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Re: free internet (kinda)

Quote:

Originally Posted by briand (Post 177044)

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...

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)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ioan (Post 179767)

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

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)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ajax1 (Post 179906)

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

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)

Quote:

Originally Posted by mwiktowy (Post 179815)

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.

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)

Quote:

Originally Posted by suitti (Post 181948)

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)