[OpenWireless Tech] Setting up an open network now?

[Java Nut]

Oops, I meant to send this in plain text format. Sorry about the resend.

Thanks all for your responses.

>This is easier said than done. MAC address filtering is easily bypassed. 
>You'd have to have actual user accounts and maintain a radius server or 
>something like that to have that level of control.

This is why I was asking "To what extent is it necessary that a small time network operator be prepared to implement a termination policy? Is it OK to just say I have a termination policy, but not be prepared to implement it?"

>If you are going to promote OpenWireless and potentially redirct users to
>the OpenWireless site via Captive Portal, password protecting
>the connection makes no sense. It's like a business saying, "We are open, but
>you have to have a key to come in."

No, I would not use the Open Wireless site if I configure a password for their router. In that case, they would not be participating in the open wireless movement but doing something else. The point of that question was whether it would be better to do a password (and post it in the units for the guests) or actually join the open wireless movement for this scenario and to consider the relative risks and merits of either approach. Now that I cleared this up, I hope others can comment on those issues.

>Should I use a password to keep others on the neighborhood hillside from accessing
>the network, or am I better off to leave it completely open when it comes to concerns
>about legal risk? This is a trade off -- If completely open, there are more people in 
>the pool of potential suspects and more room for plausible deniablity, but also greater
>risk someone would actually do something bad.  Which way would be better as far as
>controlling the risk of police taking condo-owner computers for investigating nefarious
>activity done on the network by abusers? Of course if I go with VPN, this question would
>become moot, one could let everyone on the local hillside on safely then.

>Since you are providing for a group of users you are less likely to have 
>the Police busting down everyone's door. You are more likely to have them 
>busting the door down of the one person the ISP account is registered to

That is the risk I am talking about, through the registration of the ISP account.
 
>and if it is a business class internet service and registered to a business 
>name, like Condo X broadband Coop, you might avoid action all together and 
>just get a complaint notice. Can you imagine a police raid on a McDonald's 
>or Starbucks?

Yes, the internet account (which is not yet shared with anyone over wifi) is registered in the name of the condo association with a local wireless ISP. The local WISP does not seem to distinguish between residential and business service and does not appear to ban the sharing of the connection in its terms of service. They asked for address and phone number to register the account. The manager of the condo association gave the local property address and a toll free number that is billed on a home telephone bill of one of the unit owners, who is volunteering a toll free number for the place. (The ring-to destination of that toll free number is directed to the manager's home phone off site.) So it seems the police mistargetting risk applies to the manager, the unit owner volunteering the toll free number, and property location itself (which has just few condo units).

>I have a Google Spreadsheet of many of the popular VPN services I 
>researched. Trying to compare apples to apples is quite a challenge in that 
>market. There are companies I wonder how they are in business considering 
>how complicated their pricing structure is. If anyone is interested in it, 
>let me know.

Please do share your information. I had the impression these services would be a monthly fee, perhaps around $10.00 per month from the few I had clicked on. I am curious, if anyone here recommends any over the other and why. 

>We use NoCatAuth, which amazingly fits on 8meg flash devices with OpenWrt.

Thanks. I am interested in also hearing about other's technical solutions for the splash page.