Muni WiFi

[plumbee]

I am sure everyone saw the news that San Fran was going to Muni WiFi. I have a dumb question. How in the world will users authenticate?

I mean, lets say it is a truely open, insecure, wireless network. Anybody with a NIC can connect. The only thing that would/could personally identify a PC would me the MAC address, right? Being as it is trivial to spoof a MAC address, i can't imagine that Goolink could use that as much of an identifier. Any type of wireless encryption (WEP or WPA), while only providing incrementally more "security" would cause tons more complexity to 95% of the user base, and the other 5% could beat the security. I would think any kind of password/passphrase based system would be highly complicated and minimally effective (which is why i always guessed it would be wide open access).

So, if it is wide open, and people realize that the MAC address is NOT a unique ID (because it can be easily spoofed and sniffed), it would seem that *AA would not allow the system! Whats to keep the Warez/open proxy/spamming/"evil" types from making incredible use of the anonimity?

Finally, what keeps someone from filling their PC with Wireless cards (each with thier own mac address) to get 5 x the free WiFi (and making a nice, anonomous proxy)?

Tim

[melodic]

Finally, what keeps someone from filling their PC with Wireless cards (each with thier own mac address) to get 5 x the free WiFi (and making a nice, anonomous proxy)?

Tim

sounds like a plan batman! lol

but yeah they will probly block the torrent ports or something

[VaKo]

sounds like a plan batman! lol

but yeah they will probly block the torrent ports or something

Tell that to our uni halls admin, back when Kazaa was something special they tried to block it. Net result: we routed it threw port 80 and charged people money/beer/food/"supplys" to set it up for them.

[plumbee]

but yeah they will probly block the torrent ports or something

That seems like it would be really simple to get around, redireting traffic to port 80 or some other unblocked port..... I have heard some stuff about traffic shaping to block bit torrent, but remember, you can use bittorrent for more than Brintney Spears and Metalica, as we discuss this on an IPTV forum page.

Anyone use University or similar Wifi?

Tim

[armadaender]

sounds like a plan batman! lol

but yeah they will probly block the torrent ports or something

Tell that to our uni halls admin, back when Kazaa was something special they tried to block it. Net result: we routed it threw port 80 and charged people money/beer/food/"supplys" to set it up for them.

Haha, sounds like me this past fall semester when my fellow freshman started up their shinny new Dells for the first time. In one month alone, I made over 200 bucks worth in beer cleaning computers of spam and ad programs, installing anti-virus applications that didn’t expire after three months, removing viruses, and running registry cleaners and hdd defragers. I even took the time to write up a very basic how to for each “client†so that he/she would be able to defrag their hdd or run ad-aware without having to call me every month or so for help. If they were willing to pay a little more (usually another beer or two) and had the slightest capability to learn, I'd teach them how to use bittorrent and dump their old p2p client.

In the end, I probably saved upwards of 30 Dells from their owners that semester alone because they didn’t have a clue on how to take care of them nor that it’s not a good idea to click, save, and run those damn AIM virus files that spread around campuses faster than syphilis.

[melodic]

haha supplys