Free Wi-Fi: the Movement To Give Away Your Internet For the Good of Humanity

pigrabbitbear writes "We are strangely territorial when it comes to our wireless networks. The idea of someone siphoning off our precious bandwidth without paying for it is, for most people, completely unacceptable. But the Open Wireless Movement wants to change all that. 'We are trying to create a movement where people are willing to share their network for the common good,' says Adi Kamdar, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 'It's a neighborly thing to do.' That's right, upstanding citizen of the Internet, you can be a good neighbor just by opening your wireless network to strangers — or so the line goes. The ultimate vision is one of neighborhoods completely void of passwords, where any passerby can quickly jump on your network and use Google Maps to find directions or check their email or do whatever they want to do (or, whatever you decide they can do)."

Comments

Re:Open network?

[Defenestrar]

You aren't liable and you'll probably get a successful good free lawyer (well free to you) if anyone gives you grief.

Worried about your door kicked in? I'd say it's your civic duty - and if my reasons aren't good enough for you, maybe you'd consider the optional counter-suits like winning the lottery

Re:Hypocrite

[MozeeToby]

QoS gives packets different priority based on the type of data and net neutrality allows for that. What net neutrality doesn't allow for is differing priority based on the server; specifically, it doesn't allow you to treat packets from your servers preferentially and it doesn't allow you to blackmail other service providers for faster speeds. As for providing a guest with a slower connection than yourself, that is no different than an ISP giving different bandwidth speeds depending on your service level and has nothing to do with QoS or net neutrality.

Re:Bad idea.

[QRDeNameland]

In general, though, the reason this movement will fail is the same reason why people want it to work. Selfishness. The same person that says "I would like to have wifi without paying for it when I am somewhere not home" has already said "I don't want to pay for my own 3g/data plan so I can have network access when I am not home". That same attitude would result in "why should I pay for network at home if I can get it free from my neighbor".

I can't speak for others, but I'd consider providing free access to my wifi under 3 conditions:

1) There is a brain-dead simple way to ensure that my internal network is secure from anyone using it as an open access point,

2) a similarly brain-dead way to limit how much can be downloaded per open access client, and

3) legal assurance that I was in no way liable for anything downloaded from my open access point.

While the Open Wireless Movement (OWS - is that a conicidence?) could probably easily provide the first two, the third is a matter of legislation and thus is the real sticking point. I imagine there are many others like me that don't recoil at the very idea of someone "freeloading" and would be happy to provide a service to the community, but if I'm going to face any chance of liability for doing so, or if it's just a matter of being a PITA to set up, then it's not happening. If it were easy AND there were no potential legal consequences, I think you'd be surprised how many folks would *not* be that selfish.