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Fonera 2 To Launch With Extended Functionality
The next installment in the Fonera router family is set to make its debut in a couple of weeks, and the additions to the hardware are relatively impressive. Promising full support for networked storage, automatic downloads, sharing of a USB 3G connection, and a few other perks in addition to the normal range of functionality found in the Fonera routers this package packs quite a punch. "Like the original Fonera and Fonera+ routers, the principals of this hippie-love-in-styled product still apply. You buy the router and hook it up to your internet connection as normal. The trick is that the router shares a part of your bandwidth on a public-facing connection. Other Fon owners can log in and use this public network for free. In turn, you — as a Fonera owner — can travel the world and use other Fon hotspots. It's a neat idea and everybody wins, except the money-grabbing telcos."
Would have a hotspot open to all.
Not just the evil consumers that evilly used their evil money to buy the evil Fonera.
... the "hippie" aspect is only going to be as effective as it is popular.
Caveat Utilitor
can travel the world and use other Fon hotspots
You're going to have to.
Can anyone tell me how this affects/is affected by the new data retention laws coming out? The "open wi-fi" defense? Stuff like that?
THL phish sticks
It does this all without a computer, so once you have it set up you can take your laptop out on the road and look forward to a new episode of Criminal Minds when you get home.
Why must people continuously tout the ability of these devices to aid in copyright infringement? Before you stop reading here, consider this: I'm posting this from an Ubuntu laptop. I publish all my software under the GPL and BSD licenses. I publish 99% of my other content under Creative Commons attribution-only licenses. So I'm doing my part to make the IP scene a nicer place.
All that said, it's ridiculous how many people would scream bloody murder over a GPL violation, while they're downloading someone else's content without the publisher's permission. This is beyond dumb, and it's precisely the reason BitTorrent is so poorly regarded by many publishers and ISPs. Yeah, I actually use it to download ISOs and other legal stuff, but to specifically encourage people to use it in ways that defy the law is idiocy.
People can't demand that their own rights be respected while they trample on those of others.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Fon is against the TOS of most ISPs.
Fon is illegal in many areas.
Fon isn't as nice as just running a free hotspot.
Most Fon users signed up back in the day just for the free router, which they promptly flashed with DD-WRT.
Most new Fon users will be attracted to the "Make money with Fon!" option, and WiFi WON'T be free to the masses, but only to other Fon users.
There's a reason Fon never got of the ground, and that's the simple fact that truly free WiFi is easy to come by, especially in areas likely to harbor Fon users.
I think the concept of Fon is excellent. But not all that useful in practice.
I live in a fairly populated area, and there are ~7 Fon routers within a five mile radius of where I live (Go to http://maps.fon.com/ to check around where you live). But every single one of those hotspots is in a residential area. Which is (I think) why I've never actually seen a Fon hotspot when I've been looking for WiFi. And, in the 6 months or so that I've ran a Fon hotspot out of my home, I've had zero outside connections.
I think the key to success for Fon would be to target businesses where people are typically looking for WiFi. Coffee Shops, Hotels and the like. The way it is now, I'd have to camp out on someone's Cul-de-sac to find a Fon hotspot.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
It was a pretty good idea in the 'day' but in the modern era of bandwidth caps on most broadband accounts it is dumb. You are opening yourself up to an unlimited commitment to provide access to Fon users for the dubious benefit of being able to use the other access points.
Democrat delenda est
Promising full support for networked storage, automatic downloads, sharing of a USB 3G connection, and a few other perks in addition to the normal range of functionality found in the Fonera routers this package packs quite a punch.
But will it fit inside a pineapple?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I can't speak for anyone else, but it's against my ISP's Terms of Service to provide others with access to my internet connection.
Even if I just left my access point open, I'd be in violation.
If there's anything more important than my ego around here, I want it caught and shot immediately.
I'm interested in what the legal ramifications of 'sharing' your internet connection is when someone you share with does a questionable activity. I'm talking stuff like child pornography, online fraud, etc.
Is illegal in some areas, soon most all.
Cant risk people having anonymous access to the net can we?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
More free routers? :D
Does Fonera indemnify me against getting sued by the RIAA for somebody else's use of my wireless connection? 'Cause if they don't, then I see a serious downside here.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
This guy's toast!
The MAFIAAs should be already on his ass...
Dowloading movies and OSTs of movies *just* to demonstrate Fonera's functionality?
Download a Linux distro torrent you fool!
"I'm gonna delete them after this video"...yeah right-ah!
You can set it to isolate wifi connections, and set no password, and you're up and running.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
"The trick is that the router shares a part of your bandwidth on a public-facing connection. Other Fon owners can log in and use this public network for free."
Linksys has been doing this for years.
Everyody wins? what the hell have you been smoking? FON wins. You're poor souls falling prey to a lame scam. "oh look it's cool i can access any fon AP anywhere" -yeah right, like you'll be needing or doing that often... like Fon will give you a fair share of their pie.
I'm not sure I could participate in something like this, every ISP in the country charges per MB for broadband.
Even in a place as dense as Hong Kong, the public FON APs are close to non-existent - even if you've found one in some shopping mall, it's usually of poor quality. They're often terribly slow and drop your connection regularly.
Now with unlimited HSDPA 3G plans being available here (I've been using one with my iPhone 3G), it's much easier to get Internet connection with your mobile phone. Previously, I've been using an old version PdaNet on my iPhone to do it. But with the 3.0 beta firmware (I'm an iPhone developer so I can get beta firmware from Apple) now I can just tether via USB. If you've got an unlimited 3G plan like me and some other 3G phone (like a Nokia), you can even do the tethering without fiddling with jailbreaking or beta firmware.
So, the only use of a FON left is to use it as a regular wifi router at home. But even for that, it's terribly insufficient - it doesn't have uPnP, DMZ or DDNS clients. So again, the only useful thing you can do with it, is to jailbreak it and install dd-wrt (or some other free router firmware) into it, so at least you get basic things like DMZ and uPnP.
Widespread availability of open wi-fi might make everyone a little safer from legal persecution as it provides more anonymity to both users and subscribers of internet services. Witchhunting prosecutors assume that an ip address must be the owner unless clearly proven otherwise; an assumption hard to disprove to those without technical knowledge. It's obviously untrue, as many different people use the connection at different times, even with no wifi connection at all. And wifi can be easily hacked. A closed wifi connection is secure only because there are other easier open wifi networks around to attack.
More widespread user anonymity helps because a prosecutor must have a clearly defined target to proceed with a case. Yes, the owner of an ip address has some responsibility for the usage on the account, but that should be covered under the contract TOS with the provider, but not by some legal fear of prosecution. Unless every device has it's own unique unspoofable ip address (ipv6?), then the link between a user and the ip address is too tenuous for any legal prosecution. Anything that breaks that link should help.
Fonera should be encouraged, even if you don't directly benefit. If more people have fonera or open wifi spots, it can't hurt, and it may indirectly benefit you if the some prosecutor knocks on your door, as it helps break the link between the many users of an ip address and the subscriber. Even people who don't believe in open wifi will benefit, as their closed wifi networks will be more secure by contrast.
For fonera subscribers, the direct benefit is that fonera gives a solid reason to have an open access wifi spot, so in a way, it does give some covering legal protection, despite the higher risk.
RFC 3514 is the evil bit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFC_3514
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
I don't really like the fonera scheme. The only reason i even know such thing exists, is because someone brought me a device with the fon sticker on it and i started researching how to remove their customized openwrt with either true openwrt or dd-wrt, which i did successfully, and the device became a regular wifi ap.
Fonera is not even a mesh, its plain regular wifi access, for which you have to have an account with them (centralized), by means of paying a fee, or sharing your wifi. Terrible.
The hardware they use is good, strong and compact, atheros based iirc. These are the same used in the much better open-mesh project, which is what meraki could have been before it corrupted itself into oblivion.
Open-mesh lets you mess with the hardware all you want, does not force you to authenticate to third parties, does not forbid you from modifying/installing your own software. Its the opposite of Fonera and Meraki, in the spirit of the Free Software they run things with; they just provide you the tools (hardware and software) to roll your own wifi mesh and do with it whatever you want, no third parties involved.
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
Fon is from Spain. And is Spain, downloading movies/music from p2p for your personal use was established to be COMPLETELLY LEGAL.
Better ask why do you have such and such legal situation at your place...
One that hath name thou can not otter
Bzeek has a feature to share your 3G connection for quite a while now.
It seems to me that usually people tend to thing that the fon system if about connecting people for free to the internet. It's only a small part of the system. 99% of the foneras users will pay to access the internet and about 30% of the money will be given to the guy sharing his bandwith. So all of this is more about reselling your bandwidth than realy "sharing" it.
If we are really facing getting our doors kicked in for sharing our internet connections then we are actually living in an Orwellian police state and we ought to resist, not be cowards.
First they came for the open wi-fi users, and I was not an open wi-fi user so...
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
That's just sad:
Meshnets may be one of the best ways to roll out free wireless to the urban poor like in my hometown of Ypsilanti Michigan. Will someone please stop these overly paranoid police state loving yuppies hyped on fear from "reality" tee vee from shutting down everything that is the least bit challenging and interesting?
http://www.metromodemedia.com/devnews/wirelessypsi0051.aspx
http://www.wireless.ypsi.com/
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Isn't it disgusting that telecom providers want so much money? After all, they're just using the naturally occuring fiber networks (formed by geological processes), copied the Biblical scrolls that detailed a stable multi-tasking OS, and exploited the labor of developing nations to create the lingua franca of heavy systems programming. We should drag the providers out back and shoot them.
Interesting my government established monopolistic, money grabbing, no customer service providing, fiber obstructing, Phorm deploying telco., actually ships Fon on all its routers and gives you incentives for enabling it.
Hint: BT Internet.