Re: free internet (kinda)
 

well, you could take the viewpoint that the radio wave's condition is indeterminate, and that the very act of observing it will change its state...



;)

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

My gf's iPod Touch refuses to connect to my home router using WPA, so back to WEP it is.....

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

lol... quantum piracy!

Just more data bolstering my suggestion to err to the side of caution. That includes both ways: name the SSID clearly if you intend to offer your own service up free, and avoid APs that are questionable.

Sooner or later here in the US you know that state-by-state differences will be ironed out at the federal level.

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

Well, looks like the city's free wifi is too far away from me (or to many obstacles) so the setup doesn't work for that. I'll put the yagi antenna for sale on ebay.

I found another good use for this router, and this time works like a charm. I use a cigarette lighter-to-usb adapter to power it up... and any time I need access to the internet from my car, the router (which has way way better reception than n800 or laptop) will find the strongest open wifi signal, test it for internet access and then rebroadcast it for me. I can be about 200m away from my car and still receive the signal.

-ioan

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

You need this antenna, maybe?

BTW, cool plan B...

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

I didn't get any signal with the other one, so probably this won't work either. I read on dd-wrt forum about people who used 2 of those antennas and 2 routers like mine, and having very good signal and transfer rates for distances over 30 miles... that is amazing.

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

Well, I was mainly joking. Most people aren't really interested in mounting a 5' dish to catch free wi-fi, even if they knew it would work.

But what can be done is incredible.

If you're putting that Uda up on eBay, may as well drop a link here when it's up.

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

I saw a amplifier on the antenna page. $3,000 for twenty watts. Why does wifi price increases so much with power. Even a 1 watt access point cost 300 bucks or so.

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

I am not so sure that it is *that* ridiculous and irrelevant.

Both (wireless bandwidth and water) are rivalrous goods.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivalrous

The difference is that one (water) is consumable whereas the other (wireless bandwidth) is not (unless you have a bandwidth cap) which makes it a poor analogy.

A better one might be a your neighbour's shovel laying on the property line. If you use it to dig a hole in your yard and then lay it back on the property line, is that morally/legally wrong? If you have good relations with your neighbour, it might not be an issue at all. If you have crappy relations then the neighbours are likely to call the cops on your for stealing their shovel before even asking for it back.

Also, you could also go dig a hole somewhere that affects your neighbour or dump your dirt on their land. So how you use that tool impacts the situation greatly.

I think if people are concerned about their bandwidth/shovels (and how it is used), they should keep their bandwidth/shovels in a locked WPA/toolshed. If they are leaving bandwidth/shovels laying around, they should expect trouble or be able to deal with it maturely. Luckily it is a lot harder to hurt yourself with bandwidth than with shovels or you could sue the neighbours for hurting yourself with their unsecured goods.

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

Glad you have a successful Plan B for a part of the setup. Besides, I'd already said many posts ago that what you really want in the way of a high-powered receiving apparatus for the Tablet is something that's mobile! :D Looks like you've succeeded!

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

Schrödinger's AP ... too funny! Unsecured Wifi is in both a state of being stolen and not stolen simultaneously.

Secured or not, my microwave oven seems to collapse my wave function to the state of <not work>.

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

I am interested in a setup like this. Can you give some information on the make/model of your USB powered router and any custom software (DD-WRT,etc.), setup mode/parameters and antenna information?

Thanks

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

You might check the link in the OP...

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

interesting thread.

I had a few thoughts as I was reading

How likely is it that the network owner will ever know it is YOU using their open wifi? Obviously they would first have to find you before they can prosecute you.

One concern not mentioned yet here is that you probably are risking that the network owner could be hacking your devise while you are using his network. I would think this is a bigger risk to you than being prosecuted for using his network.

Sort of a side thought here, but you guys are bringing up land analogies. In the realm of land ownership, if my neighbor uses part of my land without my permission for a long enough time, he then is allowed the right to continue to use the land. It's called adverse posession as I recall. I'm not saying such a thing would apply to wireless networks, but I suppose it could. I know, probably not. Please don't take this one too seriously.

So I find an antenna that I can pick up wireless networks with. It makes it possible to receive WIFI. Am I going to be able to send data?


Starbucks network isn't free. Darn


Neil

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

Well I thought of that for a while.

1) Any data that could pass through a router can be viewed by owner of router (all he/she has to do is setup something to intercept what your sending). So if you logged into anything personal, bam. It's unlikely most people would know how to do this though.

2) MAC addresses, they're suppose to be unique (though they can be spoofed quite easily nowadays).

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

The router is a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54, you can find them on ebay:
http://search.ebay.com/search/search...tle=WHR-HP-G54

I use a custom dd-wrt firmware that has AutoAP build in (dd-wrt.v24_micro_generic.aapng.20070822RC1b.zip):
http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...roup_id=185052

It's not a USB powered router and requires 5V 900mA power source. The cigarette lighter to usb that my bluetooth gps uses has an output of 5V 850mA, so I just modified a USB cable and attached a power jack at the end to be able to power the router.

The antenna I use in the car is the one that comes with the router. You can get some high gain omni antenna, but Omni antennas have a donut/flattened ball signal pattern and if you go verry high on the dBi gain, the donut will become a pancake and will be very easy for you to be "under" or "above" the pancake and have no signal. For me the out-of-the-box antenna works fine.

I set the Xmit Power for the router to 28mW (you can go all the way to 250mW if you want to convert your car in a microwave, hehe).

For other settings, see the original article:
http://www.i-hacked.com/index.php?op...essfully+saved.

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

Thanks "loan".

Exactly the information I needed.

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

My wifi router is open by default. I haven't changed it. I consider open wifi a courtesy. It really doesn't hurt me. One of my neighbors (no idea which) had open wifi, and i used it to set up my 770 before i got my own. Thanks, whoever you are!

I might put up a "Open WiFi" sign in my window soon, perhaps with a couple chairs on my front porch.

In the mean time, i use ssh to talk to my desktop, so comms should be secure.

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

Actually that isn't a better analogy. It isn't useful at all in this context. In fact most analogies used to support theft of wifi (or any other phrase that makes people more comfortable) completely fail, because they quite simply describe "comparative" circumstances that really aren't analogous. That includes water/wifi, because water is a part of The Commons (commercialization aside) and wifi is not-- UNLESS it is specifically advertised as such (ie, municipal wifi). I'm sure a sufficient degree of hair-splitting can provide the appearance of robust counterargument, but in the end it's nothing more than rank rationalization in defiance of logic and law.

Bottom line:

-yes, people SHOULD lock their wifi unless they deliberately choose to share
-no, unlocked wifi is NOT de facto "there for the taking" unless consent, explicit or implicit, is provided.

That's it in a nutshell. Arguments to the contary tend to be founded on illogic borne of a desire to defend a generally untenable position.

EDIT: it's possible, based on what Benson just said, that I misinterpreted the application of mwiktowy's analogy. On further reflection it does appear he was actually agreeing with the "no foul, no harm" postings I made earlier. If so I humbly apologize to mwiktowy. :o

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

The only problem with that, is that people may use it to do illegal activities such as child pornography. So if you do want to run an open wifi router (I've done so myself in the past) make sure you setup a filtering box (maybe a Linux box in between) so sites like that would get filtered out (redirect them to lolcats or something.. hehehe)

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

I do think that is a better analogy; borrowing your neighbors shovel without asking is likely (depending on state law) theft, regardless of how well you and your neighbor get along; if your relationship is good, it is likely considered acceptable, and so your neighbor won't press charges. (It's still legally wrong, but won't be a problem.) If, on the other hand, you don't get along so well, you're likely to wind up in some measure of legal trouble.

Which is pretty much the deal with wifi; in many states, it seems technically illegal even the wifi is deliberately left unprotected out of goodwill, but you needn't worry about it.

The whole analogy did not seem to me like an argument that all unprotected wifi is, and of right ought to be, free; I took it differently.
On the contrary, I think some of them are not in defiance of logic at all; but they do tend to defy law, and all too many fail to apply logic well.

After all, you made your appeal to commons, but that was an appeal to a historical (hence derived in ignorance of wifi) legal concept, not logic applied to the current situation. It is possible that a logical analysis from correct premises (which there's no agreement on) would show that all unprotected wifi should be free. It's possible, given enough time, and effort from pro-free-wifi and pro-WPA groups, that the laws are changed.

I think anything defying (current) law, but using logic, is perfectly reasonable to have around. It's part of the democratically-structured way of changing laws here; but it should be recognized as either that (hence not applied to practice, until the laws are changed), or willful civil disobedience (with the intention of getting caught and thrown in jail as a means of protest), if you're into that.

Re: free internet (kinda)
 

another hair-split.

ok, "in defiance of logic and/or law".

:p

EDIT: and your rebuttals to my statements tend to rely on perfect scenarios and/or future states. Double :p

EDIT 2: the appeal to the commons was not a core part of any of my arguments but rather more of an aside. Triple :p