally answer the question of “Where Do I Want To Go Today?”  And it can tell me how to get there.
  • I use Places and Yelp to find cool places to visit and explore.  Places is very simplistic.  But its simple approach saves time when you’re in a hurry.  And for those times when you absolutely, positively need to know everything that is around you, Yelp is an astonishingly good tool to find all the hidden things that are close by.  Finally, I am like many techophiles.
  • I use Foursquare to tell folks where I am.  And I have fun trying to be the mayor of someplace other than my household.

Messaging Tools: Google Voice (from Google), GMail (from Google), Text Messaging (from Google), and Seesmic.

  • I use Google Voice for all my voice integration needs.  Indeed, it is my voicemail – even for the mobile phone itself.
  • As everyone know, GMail is my email client.  I love and use it for everything – including integrating other mailboxes across the net.
  • I used Text Messaging for just that: texting.  For the most part, SMS messaging is a dying art.  But my kids still use it a great deal.  I use Google Voice for most of my SMS needs.  But if someone does send an SMS message to my carrier, this app fills the bill.
  • Finally, I use Seesmic as my main tool for Twitter.  Have I used other tools?  Of course I have.  But Seesmic is always current.  It allows me to integrate multiple Twitter accounts.  And it look quite good.

Commerce-related Tools: Mobile Banking (from BoA, of course), Barcode Scanner (from Google), AppBrain, and Google Goggles (from Google).

  • I like having instant access to my bank statement.  So the banking app is self-explanatory.
  • The barcode scanner allows me to read UPC codes and determine the best prices in my local area.  It also reads QR codes.  So you can point your phone at a QR code and jump to the URL embedded within the code.
  • The AppBrain tool is an excellent market system for Android apps. It won’t replace the Android market. But AppBrain has a great review system to go along with the software inventory it houses.
  • Finally, I do use Google Googles to take pictures of things and see what the web has to say about the things that I snap pictures of.

Words and Thoughts: Dolphin Browser, Congress (from Sunlight Foundation), Kindle (from Amazon) and DailyBible (from Joansoft).

  • The Dolphin Browser runs circles around the basic Android browser.  When I needed to download an email attachment whose extension wasn’t registered, the basic browser failed while Dolphin succeeded.
  • Congress is an exceptional app that can tell you how your representatives are doing in Washington.  You can see pending and passed laws.  You can see what your Congressman or Senator has done.  And you can get their direct phone number – and call them directly.
  • The Kindle app is an excellent tool for e-reading.  For me, I have downloaded a few important books – but not my whole library.  For that, I still need my Kindle.
  • Finally, I use DailyBible to ensure that I geta great Bible verse to start each and every day.

There are a few other apps that I should note.  First, I use NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for my screen saver.  I use ConnectBot to securely log into my servers at home.  I use Astro to perform miscellaneous file management tasks.  I use the Astrid Task Manager for my day-to-day task entry. I use Google Sky Map for really cool nighttime star-gazing. I use Pandora for streaming music. Finally, I use Shazam for recognizing music and buying miscellaneous songs while I’m on the go.

All in all, my Droid 2 is getting a good workout.  I’ve even updated the SD card already.  This is so reminiscent of PC systems in the nineties.  It’s kind of like the wild west and Star Trek – all at the same time.  I guess that means that the first movie I must play on my phone will be Joss Whedon’s “Serenity.”

-Roo

What's On Your Home Screen

Lorin Olsen


Now that I have a smartphone of my very own, it’s time to highlight what is on my home screen.  But before I do that, I need to note how I got the screen capture.
For those who have rooted their system, the process of a screen capture is quite simple.  But for those who are still clinging to a stock firmware build (like me), the process is slightly different. Nevertheless, the process is relatively straightforward.  You need to update your device driver on the computer system that will be connected to your phone.  Then you need to download and install the Android SDK.  Finally, you need to make sure you update your copy of the Java Development Kit.  [Note: The current Java build as I write this is JDK SE 1.6.21.]  The entire process is fully documented over at Simple Help.  And the results of my first screen capture are shown above.
So what do I have on my home screen?  Well the current favorite apps are as follows:
Location-based tools: Navigation (from Google), Places Directory (from Google), Yelp, and Foursquare.

  • With Navigation, my phone can literally answer the question of “Where Do I Want To Go Today?”  And it can tell me how to get there.
  • I use Places and Yelp to find cool places to visit and explore.  Places is very simplistic.  But its simple approach saves time when you’re in a hurry.  And for those times when you absolutely, positively need to know everything that is around you, Yelp is an astonishingly good tool to find all the hidden things that are close by.  Finally, I am like many techophiles.
  • I use Foursquare to tell folks where I am.  And I have fun trying to be the mayor of someplace other than my household.

Messaging Tools: Google Voice (from Google), GMail (from Google), Text Messaging (from Google), and Seesmic.

  • I use Google Voice for all my voice integration needs.  Indeed, it is my voicemail – even for the mobile phone itself.
  • As everyone know, GMail is my email client.  I love and use it for everything – including integrating other mailboxes across the net.
  • I used Text Messaging for just that: texting.  For the most part, SMS messaging is a dying art.  But my kids still use it a great deal.  I use Google Voice for most of my SMS needs.  But if someone does send an SMS message to my carrier, this app fills the bill.
  • Finally, I use Seesmic as my main tool for Twitter.  Have I used other tools?  Of course I have.  But Seesmic is always current.  It allows me to integrate multiple Twitter accounts.  And it look quite good.

Commerce-related Tools: Mobile Banking (from BoA, of course), Barcode Scanner (from Google), AppBrain, and Google Goggles (from Google).

  • I like having instant access to my bank statement.  So the banking app is self-explanatory.
  • The barcode scanner allows me to read UPC codes and determine the best prices in my local area.  It also reads QR codes.  So you can point your phone at a QR code and jump to the URL embedded within the code.
  • The AppBrain tool is an excellent market system for Android apps. It won’t replace the Android market. But AppBrain has a great review system to go along with the software inventory it houses.
  • Finally, I do use Google Googles to take pictures of things and see what the web has to say about the things that I snap pictures of.

Words and Thoughts: Dolphin Browser, Congress (from Sunlight Foundation), Kindle (from Amazon) and DailyBible (from Joansoft).

  • The Dolphin Browser runs circles around the basic Android browser.  When I needed to download an email attachment whose extension wasn’t registered, the basic browser failed while Dolphin succeeded.
  • Congress is an exceptional app that can tell you how your representatives are doing in Washington.  You can see pending and passed laws.  You can see what your Congressman or Senator has done.  And you can get their direct phone number – and call them directly.
  • The Kindle app is an excellent tool for e-reading.  For me, I have downloaded a few important books – but not my whole library.  For that, I still need my Kindle.
  • Finally, I use DailyBible to ensure that I geta great Bible verse to start each and every day.

There are a few other apps that I should note.  First, I use NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for my screen saver.  I use ConnectBot to securely log into my servers at home.  I use Astro to perform miscellaneous file management tasks.  I use the Astrid Task Manager for my day-to-day task entry. I use Google Sky Map for really cool nighttime star-gazing. I use Pandora for streaming music. Finally, I use Shazam for recognizing music and buying miscellaneous songs while I’m on the go.
All in all, my Droid 2 is getting a good workout.  I’ve even updated the SD card already.  This is so reminiscent of PC systems in the nineties.  It’s kind of like the wild west and Star Trek – all at the same time.  I guess that means that the first movie I must play on my phone will be Joss Whedon’s “Serenity.”
-Roo

Wireless Security, In My Chest

Lorin Olsen


Tomorrow is the big day.  I will be getting a new implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD).  It’s been almost eight years since my original implantation.  So technology has changed.  As noted before, I’ll be getting a Medtronic Virtuoso.  And this device comes equipped with wireless management technology.
The potential benefits of using wireless technologies in this application are staggering.  During implantation, there is no need to put anything in the sterile field except the doctor’s hands and the device that will be implanted.  And I’m already using Medtronics remote care and management services (trademarked as CareLink).  But the latest generation of CareLink will allow the doctor to obtain vital information almost immediately.
But the benefits aren’t without downside risks.  First and foremost, I wonder what it would take to hack this new device.  Using the MICS frequencies helps; I won’t be subject to WiFi hacking!  😉  But if I ever become famous or important, I wonder just how high the barrier would be to hijacking either the “information channel” or the “control channel” for this device.  I give Medtronic a great deal of credit for addressing these matters.  But I wonder how safe these systems truly are.
In candor, if someone wants my data, there are easier points of attack.  First, my cardiac data is on traditional computing systems managed by Medtronic.  And the data will be available from my CareLink unit, the data in my cardiologists office and also at Medtronic’s facility.  It would be far easier to hack these systems (either via frontal assaults or via social engineering) than it would be to directly hack the source of my data (i.e., the device in my chest).  And I’m sure that there are plenty of people that handle my data such that social engineering assaults are both plausible and low-cost.
But as of tomorrow, my abstract concerns become practical considerations.  Here’s hoping that none of my teenage neighbors get any fanciful ideas about hacking my heart! 😉  I just wish that I could add a few layers of additional security.  For example, I  would require using a VPN to access my device.  And my device would only be  accessible via an additional token of my choosing (and via a CA I choose).  But I really don’t want to see if this is possible as it would strip the veneer of confidence that I’ve meticulously constructed!
-Roo

Whose Leash Is It? – Mobile Phone Development

Lorin Olsen


A few weeks ago, my brother-in-law asked if I would be interested in developing an iPhone application for him.  I won’t explain the app or its details as that would violate the NDA that I am under. 😉  Nevertheless, I thought that this might be fun as I haven’t played with Apple’s development platform since 1995.
Well, Apple hasn’t changed.  It appears that their goal is to lock you in a comfortable room and make sure you never leave – even if you can’t afford to stay.  In order to build an iPhone app, you need to use Apple tools.  That started off simply enough.  I tried to put together a Cygwin environment on my Windows 7 system.  After a few days, I did have a working environemnt that I could build Unix apps on.  But the iPhone SDK isn’t just any old Unix environment.  It absolutely needs Mac OS X – and OS X 10.5.3 for good measure.
I don’t have a Mac.  So I figured that I could put together a development environment using VirtualBox or VMWare.  And if you have enough patience (and can find the right image files) you can run OS X 10.5.2 (through 10.5.5) from within a VMWare host.  But to do it legally, you need to buy a license for the OS as well as purchase the iPhone SDK.  Before I plunked down any coin of the realm, I had to try it out first.  And after a couple of weeks of tinkering, I found that I could indeed build a virtual environment that would run the iPhone SDK.
But performance was labored.  And to do it properly, you really need VMWare Workstation (not VMWare Player).  So the final cost for putting all of this together would have been a couple of hundred dollars.  But you can get a Mac Mini for a few hundred bucks.  And with that, you can remote onto a head-less device that is more than adequate for compiling the code.  So I would need a few hundred dollars if I went via VM and a few hundred dollars for a fully functioning Apple hardware platform.
But that is just for starters.  Add to that the cost of the iPhone (or iPod Touch) and the cost of the service contract.   And when you are done, you have access to one platform on one carrier.  In my mind, that is both a fully closed and a highly distasteful investment.
As a former Sprint employee, I had always hoped that Sprint would be the team that would bring forth the best and brightest from a cool new platform.  I was wrong.  Verizon has brought a solid contender into view with the Moto Droid.  And they have brought the marketing pizazz that the Android platform really needed.  So I started wondering what it would take to bring together a functioning development platform.
After being disheartened by the cost of an iPhone development platform I  was thrilled at what I found when constructing the Android development platform.  First, I needed the SDK.  Low and behold, the SDK could run on any platform that would support C/C++.  And the SDK was free.
And the reference platform for the IDE is Eclipse – which is also freely available.  Being a former Java developer, I had no problems getting re-acquainted.  I downloaded Eclipse and then downloaded the Android Development Tools (ADT).  All along the way, these investments required no financial outlays.  And the Android platform even included an interpreter so that I could do rudimentary testing – even w/o the hardware.
So here is the bottom-line.  The iPhone costs some serious scratch in order to have the privilege of being locked onto a single hardware provider and a single carrier.  On the other hand, Android’s barriers to entry are negligible.  I put together a functioning testbed in a couple of hours – including the download time.  And once done, I have a platform where I can build apps for any carrier and any number of hardware providers.
Indeed, this reminds me of the Apple-Microsoft PC wars of the nineties.   Will Apple ever learn from their mistakes?  And will developers choose to be on yet another vendor-dictated leash?
-Roo

Chrome: More Than A Browser – Less Than A Desktop

Lorin Olsen


Take a look at the picture above.  What do you see? Here’s a quick summary:

  • That’s Windows 7 running on my system. Yeah, it’s the release candidate as I haven’t upgraded to the GA version – yet.
  • You see Tweetdeck. While I like other clients, I can’t quite swallow the Seesmic brew that includes Silverlight.
  • You also see a Chrome browser. I like a lot of things about the Chrome browser.  But oddly enough, I still have to use Firefox to edit my posts to WordPress.
  • While hidden by a few windows, you also see Windows Media Center.
  • For those who are looking carefully at the task bar, you see an icon for Eclipse.  I’m using that for my Android development environment.
  • Sun’s VirtualBox is running.  You see it running on the desktop.  And you see several operating systems images.
  • One of those operating systems is the Chrome OS.  And that VM is running.  In the image, you’ll see what looks like a Chrome browser.  There’s a tab for GMail and a tab for GCal.  You’ll also see the Start/Welcome tab.  There’s a pretty good chess game and there are a lot of web apps.

So what is Chrome? Is it a desktop? Nope.  Is it just a browser? Nope.  It IS a down-payment on Google’s gambit to move people from desktop apps to cloud/network services.  And it is a completely open framework for new innovation.
Will it win? Well, it won’t displace Windows on new system sales – at least, not yet.  Will it be the platform for netbooks? Maybe.  But they may be fighting against Android for that honor.
But unlike other desktop contenders, this offering is not designed for a head-to-head fight with Windows.  Unlike Safari and Mac OS X, this platform is not seeking to be another desktop in the fight.  Rather, it seeks to move the battlefield to an entirely new venue.  This is the same fight that Sun started with the NC (i.e., the “Network Computer”).  But Sun had no traction in the consumer marketplace.  And they saw meager penetration in the enterprise space.
But Chrome OS is the inheritor of a unique phenomenon; some of the best technologies are a redux of something that was already in existence.  MP3 players existed for quite some time before the iPod arrived.  The Apple iPod won because it captured the consumer imagination.  In the same way, Chrome OS is a redux of things we’ve seen before.  Can Google transform a moribund market for network computing?  I sure hope that they will.  But they will need a spark for that to happen.  In the mobile phone industry, I think that the Verizon Droid may be the spark needed for Android’s explosion into the market.
In a very strange way, Chrome OS’ real competitors maybe the netbooks and wireless platforms like Android.
-Roo