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San Francisco's Got Free Wi-Fi
Carpoolio writes "If you're living in San Francisco, chances are you can connect, for free, to the BARWN -- the Bay Area Research Wireless Network. BARWN broadcasts an 802.11 signal from the top of a big hill near San Francisco, and anyone with a clear sight line to the signal can connect. Another set of wireless nodes are being placed around town by SFLan, making Wi-Fi available to tens of thousands of people."
Free as in WIFI?
Wow, that must be some magic access point. Mine can only handle about 30 people before it's saturated. How did they overcome that limitation of 802.11b?
Hear the towers with the nodes
Wifi nodes!
What a world of merriment their melody forebodes!
How they ping, ping, ping,
In the icy net of night!
While the stars that overspring
All the heavens, seem to sing,
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically downloads
From the nodes, nodes, nodes, nodes,
Nodes, nodes, nodes -
From the jingling and the pinging of the nodes.
I'm Edgar Allen Poe, and I approve this message because it's time to take our bandwidth back.
... it will happen
According to the article, The hill has a few directional antennas that provide access to 30 or so stationary access points scattered around the area. I assume those access points also have directional antennas pointing back. This would seem to indicate that in order to get online, you have to be near one of the access points, not simply in view of the hill.
Hasn't this been on TechTV for at least a week?
Can anyone tell me the likelihood of tracking down a spammer at a laptop in a city the size of San Francisco?
I ran a benchmark on my quantum computer, now I can't find it anywhere!
It really doesn't matter if it's 802.11b, a, or g.. within minutes the connection will be slashdotted and brought to its knees.
It'll be nice when things like this become ubiquitous and someone starts manufacturing WiFi "cell" phones that use Vonnage or some such thing.
It's been my experience that iChat has near cell sound quality, so having a small hardware iChat (or whatever you use) client with 802.11b access would be pretty sweet.
Just blanket the city with this and we're set.
This is paid for by tax dollars. That doesn't make it free, it means you already pay for it with the taxes you already pay.
its about time that a major city has completely free WIFI access. hopefully this will lead to more cities providing it (and where its really necesary, like 3rd world countries)
You're operating under the premise that I pay taxes! I don't!
So, does this mean people in SF can cancel their broadband connections and go 100% WiFi?
And with these many people connecting, how is he handling IP addressing? Doesn't say anything about a dhcp server or NAT etc.....
It will be brought to it's knees from the sheer mass of freeloading P2P traffic, not to mention all the worms looking for fresh hosts to infect.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Look, no one should complain about a "free" connection, but I'm curious to know how fast the typical user's connection really is. After all, the access point has to be connected to a terrestrial data line, which has limited bandwidth. Of course, the more people find out about this, the slower it gets for everybody, right? Does anyone know if those who provide "free" wireless access have an upgrade plan to handle the additional traffic?
Most folks think spam when it comes to large wireless networks. I'm thinking P2P -- it'll be a bit tougher to trace shared music across a public wireless network than it would be on someone's home DSL connection.
Of course this could also be a haven for computers that don't have the latest patches, have print/file sharing enabled, and don't have personal firewalls activated. For those who want to run in this, be careful.
Damn commies depriving a corporation of it's God-given RIGHT to make a profit.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
It would seem that if you have a clear line of sight to multiple APs, then you could combine them and have more bandwidth than a single AP-channel connection would provide. A ganged, multi-AP setup would use directional antennas to talk to each AP without collisions. Such a setup would also help if one AP were overloaded or down for some reason. The only problem would be if all the APs you talk to were routed through some narrow pipe somewhere in the network.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
The thing about free wireless (that I love) is that it keeps the Ashcroft-types up at night worrying about anonymous "terrorist" freespeech, and it gives the telco-types and the WISP-wannabes the middleman middle finger.
Community owned and operated, adhoc wireless mesh networking will be the future of free ubiquitous access despite some peoples early attempts to coopt it. It's similar to how FedEx thought they could own the Fax business in the 80s. Can't blame 'em for trying I guess.
--
Power to the Peaceful
from the top of a big hill near San Francisco, and anyone with a clear sight line to the signal can connect. Another set of wireless nodes are being placed around town by SFLan, making Wi-Fi available to tens of thousands of people
In other news, the CDC and the Cancer Research Institute have sent observers in the city of San Francisco. When asked about their presence, CDC operatives declared they were here to monitor the results of an undisclosed "full-scale experiment".
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Carrboro, NC
These low-brow "holier than thou" pseudo-christian fanatics must be dealt with once and for all before they send our country back to the dark ages.
I left my AP in San Francisco
High on a hill, it calls to me
To be where signals are 3 bars,
my ISP is 4 stars.
My network is in the air, I don't care
I am a student at SFSU. We have a wonderful network that covers about half of the campus. There are also many wonderful cafes around time with free (as in beer) access. Props out to Perl's on West Portal, my favorite cafe in this part of time.
But, hats off to yet another group of intrepred geeks. San Francisco has been a hotbed of free WiFi service for quite some time, be it organized efforts like the aformentioned SFlan or ad-hockery created by people setting up intentionally open WiFi nodes in their homes and businesses.
When I lived in SF, I got in a heated debate with a guy named Scott regarding whether all of this 802.11 ad-hockery was stealing from the phone company. He was largely a troll, never really arguing any points directly and shifting focus: but you can see the results at my website. He's even come back way after the fact and submitted comments in my comment section.
The reason I bring up this discussion is because I think Scott's misconceptions about what people are doing with 802.11 open access points brings up a serious issue. Read what he has to say: and read between the lines for the greater position that he stands behind. It's a scary thought to consider that people believe that the phone companies have a right to make money, regardless of how badly they mishandle their markets.
I was under the impression that this was publicly funded. It appears that I was incorrect and for this I apologize.
In a related story, the Toronto man caught driving naked the wrong way on a one-way street while hijacking WiFi for downloading kiddie porn has announced he will be moving to San Francisco after his release from prison.
I'm sure a lot more people in Australia would
;-)
do what San Fran has done, eg by way of sharing
an ADSL connection across a Wi-Fi network.
There are groups all over Australia who are
building up the Wi-Fi infrastructure...
BUT
the Australian Communications Authority (ACA, ie the "Aussie FCC") don't seem to want wireless Internet communications in the hands of just any Tom, Disk or Harry...
Last heard, they charge $10,000 [/ year] for the necessary license to connect their infrastructure to the Internet.
Another reason not to move to Australia...?
YHBT, YHL Please stop reading the Op-Ed page. thanx.
Can you connect to this anonymously? Here in Boston the Boston Public Library runs a free-as-in-beer public wireless network, but I'd hardly call it free-as-in-speech (filtering content, for the children! of course, and you need to log in with information tied to your library card).
[Speaking of which, does anyone know of anyone providing free and anonymous WiFi access in Boston?]
A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the
heaviest chemical element yet known to science. The new element has been
tentatively named "Governmentium". Governmentium has one neutron, 12
assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 11 assistant deputy neutrons,
giving it an atomic mass of 312.
These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are
surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since
Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as
it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount
of Governmentium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when
it would normally take less than a second.
Governmentium has a normal half-life of three years; it does not decay, but
instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant
neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass
will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more
morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of
moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Governmentium is
formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This
hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass." You will know it
when you see it.
When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium -- an
element which radiates just as much energy since it has half as many peons
but twice as many morons.
This is awesome. My local LUG just did a meeting on wifi, and community wifi-projects. I hope we see a lot more initiatives like this!
Is a spammers haven. Can you imagine them rubbing theyre hands in glee!
If you're interested in community-sponsored wifi projects, you should take a look at this. It's run by Rob Flickenger, the guy who wrote Linux Server Hacks and a couple of wifi books for O'Reilly.
If you are new to wireless networking, I stumbled across this tutorial.
In the last week there have been 3 Slashdot stories about WiFi access in three different cities in California. Sheesh!
Am I missing something?
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
Anyone know which hill this is on? Is it the one with the giant TV/Radio tower? IF so, i find it strange I have yet to pick up a signal while at school. My law school's library is on another hill directly across the panhandle from this hill -- direct line of sight w/ nothing blocking. I sit in that library everyday and stare at that godforsaken hill, and i've never picked up a signal..... Not that it really matters, every single seat in our law library and classrooms has ethernet. Yay technology!
This lies, i have line of site to twin peaks and i can't connect, it's all lies! but i can connect to my neighbors open ap called "default"
On topic? You read /. for the articles? No, really?
oakland's population: 399,484 http://www.business2oakland.com/main/demographics. htm
San francisco's: 776,733
http://www.zpub.com/sf50/sf/hgpop.htm
still not very big. the metropitan area of the sf bay is about 7 million though.
There are also a ton of restaurants & cafes in the area that offer laptop access - cheesbikini offers a good list of them.
I have a flaky wireless connection at home; I'd order a cantenna with pigtail but I prefer paying cash...
No more bugging my friends when I'm making plans on the fly in the middle of the city and asking them to Google something for me (address, event time, etc :) I'll just have my laptop in my car...
Hopefully other people will also find this productive... Then again, maybe we'll just have a bunch of bored jobless guys sitting in cafes and posting to craigslist personals.
It may not be a totally adequate signal for Joe User, but consider WiFi-enabled PDAs. You don't need (nor expect) too much bandwidth with a PDA, right?
And its free for those dastardly child pornographers! Shut it down in the name of protecting the children! (but you can sign up for this $49.99 a month service over here....)
...you insensitive clod!
what are the legal implications in the event of malicious activities performed over such a open network.
:D
:(
ie:
- child porn downloading / trading ?
- will the riaa sue for all the mp3's downloaded ?
- an anonymous way to spam ?
- etc
unfortunatly a few bad apples always ruin the party for the rest of us.
-judging another only defines yourself
Is this the same network as BARWAN? Or do they just share the name?
There are tons of free hotspots in the New York City metro area as well.
Now you can download child porn wirelessly without fear of being caught!
It took YEARS to get DSL up hear, and even so, the fasted I can get is 384 because of the distance to the telco.
I find WhyFi to be even more hype bloated than the "new Economy" balderdash that was washing around SF a few years back. Don't get me wrong: it's great to go into a cafe and get online for free: it's a lovely thing. But the broad swath of free online-ness approach is not all that it's cracked up to be, even (and oddly, ESPECIALLY) here in SF.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
So exactly how are they planning on dealing with hackers and the like? Sounds like a great place to hack from! Get on.. do your stuff.. get off!
I am one of the people building SFLAN. Our map is a little outdated (and the San Bruno Mountain node is in the wrong spot). SFLAN and BAWRN have some 30 nodes in as many locations in San Francisco and a few outliers in surrounding counties. If you are in San Francisco and want to try it out, Cole Street is well covered. The SSIDs are sflanNN or BARWN-xxxxx; DHCP, no WEP.
The nodes are owned and paid for by individuals, many of whom are members of the Bay Area Wireless User Group. The Internet bandwidth for SFLAN is sponsored by the Internet Archive. If you live in SF and want to buy a node to connect your house and your neighbors, contact us.
We like to keep these networks as free (as in speech and beer) as possible. And it's working out so far. I hear Tim Pozar's neighbors keep him happy with occasional pies...
"Web Users Should Not Engage in Promiscuous Browsing" --CERT
I wonder about this financially. Who is paying for this access, if it is to be provided free, then the provider mustbe getting money somewhere, I wonder where from, pinko government commie taxes?
Where do you want to be, What are you doing to get there.
I want to do her. I want to hear her scream about democrat commies selling out our country as I lick her pussy and make her moan in exstacy.
Why not set this un in Montreal? We have a mountain the middle of the city...
See the forbiden post Here
When using a WiFi connection, you are only connected to one base station, rather than multiple cell towers. So maybe you could find a radius of the area the person could possibly be in, but not an exactly location.
blog & fiction: jd87
Free unprotected access to WiFi is great for spammers. Anyone know the IPs in use for this WiFi network so I can black hole them now?
Now I hope and pray that I will But today I am still, just a bill
"BARWN broadcasts an 802.11 signal from the top of a big hill near San Francisco"
There are 100's of hills in and around San Francisco... Care to be more specific?
Great, now you've gone and sent all of SF's slashdotters to this network, it's gonna keel over any second...
I love the idea but I worry about the first time someone commits some high profile crime from an unaccountable public network. Not that there's an inherent problem with anonymous networks, the contrary's probably more true. Still, there's less likely to be an outcry when it's small scale, or personal. A public internet in a major city means we place a lot of faith in the resolve of the courts to protect anonymity.
Jeff Pulver sells a WIFI VOIP telephone that comes programmed for Free World Dialup. In theory, it should gbe easy to program it to any SIP format VOIP provider.
I live in Sunset district S.F. here. No Wi-Fi signals AT ALL. It geatly depends on what area of S.F. you're in. Maybe Twin Peaks or a downtown area would be a better place for this.
http://www.palmzone.net
Here is the Network Map: http://www.barwn.org/docs/BARWN_networkmap_200202
L
Psshh.. In my little town of Fredericton, NB we've had free wireless for over a week!
Music speeds up when you yawn, but does not change pitch.
Perversion and all your stupid emotion aside, how can accessing a open access point be a crime?
If it's open, it's free, so screw you!
I could care less what the idiot was DLing, it's just bits and bytes to me!
He should stop playing with his weener though!