Free WiFi in City Centres

[H3LL]

Free WiFi in UK City Centres.

(Even though the spell checker wanted to change my OP to Free Wife in UK City Centres.) :D

There are successful free WiFi implementations in some mainland European cities and currently a popular scheme (allegedly) in Norwich.

Channel Five's Gadget Show is attempting a campaign to have free WiFi in most cities and towns.

It seems a good idea and may have some impact.

If you wish, add your vote to the campaign by going to the Gadget Show WiFi campaign page available here:

Gadget Show WiFi Campaign Page (http://gadgetshow.five.tv/campaign/wifi/)

I would be interested in costs, views and comments on WiFi in your area.

Thanks.

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[tkingdoll]

That's a great initiative! Currently, the only WiFi I have access to is the paid BT Openzone stuff, or I can stand in a games shop or McDonalds and connect to Nintendo with my DS looking like a nerd. Bring on the free!

[H3LL]

There is more on Jason's idea here:

Gadget Show - Free WiFi - Jason Bradbury (http://gadgetshow.five.tv/jsp/5gsmain.jsp?lnk=401&featureid=250&pageid=-1&show=s5e9&section=Features)

...in Starbucks the WiFi connection would typically cost him £5 for a mere hour's net access. In MacDonalds it cost 20p a minute or £10 for 2 hours. And that was just the start of it. What's more, the actual internet connections in all of the hotspots he visited were operated by different companies.

Ouch!

Teek, do these prices reflect your experience?

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[kevin]

Indianapolis has free wi-fi in their monument circle, although I've not used it. I believe Google is going to be providing free wi-fi to San Francisco (not out of the goodness of their hearts, SF is paying for it.)

If you're in KC and within a few blocks of my house you can tap off the free wireless hub I have hanging off one of my IP addresses. I'm thinking of making it a FON node.

http://en.fon.com/

The purveyors of pay for wifi systems usually fight these initiatives. A couple have been shutdown because of these complaints.

[Francesca R]

Upper Street, Islington (London) has had a free WiFi zone (the "Technology Mile (http://www.islington.gov.uk/Leisure/freeinternetaccess/technologymile.asp)") for a few years now, paid for by the local authority—which means by the residents like me. I tried it a year or so ago and found the signal to be pretty weak and in competition with signals (locked out) coming from a host of various businesses on the street. It might have got better by now.

Certainly there is an economy of scale making this a public service but I can't yet see that it would make me cancel a private ISP connection at home (if my home was even in range)

[H3LL]

Certainly there is an economy of scale making this a public service but I can't yet see that it would make me cancel a private ISP connection at home (if my home was even in range)

Agreed. However, I do not think the intention was for people to cancel private connections but more to help the town centre economy and businesses, making it more attractive for WiFi users. I understand that free WiFi has had a significant upward revenue impact on businesses covered by free WiFi.

I also was under the impression that adverts for local business can be pushed on connection (not sure on the technical aspects, maybe someone else knows).

[BPSCG]

Are they secure, encrypted connections? Or would my logon ID and password be braodcast in the clear every time I click on my JREF shortcut?

[asthmatic camel]

Are they secure, encrypted connections? Or would my logon ID and password be braodcast in the clear every time I click on my JREF shortcut?

Exactly my concern. I wouldn't want my JREF passwrod braodcast where any ol ful can get it.

[BPSCG]

Exactly my concern. I wouldn't want my JREF passwrod braodcast where any ol ful can get it.Problem with passwords and logon ID's is that you (okay, I) get so many of them after a while that you (okay, I) start using the same logon in different places. In some places, it's transparent - places where you've told the site to remember your logon - and it's easy to forget that you're sending logon info.

So you log on to JREF as JFredMuggs, PW "12345" and your friendly neighborhood snooper picks that up and starts going to www.chase.com (http://www.chase.com) and www.citibank.com (http://www.citibank.com) and starts typing until voila! - a hit. And your bank account is emptied.

I know, the solution is to use different logon info where the PW is being sent in the clear. Next week, I'm gonna get organized and do it. Maybe the week after. Until then, if my laptop goes out of the house, the wifi card stays behind.

[H3LL]

Interesting...the heads-up on security issues.

A quick google got some useful info:

http://www.jiwire.com/wi-fi-security-traveler-hotspot-1.htm


Top 10 Security Tips for Public Hotspots

Make sure you're connected to a legitimate access point.
Encrypt files before transferring or emailing them.
Use a virtual private network (VPN).
Use a personal firewall.
Use anti-virus software.
Update your operating system regularly.
Be aware of people around you.
Use Web-based email that employs secure http (https).
Turn off file sharing.
Password-protect your computer and important files.I wonder if the more tech-savvy forum members could jump in with some info'?

ETA: Anyone used this:

Ethereal (http://www.ethereal.com/)

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[Monkey Napoleon]

Scientific American ran an article in the Oct 2005 issue called "Smart WiFi." I guess some cities trying to implement city-wide WiFi service were having problems with things like competing signals cancelling each other out, and larger cities in particular were having problems with physical obstructions (like buildings) making reception in the majority of the service area touch and go. Also, in many places where you could get signal, these problems resulted in slower than expected connection speeds.

The article also had a few interesting new (at the time) ways to implement WiFi to circumvent these hurdles. I confess that I cannot remember the specifics, and I don't know whether this technology is available yet.

[Monkey Napoleon]

The purveyors of pay for wifi systems usually fight these initiatives. A couple have been shutdown because of these complaints.

While the last sentence is a little vague, I assume you mean the "initiatives" have been shut down.

It's been my experience that broadband providers have screwy ideas about the bandwidth they sell you. They seem to not think of it as bandwidth to do with what you please, but rather a service more like television. They hard-cap you at whatever speed is available or, in some cases, the package you purchase... yet they seem to dislike when you use it all.

The company I get my service from fought routers on home connections for a long time, going so far as to make connecting a router to your cable modem against ToS. This went away when they were consolidated into a larger company. I've also had problems in the past with them banning the mac address on my modem if I have my upstream maxed out for too long. Easy to fix, but the average email/browsing user with kids who download pirated material would be totally lost.

[scribble]

Interesting...the heads-up on security issues.

ETA: Anyone used this:

Ethereal (http://www.ethereal.com/)


Every day, though if you're concerned about WiFi, you're concerned about something like Kismet instead.

Let me put on my black hat.


Make sure you're connected to a legitimate access point.


Ah, but how do you know?

Imagine I take my notebook to my local Panera. I have in internal network card, and an atheros wifi card in the pcmcia slot.

I use the internal network card to connect to Panera's access point. I use my atheros to act like an access point. I can give it the same name, and the same mac as the legitimate, Panera AP. I can even give it the same key, but it's not likely a place like panera uses encryption.

Now what? Well, half the people who come in (let's say) are going to connect to me, and I'm going to forward all the traffic on to Panera. If half isn't enough for me, I simply cause the people who connected to Panera legitimately to deauth -- it's simple, and keep doing it until they auth on my notebook instead.

At this point, everyone in Panera is sending all their data through my notebook, and *none* of them have any way to even know.

What I've described isn't difficult, and I've done it -- not at Panera, though, under controlled testing conditions.

Only connecting to known good APs means only connecting to ones you control; this rule negates any possibility of using public WiFi.

However, you're not as screwed as I make it sound -- a careful user could be connected through my notebook and still prevent me, as a "man-in-the-middle" from seeing any of what he is doing...


Encrypt files before transferring or emailing them.


Yes. Use PGP or GPG -- strong encryption. Don't put a password on a zipfile. And don't password protect an excel spreadsheet. Such things are laughably insecure.


Use a virtual private network (VPN).


Yes, and yes. When I mentioned a smart user could still protect himself, even when it's going through my notebook, this is what I had in mind. Unfortunately, pptp, the VPN technology in most use, is also weak and should not be used. OpenVPN, which is ssl-based, can be configured to be quite strong, as can IPSec, and others -- however, they can also be far beyond the ability of your average user to configure, and they require a trusted endpoint to tunnel all your traffic through -- such as your home network.

This, of course, means you may be limited to download speeds equivalent to your home network's upload speed, which sucks. But is the price you pay.

Some people are saying, "Just use https / ssl for all your connections to servers, and skip the VPN." This fails on several counts:

1) It's still possible for the man-in-the-middle to know WHERE you are going and who you arecommunicating with, even if he can't see what is being communicated.

2) There are many attacks which are possible in the middle that only a technically-savvy user would notice. I have just written an ssl man in the middle attack as a proof of concept, and the only indication on most systems that it is active is a warning that the certificate is not signed by an authority; otherwise it is indistinguishable from the real certificate. There is even a way that I can eliminate that, but I leave it to your imagination. Most users just click "yes" anyhow.


Use a personal firewall.


Yes, and USE it. Don't allow *any* traffic inbound unless you open a port yourself. And make sure it works, too. I wouldn't trust a personal firewall on Windows as far as I can hurl a windows box.


Use anti-virus software.


Duh -- but this has no relevance to WiFi or unguarded access points.


Update your operating system regularly.


Yes. Regularly isn't regularly enough; there's always stuff "out there" that is not yet addressed in patches. Too much paranoia isn't enough.


Be aware of people around you.


A good tip - don't let anyone shoulder-surf you. But if I'm in your Panera, you'll never notice what I'm doing. It doesn't take any equipment except my notebook, and it doesn't have to display anything on the screen at all. The notebook can be closed, and in my bag where you can't even SEE it. I can read all your traffic later.


Use Web-based email that employs secure http (https).


Yes, a thousand times yes. But also know your https server's certificate fingerprint. Write it down, store it in a file, something. And freaking verify it!! If it changes at all DON'T connect. And don't let IE or anything else store your passwords; there's all kinds of problems there.


Turn off file sharing.


A properly-working firewall means you can ignore this one.


Password-protect your computer and important files.


I've got some vague idea that some Windows machines can be accessed without a password. If that's true, then for crying out loud, set one.

But "password protecting" your important files is stupid unless you are using some kind of strong encryption. In which case you might find it easier to have an excrypted partition. No matter what you do, you're going to have to learn a lot about it in order to make it work effectively.

[scribble]

And don't let IE or anything else store your passwords; there's all kinds of problems there.


<i>someone</i> is about to say, "But Scribble, it's too hard! I only have a very tiny brain and it's taken up with important things like my mom's phone number!"

I'm stupid too (and I don't know my mom's phone number) so here's what I do. I write them down on a card in my wallet. I usually do something like shift each letter up a spot (write a "x" as a "y") to throw off the casual observer, but the important thing is that I have my wallet on my person at ALL times, and this list isn't the only critical thing I keep in there. I already knew, even before the list of passwords, that if my wallet is compromised, I've got a list of places to call and report the problem IMMEDIATELY. The password list just means there's a couple more phonecalls to make if it goes missing.

I find that after I've used a password for roughly a week it sticks in my head and I can eliminate it from the list entirerly.

[scribble]

Sorry, hope I didn't derail the thread. Maybe a little more on-topic, there's a town I visited recently, who's name escapes me, right nextto Chicago in Indiana, who has provided free wi-fi. That seems like a nice service. I only realized this because I was running Kismet with GPS at the time and it shows up as a big long corridor of identically-named access points along the major road there. Sorry for the nearly total lack of specifics.

I also run my own unsecured access point at my home, which I've observed several of my neighbors using. It is, of course, secured from my own private LAN. I do not use WiFi myself, except for trivial things -- for instance I will rarely watch my TV from bed via WiFi on my notebook. I'm too ethical to snoop on them as I've described above, but I *have* screwed with them in the past; I read about a fellow who used a proxy and a rewrite script to turn all the graphics on all the webpages that someone visited via his router upside-down. It was quite amusing, and I wished I'd thought of it myself, so I did the same thing to my neighbors for a while. I believe the method I used was more efficient and straightforward than what this other fellow used, though I must give him all the credit for the idea:

http://www.ex-parrot.com/~pete/upside-down-ternet.html

At the time I didn't know any of the neighbors who'd glommed onto my connection, so I couldn't enjoy their reactions. But I was startled to find that after several weeks, their browsing habits hadn't changed any! I guess the internet upside down must just be "one of those things" to people.

I don't do it anymore, but now that I know some of the neighbors I've though about resurrecting it. :)

[H3LL]

Sorry, hope I didn't derail the thread.

Not at all. Excellent, brilliant and useful. I have read every word twice. Thanks.

Not so sure that giving me about 100 hrs of reading, configuring and checking to do, is so good. ;)

If you have more relevant links to your posts handy I think we would appreciate it, if not we can all google.

Thanks again.

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