Open Wireless Movement

Open Wireless Movement(openwireless.org)

126 points by zoowar 11 years ago | 50 comments

lgierth 11 years ago |

One solution to the privacy problem is running OpenWRT with cjdns [1] on the routers and clients, and using its IPTunnel feature [2]. The list of supported platforms is steadily growing [3], and it'd be something that runs alongside the existing IPv4/DHCP setups just fine.

[1] https://github.com/seattlemeshnet/meshbox

[2] https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/tree/master/tunnel

[3] Desktop/Server Linuxes, Android, OpenWRT, OSX, FreeBSD. Even Windows support is being worked on.

na85 11 years ago | |

The author of cjdns himself admits that it is aimed at power users/enthusiasts.

cjdns will never be a workable solution for the general public, and I wish people would stop recommending it.

elasticdog 11 years ago | | |

> cjdns will never be a workable solution for the general public, and I wish people would stop recommending it.

I disagree...I believe in its current state it is not catering to the general public, but it's basically alpha software with a small bootstrapped network. Long-term, the idea is to make things more user friendly and appeal to a wider audience, but it's inaccurate to say it will "never be workable". Recommending it to a highly-technical targeted audience like HN seems entirely appropriate.

* I run 4 cjdns nodes

billpg 11 years ago |

  "Someone's been committing crimes from your network."
  "It must be someone using my open wireless point."
  "Sorry to bother you sir, have a nice day."

I can't see it happening that way somehow.

jrochkind1 11 years ago | |

What if it was a coffeeshop, hotel, or other business?

I agree with you that the authorities aren't likely to treat individuals as well as they do businesses (at least in most countries). But the fact that they're already not gonna put a Starbucks manager in jail because someone did something illegal from Starbucks wifi -- suggests to me that there is an opening to agitate for individuals being treated with similar respect. The Open Wireless project clearly aims to make open wireless a normal and expected thing, so that legal norms will have to follow, and there will be political pressure for them to do so.

But yeah, I think it's as much of a social project as a technological one, which they seem to acknowledge in their self-description.

warfangle 11 years ago | | |

One would think that it would be Starbucks corporate legal and not the manager that would answer that kind of query.

Do you or I have the legal representation of Starbucks corporate?

DennisP 11 years ago | |

There have already been cases where courts decided that way.

But I wonder whether it'd be possible to route all guests to Tor.

Edit: Comcast is planning to open all home routers in Houston, unless users opt out. The justice system might just have to get used to this.

http://slashdot.org/story/14/06/10/1751255/comcast-convertin...

oddevan 11 years ago | |

I'll go ahead and say it won't happen that way. Whether they can or not, they will say something to the effect of "It happened on your network; you're responsible unless you can prove it wasn't you."

gnopgnip 11 years ago | | |

That isn't how the legal system works in the US. There have been cases decided this way already.

mavick 11 years ago |

Some other things to worry about, if you sell anything on ebay or amazon as a hobby. They have pretty complex systems to detect linked accounts. If someone was to log into a "banned seller" account on your network. It can be a nightmare to convince ebay or amazon that it wasn't you. and you can most likely be banned on their systems forever (to sell). Just seems like a lot more to worry about.

yahu 11 years ago |

Open does not necessarily mean insecure. See e.g. http://www.riosec.com/articles/open-secure-wireless-20

lumpypua 11 years ago |

Until somebody uses your open wireless for child porn and the cops come asking you questions.

tendom 11 years ago |

I love the idea, though the paranoid security conscious developer in me is really worried about the security for average users. I'm not worried about the individuals opening up their routers, there is always a risk, but that can be mitigated. I'm more worried about average people thinking that whenever they see an openwireless.org hotspot, they'll think it's safe. And it's obviously not, or I wouldn't know about my neighbours banana fetish. (joke, please don't arrest me) I know people sign in to any open network regardless, but this has a brand that can be exploited and then blamed.

bsimpson 11 years ago | |

Especially since most devices auto-associate with known networks.

Under the status quo, if I'm desperate for Internet I make a gut decision on how trustworthy I think the nearest random open network is based on the context of my present situation. If openwireless becomes the default, I might decide that in this random small town coffee shop, openwireless is probably trustworthy and associate with it. I do my business and leave. Then, I could be walking through an airport and pass someone who's set up a malicious base station using the openwireless SSID. My device could associate with it and put me at risk without me even knowing.

toomuchtodo 11 years ago | | |

I've configured my Nexus 5 to auto-connect to any open "linksys" SSID. How would this be any different?

Don't rely on SSID for security. Rely on SSL/TLS and certificate pinning.

gioele 11 years ago |

Difference from FON? [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FON

molsongolden 11 years ago | |

Does anyone here from the USA use FON? I've only used as an "alien" but I was able to purchase internet on demand from my apartment while living in Spain for a few months. Getting access from a teleco required a bank account or spanish ID number that we were unable to provide and FON ended up being cheaper anyways.

antr 11 years ago | |

for starters you don't need to spend +$50 on extra hardware.

drvortex 11 years ago |

How about we make a wifi tax so that everyone pays for it and then have open networks ?

How about WiMax?

How about asking the ISPs to implement the free WiFi and flat subscription rates with no tiers?

How about asking the mobile companies that already cover urban areas to make HSDPA/UMTS/LTE free?

Plenty of more efficient ways to do this than this open network movement. And yet you're asking the individual who has like the smallest bandwidth fraction of all these players and the one one who pays the most per MB of bandwidth to make it free? Not. gonna. happen.

jtokoph 11 years ago |

Is there a reason for recommending an insecure network? Would suggesting a global default password for an encrypted network be better. It can be as simple as 'openwireless'.

chongli 11 years ago | |

That's not a password, that's a shared private key. Encrypting everyone's traffic with the same private key provides no real security benefit at all.

majika 11 years ago | |

What would that protect against?

The only use that I see for a standard-password approach is that it would circumvent some ISPs' terms of service that say you can't run an open network. But even then, a court may find that a closed network with a password like `openwireless` (i.e. as part of OpenWireless.org) is an "open network" anyway.

jtokoph 11 years ago | | |

Using an open network without encryption allows a passerby to listen in to all of your traffic. Unfortunately not all websites are using SSL yet.

tendom 11 years ago | |

No, because you can set up a honeypot knowing this password, and then mirror your input to the sites you visit after I collect your information.

GregorStocks 11 years ago | | |

That's possible without a password too, except that anybody in the area can MITM you instead of just people who bothered to set up honeypots. AFAIK WiFi only provides encryption on networks with a password.

sp332 11 years ago | |

Right, this would avoid Google's argument that they can sniff unencrypted data from your wifi since it's being broadcast in the clear out into the street. At least having a per-session key would count as a legal defense against drive-by sniffers.

swinglock 11 years ago | |

How isn't such a setup insecure?

jrochkind1 11 years ago | | |

Using current standard consumer technology, it would have some security issues.

That's why they say:

> We're working with a coalition of volunteer engineers to build technologies that will let users open their wireless networks without compromising their security or sacrificing bandwidth.

There are a variety of technological solutions possible, many of which could be implemented in firmware (see OpenWRT). I'd guess if we dig deeper on their website, we might get to their tech plans; I am not familiar with them specifically.

Although, honestly, if you're counting on nobody being able to sniff your traffic in transit for security, you don't have enough security anyway. But still, yeah, I wouldn't want to make it that easy.

gallypette 11 years ago |

Actually IEEE 802.11u implements something like EAP-UNAUTH-TLS where the client auths the server but the server does not auths the client.

After that, the best would be to push the whole traffic throug tor (Or even to run a tor exit node, if nobody can say from which side of the network the requezst comes from ...).

xur17 11 years ago | |

I've always thought it would be a good idea to just route all traffic through tor with an insecure ssid (and a separate one for yourself. It would take care of security concerns, or getting blamed for torrenting.