wifi4ny

I was reading the newspaper a couple of months back, and noticed an article that caught my attention "wifi for ny" (http://www.wifi4ny.com if anybody wants to check it out). I found it to be quite interesting what this group of people have going on here. Basically, the name is self-explanatory, they want to setup hot spots all over NY. They send you a free wireless router, you connect it to your internet connection and serve as a hot spot.

Now, I actually signed up for this, since I needed a wireless router for when I get my laptop and when my brother drops by with his computer. I figured I would setup a wireless connection and password protect it. I got my free wireless router by mail today, I have yet to connect it (will be connecting it tomorrow) but I was skimming through the manual and what happens is the wireless router sets up two connections, one protected (for you) and another one public. Besides eating at my bandwidth, what kind of security threats could this pose? I'm not too big on wireless internet security, and the manual says, and I quote "We suggest you use FON's private signal in your subsequent connections, as it's encrypted and totally secured." But how secure is it really? (I'll only be using it temporarily)

FON?

Well, would you let a total stranger use your ADSL?

It does not look as if they had a robust security model right from the outset, if they even had a security model at all:

http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2006/Oct/0007.html

:(

EDIT: I have now found a working link to the article ;)

Raion,
I did some reading on this FON wifi sharing network. It's noble in cause and sounds great in principle. Maybe this will be the direction wifi will go? It would make life convenient for all of us (unfortunately, crackers included).
I read up as much as I could but they don't elaborate much on the encryption type that the private wifi uses.

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La Fonera offers you two wireless network signals (SSIDs), a private and a public one. The private signal is encrypted and offers you complete privacy

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Site: http://en.fon.com/info/whats_fon.php#Fonera
You should call & ask them what encryption they use on the private wifi (WEP? or WPA?). Outside of that, it doesn't seem like you can edit the wifi encryption type. Basically, I would just set up your standard laptop security (firewall, AV, etc.) and just be careful about what personal information you send over the wifi signal.

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You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to nihil again

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Can ya tell I haven't given out any in a while?

But yeah, that's very good information. The wifi would probably only be up until about mid-January when my brother goes back to college :-/

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I would just set up your standard laptop security (firewall, AV, etc.) and just be careful about what personal information you send over the wifi signal.

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Well, I won't be the one using the wifi connection, my 6 year old computer has no PCI slots available for a wireless card (or USB ports for the matter to buy a USB wireless thing).What I will be doing instead is using an Ethernet Adapter/Splitter (not sure of the technical name of it) to connect both my computer and my Cable Modem. Would that keep me clear from malicious intent via my wireless router?

Raion,
I'm not sure what you mean. You are going to use a physical line (instead of wireless) to connect to the router? If that's the case, the wifi encryption is irrelevent. What I don't understand is that if you don't use the wireless, then this FON project won't benefit you as much as it should. Let me know because at this point, I'm slightly confused.

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What I don't understand is that if you don't use the wireless, then this FON project won't benefit you as much as it should.

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My brother is here on Christmas break from college, and I need to get the connection to a room on the other side of my room. He has a wireless card, I don't.

However, I've encountered a problem. The "Ethernet Splitter" (which I'm beginning to doubt that is what I have bought) doesn't want to work. It definitely looks like a splitter says Cat5 100BASE-T on top, it has one male Ethernet on one side and two females (I always get confused with male and female in terms of cables so if that makes no sense, switch it up :)). I connect the male one to the Cable modem, then in one of the females I put the computer and the other to the wireless router. However, the only one that works is the one to the left, the right one doesn't work. I've attached a sketch of what the diagram that it has on it looks like.

EDIT: I also have a laptop on hand (no wireless card -_-; ) that can be used soley to act as a router if you will, it has Kubuntu Linux on it with an ethernet port, I'm going to try to use it as a router however I'm not very familiar with Linux.

EDIT 2: Realized that it actually has only one ethernet port, the other is a 56k modem port :-/ What a horrible laptop I should throw this thing away. What I'm thinking about doing now is Cable modem > Laptop > Desktop > Wireless router. :-/

EDIT 3: Well, I was reading on my Cable Modem manufacture website while in search of drivers for Linux and saw this

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Can I connect 1 PC with USB and 1 PC with Ethernet?
Yes, provided the USB drivers are installd on the machine using USB

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I didn't think you could do this before reading this that's why it never crossed my mind :-/ What do you guys think?

EDIT 4: Last edit I promise :p It's WPA encryption.