Slashdot Mirror
Sell Your Wireless Bandwidth
BilSabab writes "Yahoo! News is reporting on the release of LinSpot 1.0 for Mac OS X. Linspot enables users to sell access to their wireless network to anyone who enters the hot zone." The software is free, but LinSpot takes a cut of the action.
I'll just continue using my neighbor's cable internet for free.
This sort of ties in with the ideas of Robert X cringely, which can be read here:
For Love Not Money: How WhyFi can turn hotspots into a real industry
and
WhyFi Not? - Bob Defends his Wireless Networking Idea
Yes, I realise WiFi, not WhyFi - those are the titles.
This is NOT the best sig in the world, but this IS a tribute to the best sig in the world.
So they call it LinSpot, use Tux's head (as a horrific looking background tile), but Linux is third on their list of supported OSes, after Windows?
The LinSpot software is a free download that configures automatically upon installation and features end-to-end encryption, automatic self-updates, and the ability to accept PayPal as well as all major credit cards.
Call me paranoid, but I don't like the sound of that bit about updates.
Please be sure to read the EULA that came with your cable or DSL high speed connection. Oftentimes a high speed provider will prohibit the reselling of bits of the connection.
Be aware people. I'm surprised something like this is even available...
The article is a little light on the details, but who exactly would pay for this? In my apartment building there are about 4 wireless routers that DO NOT restrict connections. I guess no one bothered to properly configure their easy-to-use linksys/netgear router. So why pay for it when you can get it for free?
..oh yeah, it's probably wrong or something...
What they don't make obvious is you can only sell your bandwith with your CPU acting as the access point. You can't just setup your Air Port base station and rake it in.
so after speakeasy gets their 50% for doing billing and linspot gets their cut for their silly software what are you left with?
Why buy when you can hack for free ....
wireless
From the LinSpot FAQ:
The other information in the FAQ is very telling, including the telltale "Investment Opportunity" section that is present in the websites of so many dubious businesses.
I would caution any user against attempting to use this application. There are several good alternatives that are not difficult to set up including using NoCatAuth with a micropayment system. Since LinSpot happily handles the billing of the users for you and then sends you your 'share' later, you'll really have to decide whether or not you trust them to do the right thing, since they do not seem to be forthright in their other business practices.\
At any rate, this software hardly deserves a "1.0" release or attention on slashdot. It could likely be a scam, though I have no evidence to beleive that it is anything more than a really dubious, hacky, misguided implementation of someone else's good idea.
- My ISP wants my bandwidth usage to stay within "reasonable" limits (under, say, 40 gigs one direction or the other) each month.
- There are good odds my ISP's policies don't allow me to re-sell my bandwidth.
- The local kine working-poor, little old Japanese ladies and feral chickens that make up most of the population of the neighborhood probably wouldn't take advantage of it anyway.
Maybe if I lived on a big street near a center of commerce or something... but I don't think folks are gonna sit around with their laptops at the fishing tackle store a few doors down and surf the web.With Sonic Hotspots, you get a special IP number routed to their VPN aggregator. None of the riffraff get on your network.
Wont the airport's fire wall NAT, mask how many MAC addresses you have?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Not sure I'll be putting Jasper's eye catching adverts around my neighborhood just yet.... :)
And just what sort of trouble will this get the (many) people in who have connections like Comcast, where you're not even supposed to share within your house without paying for extra IPs (yeah right), much less with neighbors and passers-by?
"Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
-- Ryan Stiles
....voluntarily sharing my wi-fi broadband as an act of good will to passersby?
At one of the stoplights the bus I ride stops at, there is a wifi network somewhere within range, and we generally stop long enough for me to get a connection, check my email, click the 'post' button, before we move on. There's no way I'd be able to click 'Pay', enter all my info, etc, while I was there - even if I wanted to.
I prefer to leave my wifi unprotected and make sure my computer itself is secure... the worst anyone can do is put files into my Guest shared folder, and I may be helping some geek nearby look up something on the internet in a hurry.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
If you dont think so next time the FBI comes to your door becuase the latest nasty virus that cost companies billions of dollars in one day becuase your wifi was open to all.
Dont think you'll get off squeaky clean becuase "You didnt know".
If your system is hacked and the virus came that way then they can let you off. But I doubt that just leaving the door open to anonymous cyberterrorists is going to win you any friends in the court room.
Okay, someone needs to point out to Jasper (I couldn't find a reasonable contact, so I'm guessing investment@linspot.com will know what to with it...) that it's "free" as in speech, not as in beer...the whole point of the Open Source movement is to let the code be availible for evaluation and use. The GPL is copy left and this seems to be lost in the amueterish hyperbole of what could be a legitimate business model if 1) it didn't restrict the end user setting their own pricing and 2) didn't infringe / defame / violate the GPL and OSS movement.
Other problems: No contact information, not a real company yet (to be incorporated in Belgium)
While your fondness for penguins and Tux and Linux and open-source software in general is nice, I think you're making a mistake in co-opting Tux and "Lin" for your software. Your FAQ talks about the open-source software this package uses, which is cool. But Apache is not Linux. BIND is not Linux. ISC DCHP is not Linux. Squid is not Linux. The kernel developed by Linus Torvalds and others (and any OS built around that) is Linux. But your software has nothing to do with that. Using "Lin" and the Tux logo imply that it does, and that's not promoting open-source software, it's =confusing= people about what's what in open-source software. Larry Ewing probably won't sue you over mis-applying his Tux logo, and Linus Torvalds probably won't sue you over the first syllable of his name. They're not the kind of control freaks who'd do that. But what you're doing here is exactly the kind of "confusion in the marketplace" that trademark laws were set up to prevent.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Just FYI clicking on those jpegs in the adverts link the linspot-teaser2.jpg and linspot-teaser3.jpg are not safe for work. Thank God no one was standing behind me when I clicked.
----
Spam subject of the moment: Offshore account secrets -nashville disrupt
Has anyone raised this issue up? Is it just me or does this look like a hacked version of NoCatAuth that first serves as a proxy for accessing and paying via your PayPal account? For those of you who are not familiar with NoCatAuth, it's:
centralized authentication code that make shared Internet services possible.
On the wifi network, it essentially forces the wifi client to use a proxy and before allowing you to access anything else, it will pop up a web page for you to enter a login and password. By logging on, NoCatAuth can keep track of all the users on the wifi network. Hmmm, sounds a lot like linspot to me.
Linux at home
Some remarks that needed comments after I tested this:
- Auto-updating is a feature that Mac people like, but you can turn it off...
- Inside the LinSpot application directory is a directory structure which looks like a mini *nix distro, this contains Apache and the other mentioned applications, but also others such as wget...
It differs from NoCatAuth in the following way: ;-)
- roaming between all LinSpots (I guess that's also the reason why they have to fix the prices - but as they state, they want the prices to go down and charge $2.5 for 2 hours till $25 for one month). Didn't test it between different countries though... yet
- users gaining access on the network get immediately the registration page when the browser tries to access their homepage (I guess that's why they use the DNS and proxy). After the first page selection, there's immediately the PayPal screen - a quick process!
And they paid my tests within a day (only bought 2 hours).
Yeah..since the beginnings of DHCP...
:-)
If you don't believe there's anything shady going on look at this (granted, I've only just started, but...):
forwarders {
195.162.196.2;
195.162.197.2;
};
What do you want to bet most people don't even check his BIND config? Further what do you want to bet that those two servers (look at their PTR records and follow the WHOIS trail too) aren't logging all queries?
Also, before you start let me say that _I_ *am* qualified to make judgements regarding this software. He isn't doing anything original at all. Combining DHCP and separate DNS space is extremely common for dividing people into "paid" and "unpaid" classes of service and controlling their access. Insight (US Cable provider) does exactly this for their cable modem subscribers. That makes this comment from his linspot.bogus root hint file all the more funnier:
; What did you expect?
; And still I'm pround of how linspot is desinged
I'd say I saw exactly what I expected, and so would anyone else skilled in the art (and I don't mean any random geek who's hosting their vanity domain at home either, I mean someone with real clue).. I've been using wildcards in root hints files for exactly this type of separation for years. Hell, you don't even need BIND9's view support, just two legacy BIND servers each bound to different aliased IPs.
If I wanted to resell wireless Internet access to a neighbor, I'd just ask him to give me twenty bucks a month or whatever... then, as long as he paid me, I'd add the appropriate MAC to my WiFi's filter set and give the neighbor the WEP password. I don't see the need for any extra software, credit card processing, or anything else like that.