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San Francisco's Got Free Wi-Fi

Posted by timothy on from the leave-your-heart-and-brain dept.

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."

4 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Overloaded? by asquared256 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are most likely multiple access points operating on different channels, and in different areas. It's probably not a single AP.

  2. spammers paradise by adept256 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!
  3. Not for much longer... by advocate_one · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  4. P2P on public WIFI by Eberlin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.