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Thread: Free wifi?

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    Senior Member Dreaming's Avatar
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    Free wifi?

    I'm thinking, with high speed broadband now available, I don't see why technically, people can't allocate up to 20kb/s of that to a wifi network that anyone in range can use?

    I mean, of course nobody would be under an obligation. But can you imagine if people are paying £30 a month and are at work? If 5 people near a coffee shop put it on, free internet. It would make the internet truly mobile. It wouldn't be done on a credit system, it would be freely offered.

    There's the security issue, not sure about how you'd get round that. Afterall, you don't want someone downloading warez or worse through your connection.

    T&Cs generally stipulate you're not allowed to do this, but that's just so more people pay more money.

    I just think though, imagine that wherever you are there would be a couple of free wifi hotspots. Social revolution kind of thing.

    I'm sure skype were doing something like this with a partner, but it was very faffy and not brilliant. I think the best places for this kind of thing would be built up areas, like cities. You could be in a taxi and read your email using Mr & Mrs Jones wifi connection whilst Mrs Jones has gone to work and Mr Jones is picking up the kids from school!

    There's so much 'more' to go round, I don't know why we don't share. Technically I don't have the knowhow, and the fact I can't control what people might download bothers me. But it does seem a shame when it's quite technically feasible to share.

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    Drop it like it's hot Howard's Avatar
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    Re: Free wifi?

    You can do a good job of content filtering with some sort of proxy server

    The internet is so readily available that I don't see why city-wide free wifi isn't yet available. It probably will be before long. Or at least with a small subscription fee. I'm not talking about BT Openworld or whatever their occasional wifi spots are, I mean reception all over major cities etc
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    WEEEEEEEEEEEEE! MadduckUK's Avatar
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    Re: Free wifi?

    http://www.fon.com/en/

    ?works something like, if you let people share yours then you can use there's.
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    Agent of the System ikonia's Avatar
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    Re: Free wifi?

    why in the world would I pay £X per month to offer free internet connection to random people ?
    It is Inevitable.....


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    Re: Free wifi?

    Quote Originally Posted by ikonia View Post
    why in the world would I pay £X per month to offer free internet connection to random people ?
    The idea is that if lots of people do it then you would be able to get the internet as you roamed about too. So you're not paying £X/month to give away net, more giving away a small portion of your internet so you can get free internet when you're roaming, it's called sharing.
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    Re: Free wifi?

    Simply from the security point of view, I'm not letting just anybody onto any part of my broadband connection. Nor, for that matter, am I connecting my laptop to just any old network when I'm out and about. Personally, a roaming internet connection isn't of much importance to me, and I'd rather pay for a facility i can secure properly.

    Would Dreaming's idea work, generally? Probably. But there's no way I'd participate, either by using such a shared facility or by helping to provide it.

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    YUKIKAZE arthurleung's Avatar
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    Re: Free wifi?

    Not when most ISPs have usage limit, 20KB/s sustained still equates to almost 60GB a month!

    Still, why use wifi when there is 3G (GPRS/HSDPA? Whatever). You get more coverage and no worry about security.
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    Agent of the System ikonia's Avatar
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    Re: Free wifi?

    the idea is honourable, and yes I know what sharing is, I contibute freely to a large varity of work.

    However when security is a factor both incoming and out going, most people have limited broadband bandwidth, the setup would be very complex and most people on high speed broadband are getting half of their maximum, I'm not paying X per month to give my connection away. ISP's provide this service with SLA for a cost. I'll pay for the service
    It is Inevitable.....


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    Re: Free wifi?

    Even if I VLAN traffic seperately to the internet gateway itself - eliminating some security issues, and having an LLU line... arent I responsible for what originates from my IP address?

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    Re: Free wifi?

    Quote Originally Posted by javalord View Post
    Even if I VLAN traffic seperately to the internet gateway itself - eliminating some security issues, and having an LLU line... arent I responsible for what originates from my IP address?
    most probably

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    Senior Member Dreaming's Avatar
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    Re: Free wifi?

    Quote Originally Posted by arthurleung View Post
    Not when most ISPs have usage limit, 20KB/s sustained still equates to almost 60GB a month!

    Still, why use wifi when there is 3G (GPRS/HSDPA? Whatever). You get more coverage and no worry about security.
    Cost really. Data allowances are a bit spartan.

    We're techheads, mainly aren't we on hexus. It cna't be *that* expesive to implement a free roaming citywide wifi network for a local council. Somewhere did it already, possibly norwich but I can;t remember lol.

    I wouldn't do it because I don't want someone downloading kiddy nasty stuff through my connection.

    But, just the idea is so awesome that if everyone did it you'd be able to walk nearly anywhere and have access to unlimited, free information. It's just a thought anyway, with the amount of bandwidth you use for example browsing one webpage, which could have important information that couldn't easily be accessed otherwise, and that bandwidth is freely available all around you... seems a waste.

    But, it's just an idealist dream, how far away are we from it, would it ever happen?

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    Agent of the System ikonia's Avatar
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    Re: Free wifi?

    its easy to do if setup properly, like the one in Norwich, which was setup by the council with infrastructure appropriate to the job, there are zones in Birmingham and London that also work the same, as do all the great western train stations, however thats different to what your suggesting which is a group of strangers strart offering a wifi net from their internet connection, which would be a living hell to setup, administrator and run.

    The idea is fine and simple, of done properly, ala Norwich, however "tekheads" as you call people clubbing togehter to bridge multiple ISP's into a proxy ISP for a city is too way out there to even be possible, let alone practical.
    It is Inevitable.....


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    Re: Free wifi?

    In the UK, logging onto someone else's wireless network without permission is illegal ...

    Now how would somone differentiate between freely offered connections and ones that some lazy idoot did not know how to secure ?

    There have been a few cases in the media recently, where people have been charged by the police for piggy-backing on wireless networks.

    I certainly will not be opening up my connection so that people can do god knows what on it - Again in this country, you are responsible for the usage of your connection. Leaving your network unsecured is not a get out of jail free card.

    I have a T-Mobile 3G connection for internet on the move. Yes, I pay for it ... But it gives me what I need, where I need it, when I need it, without depending on anyone else. And most importanly does not compromise my security.

    Outlook express sends most of its passwords in plain text. Anyone with a sniffer program can grab your username and password right off the air when using unsecured wireless networks.

    The only way for it to be even remotely feasible while maintaining security would be to use preprogrammed routers which keep traffic completely separate from the rest of the network as well as having encryption protocols more advanced than WEP.
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    Re: Free wifi?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sinizter View Post
    In the UK, logging onto someone else's wireless network without permission is illegal ...
    Actually, no, it isn't. Not in and of itself. Not quite.

    It is an offence (Communications Act 2003) to "piggyback" IF it is done dishonestly and with intent to avoid any relevant payments.

    But to be convicted of that, the 'dishonest' element must be proven, as must the "intent".

    See s.125 :-

    (1) A person who—

    (a) dishonestly obtains an electronic communications service, and

    (b) does so with intent to avoid payment of a charge applicable to the provision of that service,

    is guilty of an offence.
    Similarly, the Computer Misuse Act (s.1) places a similar burden of proof on causing a computer to perform actions :-

    1 Unauthorised access to computer material

    (1) A person is guilty of an offence if—

    (a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer;

    (b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorised; and

    (c) he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that that is the case.
    Although the wording is slightly different, part c) makes it clear that there must be intent to access a system without permission.


    Just to be clear .... I'm not saying that accessing someone else's wifi link is legal, just that it's not cut-and-dried illegal either. For most serious offences, that element of 'intent' is usually required. You can't even commit theft without intent, because theft requires that appropriation of property is both dishonest and with "intent" to permanently deprive the rightful owner. There are offences (like drink-driving, or speeding) that are strict liability offences, where no intent is required and merely doing the act is enough, but by and large, 'intent' is a necessary element of criminal offences. Of course, exactly what constitutes "intent" is a huge legal can of worms and has been intensively argued about for decades

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