Supplying wi-fi access for free

[zencoder]

Phishphreek you're dead on the track I am thinking about. What *does* constitute liability? If I let you borrow my gun to go hunting, and you rob a liquor store instead, how much blame can I incur? What if I know you are a hunter, but you're depressed, you've pawned all your guns, and you are really strapped for cash, and you keep eyeing that liquor store on the corner...how much culpability do I deserve? What if, knowing you are a raging alcoholic and drunk driver, I loan you my car on a Friday evening? These are all older issues that ring similar.

How much like an ISP am I, if I setup the net so people can communicate with the rest of the online world? As an American, am I not just empowering those in my vicinity to excercise their freedom of speech? Or am I participating or allowing the participation in illicit communications designed to undermine the government of these United States?

I think some case law will need to be laid down before we get concrete answers on these ideas. You have to remember, while the US legislature writes the laws, and the Law Enforcement agencies investigate and charge suspected violators, our *courts* are the ones who interpret and act upon the laws. If everyone always takes a plea, it doesn't give the courts much voice in the matter, except for some often limited sentencing.

[KorpDeath]

All philosophical arguments and freedom of speech aside you are reselling a commodity that was not intended to be resold and therefore you are breaking TOS. Unless you upgrade to a business DSL connection, then you could 'resell' it as you like.

Now if you and your buddy want to "test" some wireless hardware out I'm sure no one would have an issue; but if you want to supply it to everyone in the apartments now you might be cutting into to someone's bottom line.

As far as wireless security goes, I'd go WPA not WEP, but if you had done a search here you'd have seen the hundreds of threads concerning wireless security.

And just in case you need some more distance on your wireless http://www.freeantennas.com/

[zencoder]

Originally posted here by KorpDeath
All philosophical arguments and freedom of speech aside you are reselling a commodity that was not intended to be resold and therefore you are breaking TOS. Unless you upgrade to a business DSL connection, then you could 'resell' it as you like.

<snip>

Excellent point, and one we had not yet mentioned. My points are assuming you completely own your bandwidth to do with as you please, which is almost always *never* the case.

I had a book on my eBookshelf at Safari about Building Community Wireless Networks, but never got around to reading it much. I wonder how they covered this section and what they suggest? A believe a commercial line that is dedicated would be the way to go, and those are always more expensive. However, if I was independantly wealthy and a philanthropist, I'd have a good excuse to run that T1 to the house...

[WolfRune]

I'm not so sure that it would violate the TOS explicitly. It would depend on whether there was some clause in it stating something to the effect of "no reselling." It might be implicit, but the ISP would have a harder time arguing that one in court I would think.

As well, it wouldn't necessarily be "selling" anyway - one person pays the account fees, and generously shares it with his friend; the friend then generously gives a monthly gift that just happens to cover about half the cost of the service

Oh, and as for getting around the multiple-user issue, what about building a couple of directional antennae? While I've never done it myself, I would think that lining them up so that the number of people who could potentially access the wireless signal would be limited would further secure your connection against unwanted visitors.