I'm a little suspicious of this Slashdot piece on gas plasma antennae.

In theory, it sounds nifty, and not just for security. If you have an antenna that can fix the field in which it operates precisely, then you can build 802.11 home networks whose range doesn't extend off the porch, that don't go into the next yard.

However, as one Anonymous Coward wrote at Slashdot, "Oh wait. I see. It's a press release from a startup company. Never mind." Exactly.

In fact the contact for the company, Markland Technologies, is an outfit called InvestorIdeas, which isn't so much a PR firm as an outfit that creates Web sites out of whole cloth for its clients.

There are lots of scams out there, and many of them traditionally involve small public companies. Such companies have low capitalizations, so they're pretty easy to manipulate. All you need to do is light a fire under one such company, watch the suckers come in, then sell the insiders' shares for big, fat, illegal profits. It's the old game of "pump and dump."

This is not to say there aren't some good, honest businessmen and engineers in these outfits. Often, you're looking at small guys who are desperate to get to market and are willing to swim with sharks in order to do so.

I just don't like being their chum, so to speak.

Someone's getting pumped here, and I think it's y'all.