Sell Your Wireless Bandwidth

BilSabab writes "Yahoo! News is reporting on the release of LinSpot 1.0 for Mac OS X. Linspot enables users to sell access to their wireless network to anyone who enters the hot zone." The software is free, but LinSpot takes a cut of the action.

Automatic Updates?

[Abjifyicious]

From the article;

The LinSpot software is a free download that configures automatically upon installation and features end-to-end encryption, automatic self-updates, and the ability to accept PayPal as well as all major credit cards.

Call me paranoid, but I don't like the sound of that bit about updates.

A quick note

[Tim_F]

Please be sure to read the EULA that came with your cable or DSL high speed connection. Oftentimes a high speed provider will prohibit the reselling of bits of the connection.

Be aware people. I'm surprised something like this is even available...

Re:No thanks

[Gropo]

Yes. God Bless Microsoft for fostering a world in which people are so afraid of borking things that they leave everying set up with the base configuration.

-Posted over 1.3mb down/380k up, leeched RoadRunner :)

Whose going to use this

[zpiderz]

The article is a little light on the details, but who exactly would pay for this? In my apartment building there are about 4 wireless routers that DO NOT restrict connections. I guess no one bothered to properly configure their easy-to-use linksys/netgear router. So why pay for it when you can get it for free?

..oh yeah, it's probably wrong or something...

Am I the only one...

[System.out.println()]

....voluntarily sharing my wi-fi broadband as an act of good will to passersby?

At one of the stoplights the bus I ride stops at, there is a wifi network somewhere within range, and we generally stop long enough for me to get a connection, check my email, click the 'post' button, before we move on. There's no way I'd be able to click 'Pay', enter all my info, etc, while I was there - even if I wanted to.
I prefer to leave my wifi unprotected and make sure my computer itself is secure... the worst anyone can do is put files into my Guest shared folder, and I may be helping some geek nearby look up something on the internet in a hurry.

Re:Sharing Bandwidth is a Security Risk to All

[max born]

I doubt you'd even go to court. If you share your bandwidth, you are in fact an ISP. And if ISPs were liable they would have been sued long ago. I may be wrong.

Also, there seems to be a growing movement in many cities to provide free wireless access with complete anonymity. This will no doubt be a problem for the music industry as illegal file sharing will become rampant on these networks and, unlike Napster, it's doubtful the courts will close them down as their primary purpose is non infringing.

Re:Mistaken identity?

[torpor]

At any rate, this software hardly deserves a "1.0" release or attention on slashdot. It could likely be a scam, though I have no evidence to beleive that it is anything more than a really dubious, hacky, misguided implementation of someone else's good idea.

Wait a minute. Someone puts together a viable, commercial business model for delivering bandwidth using open source software, and your reaction is to crap on it?

I don't get it. This is a great idea. It means that bandwidth can go anywhere its needed, and the folk who contribute to setting it up and getting WLAN working in whatever part of the world they want, can participate in the action of selling that bandwidth.

What's wrong with that?

Although I have not actually looked at the application myself, I suspect that there are likely untold license violations ...

WTF? This is such an assinine statement, I can't even handle it. Who are you working for, a competitor of LinSpot?

If you haven't looked at the apps, you're in no position, no, you are not qualified to raise the issue of whether there have been "license violations".

Honestly, you are an instant-negative robot. People, please think a little about your negativity before you let it take control of your mind and you end up crapping on something which ... maybe ... actually ... is a freakin' good idea, implemented by a company who ... if it works well ... deserves from profiting in the process of helping people set up public, open networks that can be easily used to access the Internet.

Especially if they're using Open Source software to do so. What if they are legit, and it does work, and people do get their share of the pie? What then?

That would be a huge win for Open Source Software, wouldn't it ...

Re:Am I the only one...

[colinleroy]

..., and I may be helping some geek nearby look up something on the internet in a hurry. Or the nearby cracker or pedophile. Well, that's your problem now.

My e-mail to them about Tux and the name:

[tverbeek]

While your fondness for penguins and Tux and Linux and open-source software in general is nice, I think you're making a mistake in co-opting Tux and "Lin" for your software. Your FAQ talks about the open-source software this package uses, which is cool. But Apache is not Linux. BIND is not Linux. ISC DCHP is not Linux. Squid is not Linux. The kernel developed by Linus Torvalds and others (and any OS built around that) is Linux. But your software has nothing to do with that. Using "Lin" and the Tux logo imply that it does, and that's not promoting open-source software, it's =confusing= people about what's what in open-source software. Larry Ewing probably won't sue you over mis-applying his Tux logo, and Linus Torvalds probably won't sue you over the first syllable of his name. They're not the kind of control freaks who'd do that. But what you're doing here is exactly the kind of "confusion in the marketplace" that trademark laws were set up to prevent.

Re-badged NoCatAuth?

[Linuxathome]

Has anyone raised this issue up? Is it just me or does this look like a hacked version of NoCatAuth [nocat.net] that first serves as a proxy for accessing and paying via your PayPal account? For those of you who are not familiar with NoCatAuth, it's:

centralized authentication code that make shared Internet services possible.

On the wifi network, it essentially forces the wifi client to use a proxy and before allowing you to access anything else, it will pop up a web page for you to enter a login and password. By logging on, NoCatAuth can keep track of all the users on the wifi network. Hmmm, sounds a lot like linspot to me.