EFF To Unveil Open Wireless Router For Open Wireless Movement

hypnosec writes A new movement dubbed the Open Wireless Movement is asking users to open up their private Wi-Fi networks to total strangers – a random act of kindness – with an aim of better securing networks and facilitating better use of finite broadband resources. The movement is supported by non-profit and pro-internet rights organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Mozilla, Open Rights Group, and Free Press among others. The EFF is planning to unveil one such innovation – Open Wireless Router – at the Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE X) conference to be held next month on New York. This firmware will allow individuals to share their private Wi-Fi to total strangers to anyone without a password.

Comments

Doesn't this violate TOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure at least some ISPs stipulate in their terms of service that a subscriber cannot provide internet access to the general public without upgrading to some other (more expensive) plan. Surely we can move towards a more secure internet without strongly hinting that people should violate their contracts.

Re:Doesn't this violate TOS?

[Charliemopps]

I'm sure at least some ISPs stipulate in their terms of service that a subscriber cannot provide internet access to the general public without upgrading to some other (more expensive) plan. Surely we can move towards a more secure internet without strongly hinting that people should violate their contracts.

I work for a moderately large ISP
The answer to your question is "yes"
but... but you have to understand that the majority of your agreement with your ISP is there to give them legal immunity against your activities. I've worked for several ISPs and none of them cared how their customers used their service.

They only start caring when your activity:
A. Costs them money
B. Gets them into legal jeopardy... which leads back to A

When ISPs got federal immunity from prosecution for the activities of their users, that was a great thing for the users because the ISPs were completely off the hook... so the ISPs wouldn't be policing your activity.

So, that I know of, no ISP has a program where they police what you do. That would be a waste of resources. Bandwidth caps are just there to encourage you to buy larger packages or not suck up all the bandwidth in your neighborhood. They are rarely enforce effectively. They're required to do something about DCMA notices, and I've even been on those teams. It's incredibly labor intensive, and what they are basically doing is telling a PAYING customer that some non-paying customer claims you did something wrong. If you stopped pirating, you might not need Internet. So usually it just ends up that they build some automated system to forward the complaint to you and then they forget about it. If you do other stuff or start causing problems, they yea, they might dig up that data and use it to boot you. But that's VERY rare. I can count the number of times I've seen a customer lose their service on one hand. And that's 14yrs of experience. The few that did get booted usually involved death threats to the billing department. That's how sever it has to get. Even people that launch DDOS attacks get warned that "Someone probably hacked your computer, please fix it."

Re:Doesn't this violate TOS?

[Mr. Slippery]

So, that I know of, no ISP has a program where they police what you do.

My ISP is Sprint/Clearwire. (Complicated corporate and branding relationship.) I got a nastygram from them about peer-to-peer downloads. They didn't care that I was downloads GNU/Linux distros, they didn't want me using PtP at all. (So I got a VPN account and flipped them the bird.)

Something like this already exists...

[CaptainOfSpray]

In UK. If you have your broadband from BT, you can use wifi from any router that is advertising FON service. You need to logon with your BT account credentials, but it's otherwise free to use. If you are out and about, and you need wifi, just drive into a residential area. There will one or more FON routers on almost any street.

Open your Wifi and your mind will follow

[monkey999]

All the people saying "don't open your router because then the gov't will hold you responsible for things other people use it for" are missing the point. This is exactly why this is a freedom of speech issue and why the EFF is involved in the first place.
The gov't would like every act online to be traceable to an individual who can then be held responsible for it.
Freedom of speech means freedom from punishment because of your speech. The Soviets used to have a joke "everybody in Russia is free to say what they like - they're just not free to stay out of prison afterwards."
The only way to guarantee FoS is anonymity. The gov't can't punish you if they can't find you. Which is why dictatorships hate online anonymity.
Even if it was true that you could be held responsible for things others do using your router, you'd still have a duty to let them do it.
IANAL but AFAIK there is no legal basis in either the UK or US to punish someone for enabling someone else to commit a crime, unless it was part of a deliberate conspiracy, or 'common purpose'. So, (if its true at all that this is 'dangerous') the authorities are trying to illegally blackmail people into supporting their unconstitutional attempt to destroy anonymous Internet access.
Submitting to this blackmail is treason. Keep your country free, Keep your WiFi free.