Dan Rutter Suggests Tossing Some Wi-Fi At the Neighbors

A few days ago, Dan Rutter (the Dan in "Dan's Data") published an interesting idea for extending the sort of philanthropic technical pranksterism that spawned throwies by applying the same approach to Wi-Fi. That means, looking what he hopes is not too far down the road, creating Wi-Fi repeaters that are cheap enough to deploy on the sly and frugal enough with power to run on solar power or cheaply replaceable batteries. But as he says, "If you've got a lot of spare money, a ladder and no respect for private property, though, you could already be stealthily deploying Open-Mesh or other such gadgets all over your neighbourhood." In some cities at least, you'd be hard pressed to ever avoid at least one available wireless access point, but that's not the experience for most people, most places -- which bears correction.

Comments

Interesting

[spikedvodka]

It's an interesting idea... but here's the thing I can't see the ISPs letting something like this happening.

Also, what's to prevent somebody from stealing one of the boxes, and causing an outage... or modifying the firmware on one of these boxes to sniff for passwords?

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats to say that the open network isn't already sniffing for passwords ect.

Re:Interesting

[klapaucjusz]

Also, what's to prevent somebody from stealing one of the boxes,

You need to make sure that the boxes are cheap and plentiful, so that stealing them is about as exciting as stealing a plastic bag from a supermarket.

causing an outage

If it's done right (e.g. using mesh networking technology), breaking just a few nodes should not cause an outage.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please tell me you use SHTTP for anything where passwords are involved, especially over WiFi!

Re:Interesting

[jamesh]

You need to make sure that the boxes are cheap and plentiful, so that stealing them is about as exciting as stealing a plastic bag from a supermarket.

How much battery would be required to run something like a WRT54GL at reasonable latitudes assuming the only external power input is solar? I would think that the batteries and solar cells would be the more attractive things to steal, and if you can make them as cheap as plastic bags from a supermarket then you've solved a whole load more problems than community wireless :)

Re:Interesting

[NeverVotedBush]

Nobody so far has said anything about your point that ISPs won't like it.

One would hope (yeah, I know...) that people on some kind of open mesh network might think to be a little more secure with their passwords, CC numbers, etc.

For some time, ISPs had clauses in contracts that only allowed a single computer to use a connection. With NAT so easy to implement, they relaxed that stipulation. But if subscribers start providing free internet to their neighbors, and especially if that network gets expanded as per suggestion, ISPs will probably start disconnecting users that abuse their policies.

And sure, people could figure out ways to spoof it, but if the technology is simple enough and the use gets widespread, ISPs will figure out how to detect these networks and get compensation for the misuse.

Re:Interesting

[sayfawa]

But if subscribers start providing free internet to their neighbors, and especially if that network gets expanded as per suggestion, ISPs will probably start disconnecting users that abuse their policies.

And sure, people could figure out ways to spoof it, but if the technology is simple enough and the use gets widespread, ISPs will figure out how to detect these networks and get compensation for the misuse.

I've been wondering about this. If and when mesh networks take off, what do we need the ISPs for? They don't make the net, they still have to get their connections from somewhere, just like we do.

Isn't just about every government in possession and in charge of maintaining part of one of those fat underwater cables that brings and sends the data to other countries? Why should they only let ISPs, universities and other government organizations feed off the teet? Right now we need the ISPs to get that signal and feed it to our homes. But if it doesn't cost the government anything to just let it's citizens get access directly by setting up their own hardware, then why not? And since we wouldn't be using their equipment anymore, what could the ISPs do about it? Sure, they'd bitch and moan about the government eating their "right" to gouge customers, but hopefully we'd ignore them.

Re:Interesting

[NeverVotedBush]

Dude, there is nothing magic about an ISP. You could pay for a T1 or so and be your own ISP. You can set up your own hardware. Just be prepared to pay for it - the exact same way your ISP does.

Being an ISP is not anything that special. You just have to be willing to pay the costs, deal with the business aspects, deal with the legal aspects, and if you have employees, deal with income tax, unemployment tax, etc.

It's not like being an ISP is something willed or auctioned like season tickets or anything.

You can be an ISP, or even eliminate needing an ISP. All it takes is money.

You see, that is what ISPs provide - they handle all the business side of things and charge individual subscribers some reasonable amount for access through cable, DSL, digital cell access, etc.

Re:Interesting

[Shajenko42]

Isn't just about every government in possession and in charge of maintaining part of one of those fat underwater cables that brings and sends the data to other countries? Why should they only let ISPs, universities and other government organizations feed off the teet?

Because ISPs bribe, er, give campaign contributions to important politicians.

Re:Interesting

[NeverVotedBush]

Please see my post above.

You could be an ISP if you wanted to. That's what all that stuff about telcos having to install ISP equipment in their facilities was about.

There is nothing magic about being an ISP. All it takes is money and effort.

If you became an ISP, then you could have your own customers, bribe your own politicians (don't quite understand why, though), and fret about customers stealing bandwith from you so they could set up their own free WiFi networks while they bitch and complain about you.

Re:Interesting

[sayfawa]

Yes, that's exactly what I was expecting/hoping. But with mesh networking we don't need the infrastructure connecting that T1 to the rest of the city that we now depend on the ISPs to provide. And that also means no employees and all that other stuff you mentioned. Just the first connection and the mesh repeaters, which the users themselves buy and setup.

Re:Interesting

[CastrTroy]

Connecting to the rest of the city would be nice for some things, but if you want to connect to the internet, and not just your city intranet, you're going to have to connect to some big pipe eventually.

Re:Interesting

[karnal]

I actually heard somewhere that the correct definitions is "a series of tubes." Some other junk about trucks in the tubes or something....

Re:Interesting

[Yvan256]

Well, duh. The series of tubes only work for intranet-style networks, like a city. As soon as we're talking inter-cities, you need big, huge trucks. That's where the huge latency comes from and gets you killed in your favorite online game.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

You misspelled HTTPS

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's a mesh network in a large city who says you even need an ISP? Maybe the entire network would be self-contained instead of the world wide web it's a neighbourhood wide web.

  Of course that adds more hardware to it for DNS stuff and bandwidth would be horrible.

  It's funny though that anyone who hears about mesh networking tends to bring up the idea of making small repeaters.

  Someone good with electronics needs to think up a small, simple device and post the design for all to use. Perhpas a nano-ITX or something like that entire Linux system in the RJ-45 case. It would be great if they were incredibly small so they could be scattered like sand.

Re:Interesting

[bcrowell]

Nobody so far has said anything about your point that ISPs won't like it. [...] For some time, ISPs had clauses in contracts that only allowed a single computer to use a connection. With NAT so easy to implement, they relaxed that stipulation. But if subscribers start providing free internet to their neighbors, and especially if that network gets expanded as per suggestion, ISPs will probably start disconnecting users that abuse their policies.

The article actually does refer to this, but only at the very end:

Most ISPs have anti-sharing requirements in their license agreement, but as long as mesh users don't in the aggregate do anything more obnoxious than a typical user would do (and mesh hardware can be set to throttle the bandwidth available to each individual node, preventing one porn fiend from absorbing 99% of the bandwidth 100% of the time), the ISPs a mesh connects to are unlikely to care, or even notice.

This makes very little sense to me. If I saturate my neighborhood with wifi, but it's all going through my own individual cable modem connection, then the results are pretty predictable. First my cable modem connection will get so slow that it will drive me nuts. Then my ISP will disconnect me for excessive use of bandwidth.

Of course we can now insert the usual slashdot discussion of bandwidth caps. Yes, it's dishonest of ISPs to call it unlimited internet access when really there's a cap. Yes, they should reveal what the caps are. No, it's not really possible for ISPs to provide enough of a dedicated pipe to allow every single user to access the internet simultaneously at full speed; they have to overscribe, or the economics don't work.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Most ISPs have in their TOS a restriction against using wifi further than n feet from your modem.

This is to prevent you from broadcasting your access to those on a hillside, etc.

Re:Interesting

[Serious Callers Only]

The problem with visions of mesh based networking taking over the world is that there is no solution to the problems of overload that a full mesh infrastructure brings - you need supernodes which have fast direct connections between them for long-distance traffic, and someone has to pay for those (at present ISPs). While in principle the internet is one big mesh and you can route around problems (a great design), in practice it works because most packets take a very direct route to another computer, say through 10 hops or so. If they went through 60-100 hops, you'd be looking at a massively slower internet. At the end of those fat pipes are modems and servers which let you talk to the internet, and someone has to pay for those (at present it's not the gov).

I think ISPs will eventually be the answer to this problem, not an obstacle. Ultimately they stand to gain from distributing routers that share the service with passing users from any other ISP (peering agreements could make it universal). Eventually we'll all live in an inter-connected cloud, and perhaps eventually the role of ISPs will change to a utility or a public monopoly, but at present they're the best hope we have for instigating something like this.

You can already see this happening with initiatives like fon and wifi networks like The Cloud. Hopefully ISPs will wise up sooner rather than later to the massive income they could achieve by micro-billing everyone instead of trying to charge loads for fixed connections.

When I walk down the streets of the city I live in, there are no less than 10 wireless access points visible almost everywhere - we already have a mesh, it's just not connected yet.

Re:Interesting

[NeverVotedBush]

Check out the Lantronix XPort.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

People steal everything that has to be paid for, no matter how cheap it is.

Re:Interesting

[homer_ca]

Well considering Slashdot doesn't even have a secure login, we're a long way from that. Most web forums don't use HTTPS logins.

Re:Interesting

[ZJVavrek]

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a dump truck full of tape drives?

Re:Interesting

[CastrTroy]

The bandwidth is great. But the latency is terrible. You could probably ship few petabytes to the next town over in a couple hours (if you ignore writing out the tapes in the first place). With a regular network, it would take much longer. However, if you only need to send a couple megabytes, it will still take a couple hours. A traditional wired network works much better in this case.

Re:Interesting

[dwater]

I think it's possible for ISPs to say something like, "You can access the internet at XXXbps constantly; any extra you get is us being nice."

In other words, spelling out the effect of their 'over subsciption' policy.

If I knew I could always get a certain bandwidth, then I would be happy to not expect anything more. It's the fussiness of it all that makes me dis-satisfied - I have no real idea what I've paid for.

Re:Interesting

[Douglas Goodall]

Did you mean, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of nine-track tapes barreling down the interstate...?

Re:Interesting

[Thelasko]

According to the the user guide it uses 0.5A at 12V DC. That comes to 6 Watts by my calculations. Of course you would have to oversize your solar panel by greater than a factor of 2. I would go with something like this ICP Global Technology P/N 99M 25012 12V 1.2A trickle charger. It's a measly $179.99.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not restricted.

If you want to pay for the equipment to interface the trunk, and the cabling to your house, plus maintenance, etc. then they will be more than happy to hook you up.
Of course now that you're hooked up physically, you will need to send your data. Chances are you don't own lines all the way from your house to whoever you're sending to, so you'll have to pay somebody to use their lines. They'll probably want a contract for a couple years to lease bandwidth usage in big chunks, most likely they will want a minimum of a DS3 to make it worth their while. Then you have to setup the edge servers to interface your network with theirs, DNS servers, mail servers (if needed) etc.

Wow. With all those headaches, you'd think somebody would just start a business and do the messy part of it for you, for a nominal fee of course. Oh wait, they call those companies "ISP's".

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a nice idea in theory.

Eventually, if the mesh grows enough and the ISP's all go under, there will be horrible traffic congestion at popular nodes, routing issues, etc. Somebody will start up a company where they charge people to have dedicated bandwidth over their portion of the mesh. voila, ISP's are back.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem I've seen with past discussion on the issue is that people have only been talking about a standard residential account.

I won't repeat past discussion, but suffice it to say that if you get a business account you will get pretty close to your limit. You'll most likely also have your limits set in a contract, and constant total usage of your pipe is expected. Of course, since they expect you to use the whole pipe, you're looking at a lot more monthly than for the "same" speed plan on a home account.

Re:Interesting

[CRiMSON]

But in a shittier capacity now.

It's a...!

[maxume]

Make sure to include a nondescript box and some blinking lights in the setup, we wouldn't want anybody to mistake it for any sort of improvised device.

I like it

[chuckymonkey]

I really like the idea that this guy has, but I hate to think about the crazy ISPs would release on us if people started doing this. They're as bad as the media companies for wanting control over networks. I can just see it now, every repeater that you install is considered a lost sale with potentially thousands of users using it. Cease and desist or we will sue you for one brazillion dollars. Yet another argument for treating the internet like a public utility, just one that you can opt out of if you so choose.

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

Well of course! If more than one person used the connection, they might actually use some of the bandwidth. Wouldn't want that.

Re:I like it

[MindlessAutomata]

Service is intended for one household only. And you're going "OMG GREEDY ISPS!!!" because they want to make money? It's their service! The greedy bastard here, is you. Newsflash: It's not your service. Feel free to make a personal wireless network that doesn't connect to the ISP's network, but don't be stealing their service "just because you can". Bad as the media companies for wanting "control over networks"? Here they'd just stop it because it's people are breaking the terms of agreement. It's NO DIFFERENT THAN COMMON CABLE THEFT. Oh, do you support stealing that, too?

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

Because, of course, none of my tax dollars went into developing and deploying the internet backbone.

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

Particularly not the underlying protocols.

Re:I like it

[Klaus_1250]

Service is intended for one household only.

So? Years back, "service" was intended for one computer. We got ourselves routers because it was quite silly that providers were charging on a per computer basis. It just didn't make sense. Yes, some bits were different, but it were still just that, bits. Story is still the same now.

Re:I like it

[WK2]

Service is intended for one household only.

The ISP sells me bandwidth, not service for a household. Also, people don't use Wi-Fi as a substitute for cable. It's much too slow and inconvenient, and service is somewhat sporadic. People use Wi-Fi temporarily, such as when they are at a friend's house, or a coffee shop, or their home modem is malfunctioning. If someone wants and can afford high speed internet access in their home, they will pay for cable or DSL.

I live in a large apartment building, and share my cable service via Wi-Fi. It gets used, but hardly. The amount of bandwidth strangers use on my network is a drop in the bucket compared to what I use.

Re:I like it

[vertinox]

Service is intended for one household only. And you're going "OMG GREEDY ISPS!!!" because they want to make money? It's their service! The greedy bastard here, is you. Newsflash: It's not your service.

What about people who lease business SDSL and/or T1s?

It's NO DIFFERENT THAN COMMON CABLE THEFT. Oh, do you support stealing that, too?

So is Comcast/Timewarner stealing bandwidth of the websites you visit? Cable service is a one way street. Internet connections are not. It is not actually illegal to share your bandwidth with you neighbor whereas stealing cable is. Yes, it breaks the EULAs but they aren't law and all the ISP can do is terminate your service.

And on a side note... How can they tell if you are sharing on purpose it or your just another one of the many average joe's who don't know how to secure their routers.

Or how can you tell if its your one of your 5 room mates (in the same house) sharing the same connection or the neighbor next door? Does each room mate have to buy their own Comcast connection in that case?

And also... Which is worse for the ISP... Sharing your bandwidth with a neighbor who never would have bought their service and only browses a few web pages just like you or a person who buys their service and maxes out their bandwidth 24/7 with legal Torrents and download services such as Steam and iTunes.

Of course this is the whole argument of Network Neutrality.

There is no simple answer and an analogy to cable stealing doesn't work because bandwidth sharing is not illegal.

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

If there was a way to get internet access that didn't involve the local ISP, an expensive cell phone data plan, or a billion dollars to roll out my own personal fiber, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

As a customer, I want the ability to go away from my house and still be able to connect to the Internet. We have cell phones, gaming devices, laptops, and all kinds of toys designed to connect to the internet without being at a PC. Having to be within 30 feet of one defeats the purpose, and there are other places I'd like to go besides coffee shops and fast food places that have Wifi to attract customers.

The service that customers are paying for should tailor to their needs and wants. You might say "vote with your dollar!" But how? Neither the cable company nor the DSL company will do this. Hell, the dialup companies don't either. It's expensive to set up a mesh network, but the ISPs should be able to do something about it. Every so often they like to inch the cost of my service up, what else do they spend that money on?

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn you DARPA and my tax money! Damn you!

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

Brazil uses the real, not the "Brazillion dollar" as you seem to think they do.

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

Depending on where you live, and the policies of the IXP in your area, rolling out your own personal fiber might actually be possible. A few years ago I chatted with someone who worked at a small IXP that had very lax regulations... From what he told me, if you live in the right location you could run some fiber of your own for around $50-75k. I can't vouch for the accuracy of this, he was just some random guy I met in a bar one night... But if that's true, and I had the money and was in the right location, I would certainly be willing to drop some cash on that. You could easily spend more on a new car, and that's going to depreciate incredibly quickly. If you had that kind of connection, and built up a free wireless network in the area, I could see the property values rising enough to almost pay for itself in time.

Re:I like it

[westlake]

So? Years back, "service" was intended for one computer. We got ourselves routers because it was quite silly that providers were charging on a per computer basis. It just didn't make sense

So they go back to charging you by the megabyte. Full commercial rates for the five to fifteen households you are now servicing.

Re:I like it

[ewanm89]

And phone network companies hate a few of the ideas on this coming from openmoko...

Re:I like it

[NeverVotedBush]

The ISP sells service with a bandwidth cap for those that use a lot of it and impact others who pay for and expect certain bandwidth levels with their connection.

And a lot of people use WiFi permanently - not temporarily. It isn't so easy to retrofit most houses with ethernet.

What you are doing is rationalizing theft and misuse.

Read your contract. It's what you supposedly agreed to. If you now decide to do as you please, and steal bandwidth for your neighbors because it makes you some kind of hero, you are in violation of your contract (which you agreed to) and are a thief.

I'm sure you and others will probably argue, but if you are operating outside of your contract to give your ISPs services to other people, you are indedd a thief.

Re:I like it

[NeverVotedBush]

Exactly. This is what is going to happen - metered Internet use.

And it will happen because some people abuse their connections and allow others free use of service they are not paying to support. Another pressure to move to metered use is because of file sharing.

But both will cause a change in Internet contracts. Maybe some fixed price as long as users stay below some data level, but tiered pricing after that level based on data transferred. Or even a straight cost per megabyte.

Whenever something good comes along, there will always be those that look for how it can be exploited to their advantage. Eventually the holes will get closed by some kind of draconian measure and everybody will be the worse for it.

Re:I like it

[Klaus_1250]

They could, but that would probably be a loss from them. Price per Gigabyte is rather low these days, the current pricing schemes actually benefit ISP's, since 80% of the people is paying for something they don't really use.

Full commercial rates for the five to fifteen households you are now servicing. Why commercial rates? No-ones mention business use here. Second, just because people share stuff, doesn't mean some is servicing another. I don't even know what "servicing" means in this context?

Re:I like it

[phulegart]

We didn't get ourselves routers because it was "silly that providers were charging on a per computer basis"...

We got routers so we could have multiple computers share a single internet pipe that was coming into our homes. It didn't matter if the ISP said something about only one connection=one computer. We definitely did not add the ability for all the computers in our home to get online at the same time, because something was silly.

But I agree with the sentiment in a few posts that if something like what Dan is proposing starts to take off, the ISPs are gonna respond in some nasty ways. Passing out internet access for free to all your neighbors... and all their neighbors... that is practically stealing money from the ISPs.

Re:I like it

[endymion.nz]

Here in New Zealand metered internet use is the norm and has been since we stopped using dial up for residential customers of any ISP. You're right, it sucks a lot.

Re:I like it

[NeverVotedBush]

"It is not actually illegal to share your bandwidth with you neighbor whereas stealing cable is. Yes, it breaks the EULAs but they aren't law and all the ISP can do is terminate your service."

And it is OK for people to just decide that contracts they sign and agree to are no longer valid because???

It really is stealing, moron, and you know it. All you are doing is trying to justify it and find some way to appease what little conscience you might still have.

What is worse for your ISP is that you are depriving it, and its employees, of revenue that could be used to make your own service better, feed their families, etc. It isn't up to you to subvert and deny their legitimate business.

There is a simple answer. What you are doing is wrong. It really is that simple. And your ISP could disconnect your service or even take you to court and sue for lost revenue and damages.

Why is that so hard for people like you to understand? Are you retarded or just stupid?

Re:I like it

[NeverVotedBush]

Because, of course, none of my tax dollars went into developing and deploying the internet backbone.

And you aren't benefiting from those tax dollars?

Just because your (and my) tax dollars helped develop the Internet doesn't mean that you are entitled to steal from your ISP.

With that kind of logic, why isn't it OK to shoplift a router or two at BestBuy? The technology they use was also developed using your tax dollars. How about a spool of Cat5e? Maybe a modem?

I know - why not shoplift your next computer? A whole lot of computer technology was developed during WWII to support the Manhattan Project - again using tax dollars. That makes it OK to steal from the manufacturers now, doesn't it?

Moron.

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

There's actually a project exactly dealing with this issue in Germany and other countries. There are a few router on which you can patch the firmware and get them linked up. Check out http://start.freifunk.net/ or http://global.freifunk.net/

Re:I like it

[Hemogoblin]

There is a simple answer. What you are doing is wrong. It really is that simple. If you want to convince anyone, you actually have to provide an argument, rather than simply making a statement.

Re:I like it

[NeverVotedBush]

The service that customers are paying for should tailor to their needs and wants.

Yeah, and my car should fly and run on water.

What kind of world do you live in that you think the world should cater to your wants and needs? Some things either are not technologically or economically feasible. Maybe they just don't feel like doing it.

If you don't like it, and think you could do a better job, do it. You can be your own ISP if you pay for your own T1 connection. You could share bandwidth with your neighborhood, make arrangements to provide service somehow to your customers that travel (maybe get an 800 number dialup connection), or even negotiate sharing bandwidth with other ISPs so your customers could travel and use high speed somehow.

Too much work? Hmmmm.

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

It's NO DIFFERENT THAN COMMON CABLE THEFT. No, connecting your computer to a neighbour's network with their permission is not the same thing as splicing into a cable connection without the permission of the cable company.

With "cable theft", somebody receives a service which is not paid for.

With "connection sharing", somebody receives a service which is paid for, with the knowledge and consent of the person paying the bill.

In practical terms, when I buy a service from an ISP, I'm paying for the right to transit and receive up to X bytes per month over the Internet.

It shouldn't matter where those bytes come from. If I transmit a byte which originated in a computer in the house next door, that byte is no less "being paid for" than a byte which originated in a computer in my own house.

By law, any discussion about alleged "theft" must include a car analogy, so here's mine: Arguing that Internet connection sharing is "theft" is like arguing that car sharing is "theft"; three neighbours sharing the use of a single car is exactly the same as two of those neighbours strolling into a car showroom and stealing a car each.

Re:I like it

[NeverVotedBush]

Wow! Cool! It's neat-O how you took a statement out of my post, ignored the arguments, and then said I should provide an argument if I was to convince anyone.

Maybe you too should read the very last line in my post that you replied to...

Re:I like it

[Klaus_1250]

We got routers so we could have multiple computers share a single internet pipe that was coming into our homes. It didn't matter if the ISP said something about only one connection=one computer. Then we could have used switches as well. But at least here (Netherlands) we couldn't nor was it allowed (use of routers wasn't even allowed according to the service agreement).

Re:I like it

[Lumpy]

Also, people don't use Wi-Fi as a substitute for cable.

really? I'll bet you $100US that MOST home networks are wireless and not wired. Buffy and Joe Sixpack are too lazy and undereducated to run Cat5 all over the house. They buy a Wireless router, plug it in, and then use the wireless for their PERMANENT network wiring in the home. hell MOST brand new homes built today do NOT have any networking wires in them unless the owner asks for it to be installed. (most new home wiring is so half assed it's not funny, but that's a pet-peeve of mine.)

Yes MOST people do this, the non techies outnumber those of you that even know what a Cat5 Cable is 600 to 1.

Re:I like it

[Hijacked Public]

Although you are trolling, or should be anyway, under most of the ISP contract terms I've read (which is maybe a half dozen) there are provisions for breach of contract that involve paying early termination fees. And this is for ISP that require contracts rather than just a Terms of Service. Appealing termination fees usually involve arbitration rather than traditional courts, so you are being a bit dramatic.

I live in a rural area that is not serviced by cable or DSL. At my studio I have a WildBlue satellite connection that is whizz fast broadband by the local dial up standards. I run an open WAP. I get a lot of farmers who pull up to use it, the UPS guy, the mail lady, every so often even an actual person who wants to actually pay me for a print. None of these people live in my parking lot and I believe most of them subscribe to one ISP or another at home, so no one is missing out on any revenue.

Am I in violation of your ethical standards with regard to theft from ISPs?

Re:I like it

[ceoyoyo]

Actually, when they sold it to me they quoted a certain amount of bandwidth and a certain amount of data transfer, per month. The "you've gotta use it all YOURSELF" clause is buried somewhere in the small print. For a reason.

Around here if I set myself up as an ISP (doesn't matter how small) the telco is required to sell me whatever kind of connection I want and I can do whatever I want with it.

Yes, sharing your Internet is different than cable theft. Cable is actually unlimited. If the Internet connection that was fully unlimited, then you'd have a point. As it is, sharing Internet is like sharing your sandwich, except that most people are horribly wasteful and always throw away more than half of their sandwiches.

Re:I like it

[crack_vial]

Well, that is just it. No need to connect to the "internet". Roll your own! Connect up neighborhoods and eventually the world.

Re:I like it

[ceoyoyo]

Hate to tell you, but I've never seen an unmetered Internet connection. Even though they SAY it's unlimited, try testing that out and find out if it really is.

Besides, metered is the way to go. The "unlimited" accounts are set up so most people waste most of it, putting more money in the provider's pocket. Once the mesh gets going properly you won't need the provider anymore anyway.

Re:I like it

[NeverVotedBush]

Am I in violation of your ethical standards with regard to theft from ISPs?

I think you can answer that question yourself.

Better yet, why not call your ISP up and provide them with the same details you listed here and let them tell you if you are in violation?

Wouldn't that be the ethical thing to do? Or are you afraid that you really are in violation and they might charge you more or terminate your service?

If you aren't afraid to do it, why not speak from a position of authority? Call them up and get back to us on their answer.

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

The ISP sells service with a bandwidth cap for those that use a lot of it and impact others who pay for and expect certain bandwidth levels with their connection. To clarify: You're saying it's our fault that ISPs sold more bandwidth than they could actually provide?

Read your contract. I did. It doesn't say anything about letting my neighbours use my connection. Am I still a thief?

It's what you supposedly agreed to. If you now decide to do as you please, and steal bandwidth for your neighbors because it makes you some kind of hero, you are in violation of your contract (which you agreed to) and are a thief. How can I steal bandwidth I've already paid for? Seriously: How?

Re:I like it

[Hemogoblin]

I didn't quote the whole post, because that would be a waste of space. Your post can be summarized with "It's stealing revenue, don't do it, you're wrong, it's illegal, you're stupid". That's not an argument; that's a rant. Provide a rational coherent argument as to how and why sharing a wi-fi connection hurts the ISPs, or no-one is going to take you seriously.

Think about some of these questions:
Would the people using the open service have bought their own connection if the open service didn't exist? How many people would actually use this service? How would this open service effect soceity as a whole? Should it be illegal in all cases, or should there be valid exceptions? If it is illegal, is it even possible to enforce?

Re:I like it

[hvm2hvm]

Well my internet connection has 350KB/s down and 300KB/s up. I can't say I've been downloading a lot but almost everyday a few GBs. I've never been throttled or had my connection deactivated (except when I had some flooding issues). I don't understand the idea behind metered connections. If they can't handle a consistent 1MB/s download, limit it to 500KB/s or upgrade your systems.

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

Lazy and uneducated has nothing to do with it. Some people just don't want the cost associated with doing the cabling, and it still limits you on where you can place your computers. Cables are messy and ugly unless done properly, with a wireless router you don't have to drill a bunch of holes in your walls.

Re:I like it

[Tacvek]

Also, people don't use Wi-Fi as a substitute for cable. really? I'll bet you $100US that MOST home networks are wireless and not wired. Buffy and Joe Sixpack are too lazy and undereducated to run Cat5 all over the house. They buy a Wireless router, plug it in, and then use the wireless for their PERMANENT network wiring in the home. hell MOST brand new homes built today do NOT have any networking wires in them unless the owner asks for it to be installed. (most new home wiring is so half assed it's not funny, but that's a pet-peeve of mine.) Yes MOST people do this, the non techies outnumber those of you that even know what a Cat5 Cable is 600 to 1. You have some good points. I'll first argue that most people probably still have only one computer, a desktop, so use neither (except perhaps a short stretch of cat5 to connect the DSL or cable modem (when it is not a USB model)). Then when 2 or more computers are in the same room, cat5 is probably more common. However, when their are laptops involved, or longer distances, Wifi does seem likely. Personally, I prefer everything stationary to be wired, and anything mobile to use Wifi. (The stationary items mentioned do include docking stations. Well the closest thing to docking stations they sell anymore, as they rarely ever fully dock anymore.)

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

Note also that unlike music piracy, when you use someone else's bandwidth, you really are depriving them of something.

Re:I like it

[ceoyoyo]

Take a look at that small print in your terms of service. The same one that says you can't share your connection. There's almost certainly some kind of limit, even if it's a fuzzy, unspecified one.

Or, if you like the empirical approach, run something that maxes out your connection and leave it running until you get a phone call/e-mail/cut off.

Re:I like it

[ukemike]

Have you read your ISP terms of service? I seriously doubt that you are simply paying for bandwidth with no limitations on its use.

Re:I like it

[Tenebrousedge]

I pay my ISP a set amount per month for a fixed amount of bandwidth. What business is it of theirs how I use it? They don't care if I have multiple computers behind a NAT, how is having an open wireless network functionally different? It's not illegal for me to use all of my bandwidth, or immoral. It's not like the ISP isn't getting paid for it. So why is it wrong if I share something when I'm not using it? Because the cable company wants me to be paying the full dollar when I only get ten cents of use out of it, and do the same with all my neighbors? Well, it's fine for them to think that, but there's no reason that I should have to toe any sort of line just to satisfy their business model. Again, the bandwidth has been paid for, and you can't tell if I'm running an open network or not. Whether or not this conflicts with a ToS agreement is really irrelevant. There is no "ethical" argument here. Whether or not your profit margin depends on my underutilization of your service is really not my problem.

Re:I like it

[NeverVotedBush]

Why is that different from music piracy?

If you steal music you are depriving someone of royalties or commission. If you steal bandwidth, you are depriving someone of compensation too.

I just do not see the difference - both are taking something for your own use and not paying for it.

Re:I like it

[NeverVotedBush]

You should think about these questions:

Why not ask your ISP if it is legal to "sublet" your connection and thereby deprive them of a revenue stream? Even if the people you provide service to would not buy it otherwise, is it OK to add the burden of extra bandwidth to your ISP when your ISP has to pay for that bandwidth on their own backbone connection? Who cares how many people use it or about your altruistic beliefs that you should be able to do it?

Call your ISP and ask them. If they say it's ok, then you are done. If they can provide legal reason why you cannot give free service using their equipment (even if it is further upstream), then that is your answer, isn't it?

And why should the ability to discover or enforce matter when talking about right and wrong?

With such a flexible interpretation of right and wrong, maybe you should consider a career in politics...

Re:I like it

[NeverVotedBush]

If you are so convinced it is all OK for you to take service from your ISP and provide it for free to your neighbors, why not call your ISP and tell them what you are doing.

I am amazed that there are so many like you that think it is OK to steal service and justify it by saying you are doing good for your neighbors.

One person in another thread was making basically the same empty points you are but had his signature say something along the lines of wondering why his internet connection cost so much. It was classic.

Heck, maybe it was even you.

And the fact that you are intentionally violating your TOS does matter - whether it can be detected or not. If you agreed not to sublet service and are now doing it, then you are in violation of the TOS, aren't you?

And there is an ethical argument. You just choose to ignore and discount it because you don't like that you are on the obviously wrong side of it.

So give up the fake virtue and just admit that you are a thief and that you are wrong. Call a spade a spade. You don't even have the backbone to do that?

Re:I like it

[NeverVotedBush]

If your contract really does not address selling your bandwidth to other people (doubtful), then go right ahead. Just don't be surprised or complain if you get disconnected.

There are ways of probing networks and analyzing traffic and maybe your ISP will do that to see how many users are on particular node. Maybe not. But your ISP has to pay for bandwidth and power and your extra usage costs them more money.

So call your ISP and ask them if they are OK with you giving away their bandwidth. If they aren't, then tell them to just sue you. If you have a legal leg to stand on, you could make a lot of money and maybe even set some nifty precedents for everybody else and what a hero you would be then, huh?

Re:I like it

[Hemogoblin]

Thank you for backing up your argument this time. I agree with a lot of what you're saying, and you may notice that I was only attacking the presentation of your position, not the position itself. It's impossible to debate an issue with someone if they don't present any rational arguments.

I still don't agree that it's a completely black and white issue though. I'm refering to the "exceptions" from my other post. For example, what exactly is the difference between my family sharing an internet connection in my house, and my neighbor and I sharing a connection across houses? I think most people would agree that the first scenario is incredibly common, and I personally think it's a morally OK thing to do. However, you're arguing that the 2nd scenario is not moral and depriving the ISP of revenue. Should every person in my family have to pay for the ability to use the internet in my house? The industy seems to be moving in this direction, at least indirectly, because of bandwidth metering.

Re:I like it

[marxmarv]

There is no simple answer and an analogy to cable stealing doesn't work because bandwidth sharing is not illegal. In Michigan, the simple answer is that it's the very same law. See MCL 750.540c, subsection 1(c) and this post.

MCL 750.540c
(1) A person shall not assemble, develop, manufacture, possess, deliver, or use any type telecommunications access device with the intent to defraud by doing, but not limited to, any of the following:
(c) To receive, disrupt, decrypt, transmit, retransmit, acquire, or intercept any telecommunications service without the express authority of the telecommunications service provider.

Re:I like it

[davidphogan74]

What is worse for your ISP is that you are depriving it, and its employees, of revenue that could be used to make your own service better, feed their families, etc. It isn't up to you to subvert and deny their legitimate business. So I'm a thief for letting my neighbor use my WiFi? He otherwise goes to the library down the street or the coffee shop across the street. There's no lost revenue there, since there's no revenue to be lost.

The theoretical damages situation is interesting, but usually bullshit.

Re:I like it

[NeverVotedBush]

I don't think that anyone can argue morality on this issue other than people abiding by the TOS that they agreed to. I don't think there is anything inherently moral or immoral about an internet connection.

What is a question of morality is deciding to take a service that you are paying some company for, and which you almost guaranteed agreed to not share/sell/give away, and doing that anyway.

People talk about ISPs like they are some evil entity. In cases like Comcast or AT&T, maybe they are right. But there are a lot of ISPs that are just local businesses run by people you possibly know. They basically bundle up the service, assume the financial risk, maybe mortgage their homes, and then sell that service to customers. It isn't practical for everyone to go out and get their own T1 connection, and most people don't need that kind of bandwidth anyway. What your ISP is doing is doing the work and providing a service that they charge you for.

Is it really right to take that service, and since it is so easy to do, allow other people to use that service - whether or not they would actually get their own connection or not? If your ISP is fine with that, and apparently Speakeasy is (another post), then there is no problem. But if it is against your TOS, then anyone who violates that TOS that they agreed to is stealing from the ISP. I don't see how it could be interpreted any other way.

And the point about a family in one dwelling vs. sharing with a neighbor comes down to the exact same thing. If you agreed not to do it, then doing it is wrong. If your ISP gives you permission, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

It all comes down to whether someone agreed not to share a connection or not. It doesn't matter with whom, or whether they charge for it or not. Well, that might matter in terms of financial damages, but it all comes down to what people agreed to do.

That's it. Anything else is nothing but justification to themselves for doing something wrong if they agreed not to do it.

Re:I like it

[NeverVotedBush]

Actually there is. Your ISP more than likely pays by the byte. By letting your neighbor use your connection, you are adding cost to your ISP and also possibly depriving them of the revenue that might come if your neighbor had no alternative but to pay for his/her own connection.

The coffee shop and library will have contracts with their ISP that allow them to share their connection. They don't just sign up for a standard user connection. They will have a commercial account of some kind that they will pay extra for simply because the ISP realizes that people may use that connection exclusively instead of getting their own. Plus they will also expect higher utilization of the connection over longer periods of time than for a home connection.

I really don't understand at all how people like you can be so dense about this.

What it really comes down to is if you are doing something you agreed not to do. If so, then you are in the wrong. Period.

Re:I like it

[davidphogan74]

What if I let him use a computer that I own within my apartment then? Same number of bytes used, it's just more convenient for him not to need to come in here.

Re:I like it

[drinkypoo]

I really like the idea that this guy has, but I hate to think about the crazy ISPs would release on us if people started doing this.

Some ISPs have account types explicitly intended for sharing, like Speakeasy.

Re:I like it

[Twinbee]

Actually metered use is just as bad/good as non-metered systems, *providing* the rates average out to the same costs overall (yes, the more heavy internet users would pay extra, and the light users would actually pay less than what they currently pay).

No one would moan if metered access was so cheap that it costs 0.000001 cents per hour of use. That's what it would lead to eventually, and by that point it would probably be just a public service like roads and parks.

Re:I like it

[hvm2hvm]

Well I did ask them and they said that there isn't a limit. I should have said that in the beginning. However at 3-4PM the bandwidth sometimes drops a little because of the excess users. Still it seems to me a better way than limiting the amount of downloading/uploading.

Re:I like it

[ceoyoyo]

If that's so you are very, very, very lucky.

I disagree it's a better way of doing it. Perhaps your ISP is depending on the slow speed of your connection to limit your use, or maybe they'd change their tune if you actually transferred too much. The ISPs used to advertise unlimited, assuming that most people would underutilize their connection but still pay the big bucks for unlimited access. When some people used more bandwidth than the ISPs had expected, they decided they couldn't actually provide unlimited access, so they slapped a limit on (but still CALLED it unlimited).

It's much better to have an honest exchange, where both parties know the terms of the agreement (and it isn't subject to change on the whim of the provider). Then they provide me with a service and they don't need to, or have the right to, worry about how I use it. People who don't use a lot of bandwidth don't get ripped off, and people who use a lot can use a lot, at a fair price.

Re:I like it

[Kattspya]

In most countries there is this thing called competition which means that ISP's give you what they sell i.e. 8/1 megabits of traffic per second and they don't hassle you if you use it. I've never heard of anyone getting a notice for "overutilizing" their connection. Over here I've only heard of one guy with a metered connection and he had 100/100 fiber and a monthly allowance of 200GB before he has to pay more. But that was three or so years ago so I don't know what flies nowadays.

Whether or not a country has metered connections and/or ISP's that bitch if you use your connection seems to depend either on data costs (Australia) or lack of competition (USA).

Re:I like it

[BarefootClown]

Read your contract. It's what you supposedly agreed to. If you now decide to do as you please, and steal bandwidth for your neighbors because it makes you some kind of hero, you are in violation of your contract (which you agreed to) and are a thief.
Actually, my service allows me to use the bandwidth as I see fit (short of disrupting access to others), including running servers and sharing access.

I bought business-class service for a reason.

Re:I like it

[Hemogoblin]

Hmmm, yes I think I see what you're saying. However, what should we do if it's not explicitly laid out in the contract? We need a way to evaluate whether we should do it or not.

Even if it is explicitly laid out in the contract, I think there's a valid reason for discussing whether it's a fair practice or not. In general, some contracts have terms that are onerous and unfair for one party. It is quite possible for a judge to strike out those portions while still maintaining the validity of the contract as a whole.

In summary, I think we should discuss the issue from outside the context of "It's a contract, you must follow".

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

By your logic I'm stealing the oxygen out of the air by living. Nonsense.

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had my 10/1 line nearly completely saturated 24/7 for almost two years now. Not a word from my ISP.

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

If one guy's $40/mo supplies internet to an entire neighborhood that used to have 50 subscribers ($2000/mo) you can expect the ISP to either disconnect that guy or charge $2000/mo for internet.

Re:I like it

[Joe U]

Why not ask your ISP if it is legal to "sublet" your connection and thereby deprive them of a revenue stream? Oh, the poor ISP is being deprived. My heart bleeds for them. Being a monopoly is SUCH HARD WORK.

Fuck em. Around here you have two choices, the tel co or the cable co, both are monopolies and both suck to some degree. I would like to personally thank the city council for granting exclusive contracts to Verizon and Time Warner. (By thank, I mean kick each council member in the groin, repeatedly).

Right and wrong would assume you have a choice, you don't have a choice. Do it, let them sue you, and have the courts figure it out.

Re:I like it

[DRobson]

What a lot of people seem to be missing is that in Australia, the location of Dan, it's almost universally charged by the megabyte.

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

What don't you get? The ISP sells bandwidth. They also reserve the right to stop selling it to you. Where I am it's very common for a landlord to hook up a broadband line to a wireless AP. The fact that it makes baby Jesus cry is not a good enough reason to end the practice. It's not black and white. The ISP's typically advertise "unlimited" access.
 
The agreements that residential customers sign are not "real" contracts like the ones business customers, who get an SLA, sign.
 
Remember that word...unlimited. They should not be putting limits of any sort on those lines if they are advertising them that way.

Re:I like it

[dwater]

Right. I wish they'd just tell it like it is.

If they have a maximum bandwidth limit, then they should say so, so that adjust usage appropriately, even if that is for a constant usage (p2p or whatever). If they tell me I can only download 60MB/hour, then I can set that as the limit (or slightly lower).

All we want to know are the real limits. Once they are published and adhered to, then we can use them appropriately, even to the point of allowing other people to use some of the bandwidth we aren't using - since we've paid for it, I don't see why they would object to us using it for whatever purpose we want.

That's if they're being honest and straight forward, of course, which they tend not to be.

Re:I like it

[dwater]

So, your argument boils down to going back on a contract.

That's fine, but that's not what you said originally, and that is why people have objected to what you said.

Allowing a neighbour to use your internet connection does not automatically deprive the ISP of income, or cost them anything extra. There are example given where neither is true - where the neighbour wouldn't buy an internet connection (or it isn't possible) and you're not using it (on holiday perhaps).

...but, yes, if it's against the terms you agreed to, then I can't see anyone disagreeing that it's 'wrong'.

Of course, objecting to an 'unreasonable' contract is probably what people are talking about here...and wanting a provider that has 'reasonable' terms ('un/reasonable' is in the eye of the beholder).

Re:I like it

[dwater]

Right and wrong would assume you have a choice, you don't have a choice. Do it, let them sue you, and have the courts figure it out. Right. Whole countries are founded on such anarchist principles. At some point, the only 'choice' left is to rebel.

To quote 'Anjin-san' (aka Blackthorne) :

Toranaga: There is no mitigating factor for rebellion against your liege lord.

Blackthorne: Unless you win.

Toranaga: Very well, you may have named the one mitigating factor.

Re:I like it

[dwater]

I would personally agree with the use of the word 'wrong', but not 'thief', since the ISP (nor anyone else) is necessarily deprived of anything.

Your use of that word, and your general tone, is just inflammatory and will likely get you marked as 'troll'.

Re:I like it

[dwater]

Actually there is. Your ISP more than likely pays by the byte. By letting your neighbor use your connection, you are adding cost to your ISP and also possibly depriving them of the revenue that might come if your neighbor had no alternative but to pay for his/her own connection. Not necessarily. What if I normally have a server maxing out my connection, but I tell my neighbour that I will switch it off and let them use it for a while for their casual web surfing.

In that case, it is costing the ISP *less*.

It may well be reasonable to call it wrong, if you had previously agreed not to do it, but it isn't necessarily costing anyone anything...

Re:I like it

[dwater]

Around here if I set myself up as an ISP (doesn't matter how small) the telco is required to sell me whatever kind of connection I want and I can do whatever I want with it. I wonder where 'here' is, and how much it costs to set up an ISP - I would imagine the cost is similar to setting up any other company and can be fairly cheap (IIRC).

Re:I like it

[Puff_Of_Hot_Air]

I have never understood why anyone would expect things to work differently. If I use electricity, I pay by the watt. If I use petrol, I pay by the litre. If I use bandwidth, I pay by the megabyte. Any other system simply implies that many small usage consumers are keeping the price low for the few high users. If everyone paid for their actual usage, then the prices would be much lower per megabyte. Is the hue and cry more to do with the fact that Slashdot users are typically heavy users, and don't want the free lunch to end?

Re:I like it

[clare-ents]

My ISP says,

"No Network Contention, No Port Blocking, No Traffic Shaping, No Bandwidth Throttling. No contention on our network is achieved by not oversubscribing our broadband services and ensuring that bandwidth investment exceeds customer demand."

I asked them about sharing, they said great, share with as many people as you like.

It's a capped service so I pay for extra traffic, but any sensible service should be. Once there's a bandwidth cap in place the ISPs compete by giving the fastest possible connection and best service - throttling loses them revenue. On unlimited services they compete on price and try to prevent you from using the connection to keep their costs down.

Think about it, what would you rather have,

1Mbit unlimited, 1:1 contended
1Gbit, capped (say 50GB), 1000:1 contended, additional traffic chargeable at say, $1/GB.

Down that 1Mbit you'd get 1Mbit all the time and can download 320GB if you run it flat out.

Me, I'd take the capped Gbit. When I want to download the Ubuntu DVD it'd take 45s.

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

. . . but don't be stealing their service "just because you can". Bad as the media companies for wanting "control over networks"? Here they'd just stop it because it's people are breaking the terms of agreement. It's NO DIFFERENT THAN COMMON CABLE THEFT. Oh, do you support stealing that, too? Dude, you're fighting a losing battle. It's the same way with the music industry - groupthink says "if it's that easy to steal, then it should be free anyway. Gimme, gimme, gimme. I want someone else to pay for MY FREE SHIT. And I'll sit here and pretend that copyright law is unfair and needs to be rewritten, until I can legally get free shit at the expense of others."

Re:I like it

[Magada]

Methinks you're a troll, and a smart one at that. A rare thing these days so my hat is off to you, sir or madam. To show my appreciation I am going to shove a morsel your way: it cannot ever be illegal to re-sell something you bought legally.

Re:I like it

[Anonymous Coward]

That may be, but the ISPs squandered the billions that the government gave them to upgrade their networks and now they are complaining that they don't have any bandwidth left. All the while, legal uses of massive bandwidth are on the horizon some are even here today though not as mainstream yet as they probably will be.... so don't tell me about how "woe is the isp" in the case of "not enough bandwidth." They pissed away the funds they had to improve themselves, probably to pad some executive's salary during good times, and now they act like they are struggling (even though they probably aren't; I'd love to see the disparity between what they tell the media, and what they tell investors)

Re:I like it

[phulegart]

Yeah, switches would have worked just as well, providing that there was a device to pass out DHCP and set itself up as the gateway... which wouldn't be all that dificult to do with a simple ICS setup with windows, or a linux box acting as a router... oops looks like there is going to essentially be a router in there somewhere (or a selection of devices that collectively act as a router)... can't do it with switches alone.

Sucks that there was a contractual clause that prohibited you from sharing internet access to multiple machines at the end of the iPipe that you got from your ISP. I wouldn't call it silly though. Annoying... maybe even tantalizing in how it is a rule that needs (begs) to be broken.

Re:I like it

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Why not ask your ISP if it is legal to "sublet" your connection and thereby deprive them of a revenue stream?

Funny use of the word sublet, makes me think of subletting an appartment that you own, including the internet access. Should your roommate have to buy his own line?

Wow, this is (not) brilliant!

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you've got a lot of spare money, a ladder and no respect for private property,

I love any plan that starts with "If you've got a lot of spare money"...

(Not to mention a lot of spare bandwidth...)

But then it occurred to me that autonomous, solar powered, close-to-free Wi-Fi repeaters would be a much cooler idea. You could throw 'em around at random,... At the moment, no such thing exists.

The technology doesn't exist? Even better!

Re:Wow, this is (not) brilliant!

[smittyoneeach]

Hey, don't underestimate the value of the play action fake

Cool

[cloakable]

I've been wanting to try doing something like this, to make a large, community intranet. Perhaps no need for an internet connection, but internal DNS, DHCP, web and possibly email.

Re:Cool

[vertinox]

I've been wanting to try doing something like this, to make a large, community intranet. Perhaps no need for an internet connection, but internal DNS, DHCP, web and possibly email.

Like an old school BBS but on wireless and without the internet?

I don't know how feasible or useful it would be, but the thought of the geekdom recreating the BBS days without the rest of the commercial internet is tantalizing.

Personally, I'd be willing to buy a router that relays for this purpose only to extend the mesh but not actually volunteer my paid ISP bandwidth or actually hook up any computers to bridge the two networks.

Of course, I think the biggest problem is the fact there won't be that many people in range and some people will have to set up tunnels to bridge the gaps between the mesh areas.

Still its a cool idea... Anyone know of existing projects in metropolitan areas?

Re:Cool

[Ravadill]

See : http://www.brismesh.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

Re:Cool

[klapaucjusz]

I've been wanting to try doing something like this, to make a large, community intranet.

...

Personally, I'd be willing to buy a router that relays for this purpose only to extend the mesh but not actually volunteer my paid ISP bandwidth or actually hook up any computers to bridge the two networks.

We, in Paris, have been experimenting with just such a network, based on a dynamic mesh routing protocol (Babel) and an autoconfiguration protocol similar to DHCP (AHCP).

The results are mixed. On the one hand, a lot of geeky types turn out to be willing to volunteer their (paid-for) ADSL line and even to buy a router with their own pennies. On the other hand, normal users are not willing to install software they don't understand -- they just want to use a normal AP, and don't understand why they need to install extra software just to use the Internet.

some people will have to set up tunnels to bridge the gaps between the mesh areas.

Yes, that's exactly what we are doing. Unfortunately, setting up tunnels (VPNs) is complicated and error-prone, and existing VPN software are designed with static routing in mind. We're actually thinking of designing our own VPN implementation that is convenient to use with dynamic routing protocols.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I'd be willing to buy a router that relays for this purpose only to extend the mesh but not actually volunteer my paid ISP bandwidth or actually hook up any computers to bridge the two networks.

Sounds even better. Just imagine a ton of community-operated networks all over the place, that didn't peer with the current Internet at any point (just with each other). I should point out that I'm imagining high-bandwidth fiber connections between these networks.

This really does seem like a decent idea: Give every country a ton of IPv6 addresses, have them divide those between their states/provinces, and then the states/provinces could keep registries of people running ISPs. It would really lower the barrier to entry with so few cables needing to be laid.

Basic common law principle

[Anonymous Coward]

Basic principle of law:
If your apple tree drops apples on my lawn, I'm allowed to eat them.

Re:Basic common law principle

[Anonymous Coward]

And if my dog poops on your lawn, feel free to eat that too.

Re:Basic common law principle

[jasomenaso]

Basic principle of law: If your apple tree drops apples on my lawn, I'm allowed to eat them.

I am not sure that "basic principle" holds up in Australia.

I am pretty sure the legal thing to do in this circumstance is to return it to your neighbour

Of course, in the USA I guess standard legal practice is to moan and whinge, go on TV about it, then take your neighbour to court for their tree dropping an apple that was just a tad over-ripe, contributing to your dental decay.

"hardhack"?

[crenshawsgc]

I know that the word "hack" is cool, and now we have words like lifehack and hardhack. But what about this has anything to do with the "hack" part? Are we now reduced to using words just because theyre cool?

Re:"hardhack"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hacking refers to any act which involves using a device or object for more than its originally intended purposes, so "hack" is perfectly acceptable here.

Re:"hardhack"?

[Yvan256]

Using wi-fi hardware to make a wi-fi network is hacking now?

Re:"hardhack"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are we now reduced to using words just because theyre cool? Yes and no. "We" have always been doing this.

Re:"hardhack"?

[ewanm89]

Wi-fi mesh is a little more than your usual wi-fi.

Re:"hardhack"?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not that simple. See, you're hacking THE MAN by sharing his internets with your neighbors, and that makes it hacktivism!

Re:"hardhack"?

[jonaskoelker]

It's a hack, in that it uses off-the-shelf equipment for things outside its normal purpose, if we agree to define the purpose of wifi devices to enable consumers to consume their own bandwidth without futzing about with cables. The ISP ToS would agree with this definition. Common usage patterns seems to concur. Where this deviates from the is obvious: not on the using-wifi-for-wireless-communication but on the only-for-you part of the equation. This may cause minor issues with the ISP ToS.

ISPs

[DaveGod]

I still wonder if it would be workable for an ISP to supply a router which gives the owner priority over the bandwidth but allows any subscriber to connect (only) to the internet.

For the consumer it's a mutual benefit, I make my bandwidth open to fellow customers and they do the same for me. The ISP wins from having a better service to attract customers, and also from wifi-only subscribers. The latter may also make for cost/price competitiveness, since you have more subscribers per physical connection.

Re:ISPs

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, are you from the past?

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=fon&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

Re:ISPs

[DaveGod]

Yes. why? Were you just born today?

Re:ISPs

[ewanm89]

BTHomehub + BTOpenZone... if you don't mind BT...

Stealing & More

[MindlessAutomata]

I know the slashdot crowd is a big fan of free things, aren't we all, but when you sign on for internet you agree it's for your household, apartment, or whatever, not for you to provide publicly (even though many people inadvertently do with unsecured wireless networks).

Just like you can't steal cable or run a cable over to your neighbor's, you can't steal internet service either.

Likewise, when someone pirates something using your network, the person getting sued will probably be the person that pays the bill--you. And just think what would happen if someone downloads child pornography on your connection...!

Re:Stealing & More

[davidpbrown]

The problem of identifying end users shouldn't prohibit innovative valid use of technology.. for all Big Brother's wanting to monitor us and for all the stupidity of people who believe the public must be controlled. Big Brother should work in the background not be changing the nature of the society it is supposed to support and work on behalf of.

We are not, despite what you may think simple Mindless Automata.

Re:Stealing & More

[MythMoth]

when you sign on for internet you agree it's for your household, apartment, or whatever, not for you to provide publicly Not necessarily true, but even where it is they can, frankly, bite me. Since they sell unlimited bandwidth and then put in teeny small print to say, effectively "unlimited does not mean unlimited" I don't have much of a problem with ignoring their unnecessary restrictions. Remember, this is a breach of contract at worst.

My electricity and water suppliers are not able to put these restrictive terms into their contracts, I see no reason why I should respect the internet suppliers' attempts to do so.

Re:Stealing & More

[Annoid]

Have to agree with this point of view. Your ISP's acceptable use policy probably does NOT give you the right to resell or share your connection.

If you want wireless, buy it.

The same logic applies to CD's, movies, etc.

What if it was the product of YOUR work that was being stolen; YOU weren't being paid for your work? Still think stealing it is ok?

Re:Stealing & More

[MythMoth]

As a matter of fact it is and I can't say it bothers me very much. I dare say my publishers feel differently.

Re:Stealing & More

[jamesh]

I think in Australia (and, being slashdot, someone will correct me if i'm wrong :), you need a carrier license to supply a communication service to the public.

Also, I think ISP's can't advertise something like 'Unlimited', and then add conditions in small print. The conditions have to be as visible as the 'Unlimited' text, although i'm less certain about that one... it may have been a proposed law.

Re:Stealing & More

[MythMoth]

In the UK that's precisely what they do. For example, grabbed from Tiscali's site:

Unlimited downloads. This great value package offers you unlimited downloads every month. Download movies and music, play games online, watch video clips and listen to the radio. Fair usage policy applies. It is not "Unlimited downloads" if a "fair usage policy" says it's limited.

Re:Stealing & More

[maxume]

Restrictions on watering outdoor plants are common in utility service agreements(in areas with water supply issues). That is, they sell the water for a specific purpose and you will get a big fine if you use it contrary to the sale.

Re:Stealing & More

[kingturkey]

I don't know about the font size part, but it wasn't a law. The ACCC (government competition body) sued Telstra for using the term 'unlimited' as it was misleading. It was a breach of the Trade Practices Act. As far as I'm aware, ISPs aren't allowed to call their plans unlimited at all, unless they actually are.

Re:Stealing & More

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The problem is that "unlimited" is kind of like a buffet. Just because you can go back as often as you want doesn't mean it's right for you to give someone else a plate and tell them to eat as much as they want too on your buffet entry fee, unless you pay for their use of the buffet too.

Electricity and water, as far as I know, is usually not put on "unlimited" plans. You pay for every gallon and every kWhr consumed. You don't pay by the MB, GB or anything like that.

Re:Stealing & More

[jrob323]

There's no reason the power or water company would care if you supplied your neighbors, since you pay based on the amount you use. In that respect, cable tv, phone, internet etc are really delivered in more of a service model. If wi-fi 'meshing' is something customers begin to insist on, maybe the business model will change to accommodate it? Technically inclined customers can obviously drive this kind of change. I remember when you payed extra for phone service for additional phones (ringer equivalency number lost its meaning when electronic phones came out).. ditto cable tv.

Re:Stealing & More

[witherstaff]

The same thing happens everytime there's an article here about free wifi.

• Some People are all for it
• People give reasons why it won't work.
• In the US CALEA is the law and demands that you be able to provide real time wire sniffing to anyone on the last hop. If you provide wifi, that's now your responsibility. A $10,000 a day non compliance responsibility.
• How do you keep from being in trouble with the RIAA, MPAA, etc

It's a neat idea, and I hope people keep tinkering. However we also need to push the legal side and get the various big brother provisions of the law removed.

Re:Stealing & More

[MythMoth]

Don't be fooled by marketing.

You don't pay by the MB, GB or anything like that. Unless your "unlimited" policy really is unlimited, yes you do. They just market it as if it weren't true, and you can't pay less in return for using less than the fixed amount that they're selling you.

Re:Stealing & More

[jasomenaso]

In Australia you will be classified as a carrier if you *charge* for provision of the service. If I say "take my bandwidth" to a brazillion strangers that is no issue.

Also, in Australia the majority of ISP's still charge by the gigabyte. (Honestly it makes sense.) The ISP's are not going to get ripped off by me sharing my bandwidth across the neighbourhood. I'll get a massive bill and/or speed-capped.

Re:Stealing & More

[jasomenaso]

Electricity and water, as far as I know, is usually not put on "unlimited" plans. You pay for every gallon and every kWhr consumed. You don't pay by the MB, GB or anything like that. Erm in Australia most plans are still pay by the MB, GB - exactly like that.

Re:Stealing & More

[delt0r]

I provide a free access point. Its not against my ISP rules. There are 2 "AC" using it right now.

Just because in your area the ISP are wankers does not mean they all are.

Re:Stealing & More

[sydbarrett74]

My electricity and water suppliers are not able to put these restrictive terms into their contracts Apples and oranges. Electricity and water are both metered services. Broadband, by and large, isn't.

Re:Stealing & More

[ColdWetDog]

In Australia you will be classified as a carrier if you *charge* for provision of the service. If I say "take my bandwidth" to a brazillion strangers that is no issue.

How do you get your bandwith from Austrailia to Brazil? That's an awfully long way. You guys know something we don't?

Oh, BTW, you misspelled "Brazilian".

Re:Stealing & More

[Dirtside]

Water and power suppliers are usually prohibited by law from putting those terms into their contracts. Internet providers are not.

Re:Stealing & More

[zippthorne]

Yes, precisely like a buffet.

It's not even an analogy. It's literally the pricing scheme adopted by the ISPs.

They charge "per person" with the expectation that the average person will take only so much. But that assumption goes all to heck if people start sub-letting their buffet plates.

If you wanted "all you (and everone you want to call 'friend') can eat," you should have bought that plan. Not the "all you can eat" plan, which assumes that you'll be the only one doing the eating.

Re:Stealing & More

[Anonymous Coward]

Having some trouble with reading comprehension? What MythMoth showed is that it's nothing like an all-you-eat buffet.

At a genuine all-you-eat buffet, you get "all you can eat". Not, "all you can eat or 5 kilos of food, whichever is smallest".

A typical ISP imposes "fair usage restrictions" on their "unlimited" usage plans. For a set fee, you get to transit up to N bytes per month. Logically, it shouldn't matter on whose behalf I transmit those bytes. I've paid to transmit that many bytes, and it would be highly presumptuous on the part of my ISP to impose rules about how widely spread my LAN is permitted to be.

I say would be because my ISP doesn't prohibit me from sharing my connection with anyone. The assumption amongst the "sharing your connection is theft" crowd seems to be that sharing your connection is obviously prohibited by every single ISP's terms and conditions, because "sharing your connection is theft".

Re:Stealing & More

[MythMoth]

If the buffet really was "All you can eat" then I would have no problem with the constraints. When it's "All you can eat (fair eatage policy applies)" then, as I say, they can bite me.

Re:Stealing & More

[rho]

That's the OP's point. It IS metered, but they advertise it as if it were not. Most cable broadband actually limit you. You're not allowed under whatever "Fair Use" policy they cobbled together to peg your advertised bandwidth 24/7.

Re:Stealing & More

[pembo13]

I can't remember agreeing to that. It definitely wasn't in the ads.

Re:Stealing & More

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it the paperwork you sign when the installer first comes to your home that has the terms you agree to, not the ads?

Re:Stealing & More

[Yogiz]

To whom it might interest- EFF's list of ISPs who allow publicly sharing Internet access.

Re:Stealing & More

[Eil]

I know the slashdot crowd is a big fan of free things, aren't we all, but when you sign on for internet you agree it's for your household, apartment, or whatever, not for you to provide publicly (even though many people inadvertently do with unsecured wireless networks).

There's a problem with this premise, though: Not all ISPs consider this a violation of their terms of service. My provider is a locally-owned and operated DSL outfit who leases CO space and last-mile copper from the incumbent Bell. When I questioned their sales team about their policies, their answer was along the lines of, "as long as it's not illegal or abusive to the network, you can do whatever you want with your DSL connection." Their written terms of service agree with this. The only things they prohibit are abuse of the network (e.g., spamming) and things which would get you arrested anyway (child pornography, fraud, etc).[1]

If you're the customer of a service provider that explicitly disallows many common uses of a broadband connection (having more than one computer online, peer-to-peer traffic, low-volume hosting, etc) then you need to start looking around for a _real_ provider.

Just like you can't steal cable or run a cable over to your neighbor's, you can't steal internet service either.

Offering to share a legally-acquired Internet connection is not at all stealing or akin to stealing. You can't be charged with "stealing" an Internet connection after you've already paid for it any more than you can be charged with "stealing" a car after you've signed the lease. It might be against the provider's terms of service to share your connection with someone not living in your household. But all the provider can do in retaliation is terminate your service because you haven't broken any laws.

Likewise, when someone pirates something using your network, the person getting sued will probably be the person that pays the bill--you. And just think what would happen if someone downloads child pornography on your connection...!

In general, courts have required that the prosecution be able to provide more evidence than a single IP address in some log in order to successfully accuse someone of piracy or child pornography. If the police can't find anything damning on your hard drives and you run an open-access wireless router, then any competent court is not going to find you guilty.

1. One other nice thing about this provider is that they let you grab multiple public IP addresses via DHCP. I've done this a few times to sort out issues with my VoIP equipment. I asked their support people if this was a problem and they said they don't mind as long as it's not abused. But it's obviously not something they advertise.

Re:Stealing & More

[Anonymous Coward]

just think what would happen if someone downloads child pornography on your connection...

Then I guess that would double the amount of child pornography being downloaded on my connection...?

Sorry, sorry - spent a bit of time on a certain website last night (the rules state that I'm not allowed to talk about it), and the effects are still wearing off :)

Re:Stealing & More

[MindlessAutomata]

If your ISP lets you, that's wonderful, but not all ISPs do. I doubt most even do.

Additionally, you mistake that even though the feds may not be able to win against you in COURT, they can still TAKE you to court, and can steal, er, take your computers as part of the investigation and maybe give them back to you next year if you're lucky.

I didn't say you'd end up in prison for a reason--I simply meant that the government will go after you; innocent or guilty, it hurts the same either way.

And in regards to cable stealing, one could also technically run the coaxial to a neighbor's house, and to everyone in the neighborhood, but I'm pretty sure that's not legal either.

brazillion

[jamesh]

A brazillion is not a number, as evidenced by this joke:

"
Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."

"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.

Finally, the President looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"
"

Re:brazillion

[mattpointblank]

Boy, is the parent gonna be embarrassed when he realises that!

X-Prise for this?

[randomErr]

So how much money would take to inspire a hacker to actually make something like and publish the schematics? I've been toying with the idea fo starting a foundation similar to the X-prise only on a smaller scale. So would $100 be enough?

Re:X-Prise for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since (almost) all wifi chipsets are closed, information and NDA-wise, it takes a huge amount of reverse engineering to find out the details of the devices, so that not only the internals of the hows and wheres in the chipset can be understood, but actually its firmware be improved/hacked/changed/redone in a way it does something much more complex than intended in the first place.

Having a look at the impressive effort of the Prism54 FreeMAC people gives an idea of the complexity of such work, and it also hints to another issue: To my experience, wifi chipsets vanish from the market within a year or less after they have been introduced, so once you might have successfully '0wned' them, craigslist and flea markets will be the only places to find your wifi dongle of choice. The fact that devices which have been made for "SoftMACs", i.e. those for moving most of the 802.11 complexity into the driver and thus away from the device hardware to the host computer, and that is the wide majority of devices today, have pretty scarce ressources for implementing anything not so trivial. For example, said Prism54 chipsets use an ARM946E core with a few dozens of kilobytes.

So, I think $100 isn't really enough to bring people into this, but rather the fascination of those devices and the vision of maybe finally being able to easily and very cheaply deploy wifi mesh networks which actually go below the one-watt-power consumption level per device - whether it's done for fun, sharing internet with your neighbors, providing networking in rural areas or doing IP-based sensor networks.

So, let's have a dream: Maybe Marvell, or the cozybit people that implemented meshing into the OLPC wifi chipset on Marvell's behalf, would be willing to release software, which would be a nice thing towards a less PITA realization of mesh micro devices, although OLPC's step to use a proprietary mesh protocol instead of open standards like OLSR, AODV, or the rather new but promising hands-on B.A.T.M.A.N. protocol wasn't highly acclaimed in the community. It would be even nicer if Marvell or any other wifi chipset vendor releases a chipset (or even a device) which comes with an extra application CPU-on-chip, so that wifi-specific and application-specific code could be decoupled, like we see it in most two-chip chipsets for mobile phones. Provided there is a defined and feature-complete interface, the vendor could still hide wifi-specific firmware from the eyes of the oh-so evil hackers, and yet have an embedded scale device that is capable of virtually everything Dan discusses - and more. And hey, throwing another ARM9 core and a few 100 kB flash and ram onto such a die can't be that expensive, can it? And who would not want such a chipset (or device), given the possibilites? Yes, you vendors can make it 50% more expensive than regular chipsets, I will still want them, and you will probably spearhead the market of embedded wifi capabilities within no time, cpmpanies will buy from you like crazy, and your ROI will skyrocket, so you actually can produce them for cheap... ;)

BTW, the reason for the closedness of the drivers and especially firmware (which becomes partially indistinguishable in "SoftMAC" setups) is, apart from the pure evilness of companies, the required FCC certification: since wifi adapters nowadays are pretty much software-defined radios, you could do a whole lot radio stuff with the devices, once you change their firmware, and that is something the FCC (and similar agencies around the world) wouldn't be so fond of. At lest this is what I heard Eben Moglin elaborate on during some conference, when he talked about the FSF's in

Re:X-Prise for this?

[Olli Siren]

IÂm willing to invest about 100 bucks to the prize if somebody makes this work.

Isn't this, essentially, what FON already do?

[SteveDob]

My UK ISP already provide for 'municipal' wi-fi via an affiliation with FON. By opening up part of my spectrum, I get to piggyback my mobile devices on some other member's wi-fi when I need to.

The only additional item here seems to be not getting ISP permission to do what they are happy to give permission for anyway. Rebellion this isn't.

Re:Isn't this, essentially, what FON already do?

[Anonymous Coward]

not getting ISP permission to do what they are happy to give permission for anyway. Rebellion this isn't.

Back when Shuttle PCs first came out, I had thought of something slightly related: making a non-internet-connected wireless network, running what was basically a local craigslist-type site for small towns (perhaps using DNS tricks to redirect every request to that webserver).

Back then, we didn't have these new fangled wireless mesh things you younguns have, so I figured the tiny shuttle computer could easily be installed in a nook every few blocks, but someone would have to drive around town to update each of these sites with the latest news from city hall, the local church, for sale notices, etc. I realized pretty quickly that this was just pointless, but having an actual wireless mesh could revitalize that idea.

until someone loads questionable content

[petes_PoV]

that the police trace back to your ISP connection. They won't care that you had an open WiFi, all they'll know is that some pr0n, bomb-making literature, racist/hate traffic appeared on the internet and it was your IP address that was the source. You thought the RIAA was bad, wait until DHS gets on your case.

Bleat all you like about "helping the community" or philanthropy or whatever you like. This is a naive attitude - similar to leaving your garage door open and then claiming "it's not mine" when stolen goods are found inside.

Anyway, if these devices are so cheap that you can afford to leave them out in the open (until they die, suddenly the firt time it rains), then your neighbours can afford to by one themselves.

Re:until someone loads questionable content

[klapaucjusz]

You want to make sure that traffic from the mesh network does not use your IP address, but one of the addresses assigned to the mesh network. This is not difficult to achieve, it just requires tunnels and careful design of your routing.

Re:until someone loads questionable content

[petes_PoV]

... and when one of your neighbours comes banging on your front door because their child has used your mesh network to circumvent their parental controls to download smut. What's your answer then?

Re:until someone loads questionable content

[Anonymous Coward]

"This is a naive attitude - similar to leaving your garage door open and then claiming "it's not mine" when stolen goods are found inside."

You have a very warped mind, if you think I lock my garage door to keep thieves from leaving stolen goodies in my garage overnight.

Re:until someone loads questionable content

[yabos]

Who cares, that's not really your problem. They can parent their own child which includes monitoring what they're doing not just hoping technology will do it all for them.

Re:until someone loads questionable content

[jim.hansson]

happy to be at services, then I tell them they obvisuly has a very bright child, should try to get the child to take some computer classes.

Re:until someone loads questionable content

[Lobster Quadrille]

I tell them that I'd be happy to teach the child other methods of circumventing the parental controls.

Re:until someone loads questionable content

[fuego451]

Exactly! Which is why I finally decided to lock down my router last night, due to paranoia. I live in a new development where homes average 30 meters apart with no big trees or other obstructions so my router has pretty good reach. Most of my neighbors have the same ISP I do, which gives you an ADSL modem/router combo (I see four 'admin' and a 'linksys' AP's), but apparently these folks have no idea what AP they are connecting to and, somehow, mine was the first choice. I guess they liked the essid I chose, no_carrier.

Re:until someone loads questionable content

[ceoyoyo]

Not all of us live in the US.

Even there, you still have some semblance of innocent until proven guilty and standards of evidence. If it became common to share a bit of your bandwidth then a simple IP address wouldn't be much evidence against you.

Re:until someone loads questionable content

[Anonymous Coward]

You see this is a problem; I see this is an opportunity for plausible deniability. If anyone can access your internet connection, nobody will be able to prove that it was you downloading all that kiddie porn. As it should be.

Re:until someone loads questionable content

[pembo13]

I love this reason, "because the cops may not like it"

Re:until someone loads questionable content

[ncryptd]

all they'll know is that some pr0n, bomb-making literature, racist/hate traffic appeared on the internet and it was your IP address that was the source. You thought the RIAA was bad, wait until DHS gets on your case. The DHS can blow me. All three of those things are legal to publish, download, and possess in the US.

Re:until someone loads questionable content

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a break. If I own an empty field in the middle of nowhere, I am not liable if some dope dealers drive out into the middle of nowhere to do a drug deal and decide to use my field to do it in.

Just the same as a hotel isn't liable for prositution in their hotel rooms unless they are found to be encouraging it or are being paid to look the other way. Are ISPs liable when you download kiddie porn over their networks?

Not all ISP's suck

[GeorgeS]

I use Speakeasy for my service and they actually have a program that allows and encourages you to share your net connection over a wi-fi setup.
They also encourage you to charge for it, but there's no reason why it can't be done for free if you'd like.

http://www.speakeasy.net/netshare/

Re:Not all ISP's suck

[Hemogoblin]

Hmmm, that's pretty interesting. It seems Speakeasy realizes that you could be sharing the connection with your neighbor without charging them anything, or paying more yourself, so they've found the only legitimate way of earning some revenue from the practice. Free-sharing your connection has a cost now: you're losing the discount you could earn from SpeakEasy sharing. This really seems the best solution for everyone. Anyone notice any negatives?

Re:Not all ISP's suck

[dwater]

I think I read about some European ISPs that do this cooperatively too - I think BT is part of it.

Oh, here you go :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7027871.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1565310/QandampA-BT-wi-fi-sharing-scheme.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FON

Nice, but inconsistent with ISP bandwidth capping

[The Mutant]

Sure, I'd love to be able to grab some 'Net time wherever I am, but the simple fact is (at least in the UK) ISP's are pretty aggressively putting bandwidth caps in place.

I installed a second wireless router upstairs to double the coverage in our flat, but only enabled WEP at the outset (yeh, I know); someone cracked the password and helped themselves to 6GB of download in one week.

Result? Virgin capped us down to dial up speeds for two weeks.

Nice one that, thanks for (ab)using my bandwidth.

So given that some people will abuse a resource, I don't see this happening - at least in the intermediate term.

My repeater setup to my neighbour

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an edimax access point which was cheap and works as a repeater and access point at the same time. So I have it on the corner of my barn with a cheapo 9dbi omni-directional antenna. It picks up the internet from my router in my house and resends it around the barns corner to my neighbor who only really does some email when home from work so saves 300 dollars a year or so by not having a connection and it makes no difference to me. Cost about 50 dollars to set up all in new plus five dollars a year electricity. Compared to the big name repeaters with wds which seem very picky to what devices they repeat it really is great. I'm not sure why more devices don't have universal repeater modes, its much easier.

http://www.open-mesh.com/store/ is has tempting devices with more control. Doesn't mention duplex though. Most of these things, like my edimax, cut the signal in half as they can't send and recieve at the same time so a long chain of them would start to degrade. Also, as with all wifi, in reality you have to be carefull getting all your lines of sight just right to work. Any leafy tree branch or anything and it all falls apart.

So all in all if you just want to get your signal around the corner or something an edimax like mine and an ebay cheapo antenna is a stress free way. If I hadn't had a convenient power socket it would have been harder of course.

Private Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but if this was done in large enough numbers, then the need to leave the mesh network for the Internet may not be that often. The end result would be a private Internet built and maintained by the users, not telcos - then we could really go tell the ISPs to get lost.

Re:Private Internet

[NeverVotedBush]

I think that was called FIDONet.

Re:Private Internet

[NeverVotedBush]

A mesh network is no good for long-haul communications. Just about all traffic would have to make its way through all nodes. Latencies would be huge and the amount of electricity wasted would also be huge. Nodes would get choked with traffic - it would be a continual DDoS situation. You need a way to bypass all the nodes in between if you wanted to shoot a packet all the way across the USA or the globe.

Mesh networks are great in limited areas and where data rates don't come close to the available bandwidth of the network.

Sounds good to me

[khrath]

Sounds like a great idea to me. Extending your footprint to allow yourself to have access anywhere you go in your own neighborhood isn't illegal, neither is leaving your wireless network unsecured. If you went out of your way to let all your neighbors know they could use your wifi, that would make you accountable for anything they do on it like pirating, but if you don't say anything and just leave it open, then anything they do isn't being done with your authorization, so you can just claim Plausible deniability because someone was using your service without your permission.

Re:Sounds good to me

[jasomenaso]

Sounds like a great idea to me. Extending your footprint to allow yourself to have access anywhere you go in your own neighborhood isn't illegal, neither is leaving your wireless network unsecured. If you went out of your way to let all your neighbors know they could use your wifi, that would make you accountable for anything they do on it like pirating, but if you don't say anything and just leave it open, then anything they do isn't being done with your authorization, so you can just claim Plausible deniability because someone was using your service without your permission.

Claiming plausible deniability is good and all.

Assuming the folk that are

• - knocking down your door in the early hours of the morning doing a kiddy-porn raid, and
• - hauling your handcuffed ass out in front of the waiting press

care about plausible deniability might be a little naive.

When you win your court case due to the plausible deniability factor, but you've lost your job, defaulted on your house, have been bashed/raped in goal whilst waiting for bail (denied - 'wont someone think of the children') I am sure you won't feel it was such a great idea.

Re:Sounds good to me

[ScrewMaster]

so you can just claim Plausible deniability because someone was using your service without your permission.

What everybody fails to grasp is this: if you're ever been merely accused of something the powers-that-be don't like (child pornography, "terrorist" materials, whatever) they're not going to listen to your plaintive cries of "but it's an open access point." They don't care as long as they can be publicly seen to be doing their jobs. Odds are the grunts arresting you won't know an access point from Adam, and they'll haul your ass off to jail as a matter of principle. Then, if you have a very good lawyer and are lucky enough to come before a tech-savvy judge (and don't count on that) you might have some form of viable defense. Then again, you might not, and could end up serving ten years to life. Either way, you've been seriously boned up the ass and for what? Giving your cheap-ass neighbor his jollies?

So, don't assume the cops or the Justice System will be reasonable about any of this, or even grasp the fundamental technical aspects of modern communications. They will take the simplest approach, which is it was your I.P. that was active when the offensive/illegal materials were downloaded, and even if it was someone else who did it it was still your equipment that was used. That wouldn't remotely constitute proof to an engineer, but so far lawyers have had a field day with it.

Bottom line, secure your access point as tightly as you can, and if you're going to download anything "questionable" do it through an encrypted anonymous service like Tor, and hope that that is sufficient to protect you. God help you if it's not, because nobody else will.

Re:Sounds good to me

[Cuppa 'Joe' Black]

Mod parent up.

Re:Sounds good to me

[Nullav]

Sorry, but the only thing that'll help you if you have an open connection is knowing who was logged in at what time of day. 'I didn't do it, but I have a list of people who may have done it.' works a lot better than 'This is my intentionally-insecure access point and for all I know, Santa Claus did it.'

Please don't mention brazillions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon women on the moon was bad enough. Now there is brazilla?

Does she destroy tokyo before moving onto the network infrastructure, or does she break that fine tradition?

It's a Billing Issue

[scrib]

An unpopular solution would be for ISPs to charge for actual internet usage. Heavy users pay the same amount as people who only check their email every couple days.

If ISPs charged per GB up and down, they'd quickly lose interest in people who shared with a neighbor. It would also discourage use of Sandvine to disrupt file sharing (Linux distros only, of course) because throttling bandwidth would throttle their profits. The marginal cost of bandwidth (for a subscriber) is Zero, so consumption is unrestrained.

People would have to be more careful securing their wireless, but they would also recognize that bandwidth is a commodity that costs money to provide. If you want to be a philanthropist under those conditions, go ahead! As it is, sharing a connection forces the ISP to be the philanthropist. (I'm not saying that's bad, mind you.)

Power issues

[klapaucjusz]

I would think that the batteries and solar cells would be the more attractive things to steal, and if you can make them as cheap as plastic bags from a supermarket then you've solved a whole load more problems than community wireless :)

That's a very good point.

I don't think that using solar-powered devices is economically feasible; you really need access to external power.

In cities, there's power in every streetlamp, and we need to find ways to get the municipal authorities to give us access to that, and in every café or restaurant, and we need to explain to café owners that it's just a few watts. In the countryside, there's church towers (at least in Europe), so be nice to your local priest.

Re:Power issues

[Dan541]

I don't think that using solar-powered devices is economically feasible; you really need access to external power.

But people will be too stupid to realise that until they have an overcast day.

Re:Power issues

[marxmarv]

In cities, there's power in every streetlamp, and we need to find ways to get the municipal authorities to give us access to that, and in every café or restaurant, and we need to explain to café owners that it's just a few watts.

Metricom read utility meters over their mesh data network. If you can add value like that, you're in.

Re:Power issues

[Meski]

In the countryside, there's church towers (at least in Europe), so be nice to your local priest. But that makes your ass hurt. :)

hmmm....

[JoshEanes]

Wifi Philanthropist: "If you've got a lot of spare money, a ladder and no respect for private property" Cat Burglar: "If you've got no spare money, a ladder and no respect for private property" hmmmm.... interesting comparison.

Am I missing something?

[ComputerGeek01]

Why don't we just build an Amp. that is in sync with the Wi-Fi frequency? It seems easy enough to me, just build some thing with a pair of side band filters one for in coming and another for out going and boom we're done. Yes it is theft of service unless one of the ISP's wants to allow us to do the Starbucks thing but I think it's just a matter of time

Re:Am I missing something?

[zippthorne]

an amp is useless unless you have one at both ends. If you transmit at 10W or 100W, plenty of people will be able to hear you that you won't be able to hear unless they also are transmitting at 10W or 100W. (and if you can hear them, then you didn't need the full power for them to hear you.)

Now you *could* use a very fancy antenna system, and combine a high-power dipole with an array (or virtual array using DSP) of highly directional antennas with overlapping coverage over the same area as your dipole.

But that gets expensive rather quicly.

Re:Nice, but inconsistent with ISP bandwidth cappi

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't make sense. It's like saying joyriders are an argument against car sharing. Yes, somebody who uses your connection without your knowledge or permission is likely to abuse it.

If you're planning to share your connection, and your router is set up with appropriate QoS and usage limits for anonymous users, those users can't abuse your connection.

This would be easy to set up if the ISPs didn't resist. A simple web interface on the router says "your monthly usage allowance is 40GB: how much would you like to allow anonymous WiFi clients to use?"

It's not the EULA that worries me

[stokessd]

I'd gladly share my bandwidth with others if I thought I wouldn't have the government kick down my door with an RIAA sponsored search warrant in hand and take all my computers. If I really felt free from scrutiny, I'd let others use my bandwidth. I can't use it all thanks to comcast throttling me, so others can have a slice too but I've got to trust them.

IT's fear of attempted prosecution that keeps my wi-fi locked not anything else.

Sheldon

The reality check

[westlake]

Isn't just about every government in possession and in charge of maintaining part of one of those fat underwater cables that brings and sends the data to other countries? Why should they only let ISPs, universities and other government organizations feed off the teet?
Because ISPs bribe, er, give campaign contributions to important politicians

The big fat pipe is often privately owned and operated:

Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe [FLAG], Reliance Globalcom Transmission Network

FLAG is 28,000 km of submarine cable.

Re:Nice, but inconsistent with ISP bandwidth cappi

[The Mutant]

Well, I largely agree, but Virgin won't quantify a download limit.

They suggest that the top 5% of all downloaders each week but capped. I've already pointed out that this means each week, some group will be penalised, but to no avail (well, we are currently looking at alternative ISPs).

So I don't see this working as ISPs currently sell their products (at least in the UK).

And Virgin? Avoid for broadband!

The Collective Mesh Network Can Happen

[FromTheAir]

I have written about this idea before but with a more formal approach. There is no techinical reason 1+ million people could not decide to build their own consumer owned and operated mesh network. Each individual supporting a part of the infrastructure. One or two hundred spent on a piece of hardware and the electric or solar to power it. Obviously it would eliminate a need for at least a portion of the corporate owned infrastructure. It really is not a question of if, but when we can unify to do it. It would be a natural evolution of our infrastructure and much more efficient with no middle men. Eventually there will be a transfer of control from the few in power to the collective power which will engineer special interests, imbalance, and inefficiency out of the system.

"SHARERS PAY FULL PRICE"

[marxmarv]

Buffet restaurants can and do add those "restrictive terms" into their "contracts". If your Internet service is metered as your electricity and water are, I doubt they really care who uses it.

Wireless Repeater

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a public Library with open WiFi about 3/4 of a block away. As an interesting project/challenge I took a Linksys WRT54g router and put the open source firmware on it, turned it into a wireless repeater, put high gain antennas on it, turned up the voltage on the antennas using the firmware, and tried to repeat the library's signal. I am as of yet unsuccessful, but am going to try using a Cantenna next. I this works, it would be a lot of fun and would save me 50 bucks a month!

the big ISPs don't pay for their bandwidth

[Trepidity]

If you model internet access as people lower on the totem pole buying bandwidth from people higher on the totem pole, then, absent an infinite regression, you eventually have to get to somebody at the top.

Originally, this was the ARPANET backbone, later replaced by the NSFNet backbone---once you got to the government infrastructure, you could get anywhere else.

This has since been replaced by a set of large ISPs, the "tier 1" providers, who interconnect with each other for free, and sell bandwidth to everyone who isn't a Tier 1 peer. They essentially "are" the internet, in the sense that anyone who isn't one of them has to buy from one of them, or from someone who buys from one of them (or from someone who buys from someone who buys from one of them, etc.). ISPs like AT&T and Verizon are among them.

Many Tier 2 ISPs, which includes a lot of other ISPs, are close to the same, because much of their bandwidth comes via peering agreements with other Tier 2s, even if technically they have to reach some parts of the internet on a for-money basis via a Tier 1 ISP.

Its the form management

[bussdriver]

All this money going into managing the network FOR PROFIT AND NOT for technical reasons. Some of the worst industries for jerking around customers are cable and phone so what can a person expect? It will get as bad as possible right up to the threat of public action (aka government regulation.)

Instead of monitoring my traffic and shaping or literally doing man-in-the-middle attacks on my connection how about balancing customer traffic??

Laws should require HONEST advertising; ISPs must give me a known minimum bandwidth. Scam all you want as far as the maximum bandwidth for all I care.

ISPs should throttle users until everybody gets the minimum advertised and evenly distribute what is left.

No crazy packet inspection hardware is required for this unlike what they are doing now and planning to do next.

I don't give a rip about traffic shaping, make it effectively illegal for all I care-- our minimum bandwidth speeds will eventually be enough to cover stuff like VoIP and IPTV when managed by our own gear in our own house. Not to say I'm not against priority for some protocols-- but they must be EVENLY balanced and not biased by who I am talking with etc.

A real example: cox.net

[CustomDesigned]

Here are some relevant paragraphs from Cox AUP (after the stuff about no illegal activities or harm to minors, etc):

User Content. You are solely responsible for any information that is transmitted from your IP address or your account on the web or other Internet services. You must ensure that the recipient of the content is appropriate and must take appropriate precautions to prevent minors from receiving inappropriate content. So if some predator uses my unsecured Wifi, I have problems.

Commercial Use. The Service is designed for personal, non-business related use of the Internet and may not be used for commercial purposes. You may not resell or otherwise charge others to use the residential Service. So they are fine with giving away your bandwidth allotment - provided you don't charge for it and are responsible for what goes over it.

Servers. You may not operate, or allow others to operate, servers of any type or any other device, equipment, and/or software providing server-like functionality in connection with the Service, unless expressly authorized by Cox. You can't run a web server, or an email server. I interpret that to mean a *public* email, web, or whatever server, because our family makes heavy use of our private web and email server. (Not to mention sshd servers, X servers, and more.)

Misuse of Service. You are responsible for any misuse of the Service that occurs through your account or IP address. Again, you are responsible.

Finally, the monthly bandwidth is limited, to 40G down and 10G up in my case. I only use half of that, and would be happy to give away the rest, if not for the threat of going to jail for some asshole using my Wifi. If there was a way to run as a free as in beer common carrier, I would do it. Maybe by making prospective users click on an agreement that says *they* are responsible for content, harm to minors, yada, yada? (Like the local Caribou Coffee does with their free as in beer Wifi.)

Re:A real example: cox.net

[Magada]

Here are some relevant paragraphs from Cox AUP (after the stuff about no illegal activities or harm to minors, etc):

User Content. You are solely responsible for any information that is transmitted from your IP address or your account on the web or other Internet services. You must ensure that the recipient of the content is appropriate and must take appropriate precautions to prevent minors from receiving inappropriate content. So if some predator uses my unsecured Wifi, I have problems. Hogwash.

You'll have problems with Comcast, to the extent covered by your contract (i.e. the internet service itself).

Not, however, with the criminal law, at least not automatically. You do not sign over your presumption of innocence or your right to a fair trial when you sign with Comcast. In fact, the laws of your country (as of most others) specifically state that state law trumps contracts and that you cannot legally give away some of your rights.

Comcast officials do not get hauled to criminal court when a pedo with a Comcast contract is arrested. Neither should you be, if some schmuck abuses a service you offer.

What abuse?

[2short]

Some people want to use a network connection in one sort of way. Other people want to use a network connection in a different sort of way. Pricing models may have to adapt to let everyone pay for what they want in a reasonable way.

Because someone wants a different level of internet service than you, that doesn't make them a bad person.

Simple ways to solve that problem

[Casandro]

There are simple ways to solve that problem.

Just install an anonymous proxy so all the http-trafic goes via tor or something.

Besides, there hasn't been a single case yet in which something like that has happened.

Furthermore, who says you need to provide internet access via such a network? Just a general local network would be sufficient. One lawyers cannot look into easily without actually going to the neighbourhood.

Re:Simple ways to solve that problem

[ScrewMaster]

Besides, there hasn't been a single case yet in which something like that has happened.

I'm not sure what country you live in, but it must be someplace whose legal system hasn't been pwned by a bloodsucking media conglomerate. That would not be the United States, by the way. The Recording Industry Association of America has been suing/threatening thousands of Internet users on just the kind of "evidence" I was talking about. And so far as governmental organizations are concerned, the FBI has taken the position that merely clicking on a hyperlink constitutes access to verboten materials, even if said link is non-descriptive. Furthermore, Congress is currently in the process of criminalizing copyright infringement and establishing a Federal copyright enforcement wing of the Justice Department.

Consequently, I maintain that one opens one's WAP at one's own risk.

waste of time

[dwater]

I think this is a waste of time. IMO, it'll soon be that the majority of wireless internet access is done via the cell phone networks. Some will still want the 'fastest', but the cell phone networks will eventually be fast enough, especially for the roaming user who just wants to check their email.

All these wifi sharing projects are trying to solve a problem that's already been solved by cell phone towers. The only issue is lack of bandwidth which is due to technological issues (rather than ISP brain-deadedness) and that will change within a few years - certainly long before wifi sharing becomes prevalent.

Kyle716

[Anonymous Coward]

at best buy there is a cheap 25 dollar solar panel you can buy right now that has adapters for basically everything under the sun. (no pun intended)

Far less money needed

[Casandro]

Actually in many cases all that's needed is a wireless network card and a good antenna. Every computer can easily act as a meshed networking router.

For example we currently set up such a system at our dormatory. We will set up one server for a wiki and some ftp-space, but otherwise the only infrastructure will be the computers of the users.

We do not have any internet access in that network, except for a proxy that relays into the tor network.

If there is any interrest you can read my article in the Winter 2007-2008 issue of 2600, page 9. If there is even more interrest, I can post my raw version here.

Missing the points

[Casandro]

I think you are missing the point here.

User-owned wireless networks can provide 2 features, cell-phone networks cannot.

1. They are affordable.

2. They are free of corporate censorship.

Cell phone networks are still designed with low-bandwidth voice in mind. They do not really scale beyond a few megabits per cell, even with 3G networks which we will be stuck with for the next decades.

There also is a more dangerous consequence. Traditional cell phone networks need to have a preety good clue to where your mobile station is. That means people will be able to easily track you and follow every move, even without the need to get out of their office. In times of governemnts all over the world getting more and more fashist, this is definitely not good.

We need user-operated networks.

Re:Missing the points

[dwater]

Interesting arguments, and although I'd agree on principle, I'd posit that most people don't much care, *so long as they're not exploited gregariously in the ways you describe*. If they are exploited, then I could see some kind of rebellion and/or competition from companies that don't do/allow that sort of thing.

I would guess there may be some kind of technological solution to the tracking issue, though we'll have to wait and see (or not).

Also, I would guess that >3G networks are just around the corner (according to wikipedia's '4G' article).

Re:Missing the points

[Casandro]

Well how could one exploit such a system. It doesn't cost anything more to route than to just be a part of the network.

Well tracking is an integral issue with those cell-"phone" networks. Unfortunately the operators even want it to provide location-based services.

I guess that 5G networks will be meshed and user-driven. It's just an ingenious business model. The users provide an open network, and phone-operators can just use that network, simmilar to VoIP-Providers using the internet. It's just so much cheaper to give away a few thousand $20 WLAN-Routers as well as free low bandwidth (1MBit max) internet access as to build up a few base-stations.

A business-model could look like this:
ISPs agree on technical standards for meshed wireless networking. Then they let companies build boxes for that kind of networking and sell them, or give them away for free.
After a network has been buildt, those ISPs offer VPN-tunnels into the internet, as well as other services for a fee, or finance that with advertisements. It's essentially the web business-model brought to networking. You have a big network where everybody shares the cost, and you can use it any way you want.

Probably not a great idea

[foxalopex]

While the idea of having free wireless Internet is nice, I think folks are forgetting that in reality this probably wouldn't work. After all how many places do you know of where folks have wired up their say water utility and am sharing water for free? How long do you think a system like this would work before a bunch of folks abuse the network and start torrenting all the bandwidth out of it? That's the problem with "free" resources. It only takes a few idiots to misuse it and that's the end of the system.

Hacking != Cracking

[Anonymous Coward]

Hacking is good.
Cracking is bad.

anarchist rant

[rootooftheworld]

implementig a darknet sounds apealing but not very functional, though if you use caching and other techniques you can make the whole neighborhood get by on one link only, and effitiently too, otherwise whats the point of sharing with nothing TO share? Oh, an fuck ISPs - you want a service, the market provides you with it, maybe not the same provider, so what? you get to surf the net dirt cheap, somebody else makes a profit, to feed the kids and wife this time, not going to elite brothels - everybody's happy sans the old isp also since when's evrybody a moralist, most of that "questionable material" is just some grade A jackoff material - child porn, right, more like hentai and teen whores askin' for it. plus its a free country if ya wannablowup the congress, ya darn well get to, and as if terrorists dont have something akin to a cyphernet to communicate the previous posts are right, the law just wants to make it look like its doing something - fuck'em too. lets just make a nice big cyphernet for all the cool banned stuff - the law cant handle a handfull of troblemakers, so it cant handle most of the internet community oh also, torr is slow and hard to integrate