4 ms·

Large scale public wifi generally doesn't have passwords, that clearly doesn't scale, they have fancy enterprise auth things or captive portals. Shared password

Large scale public wifi generally doesn't have passwords, that clearly doesn't scale, they have fancy enterprise auth things or captive portals. Shared password only works for small places like coffee shops. Anecdotes: 1: on London Underground, my phone authenticates using the SIM somehow (it still shows a captive portal screen, just with an ad, yay). 2: in the Turkish lounge in Istanbul airport, the shared password was clearly a marketing channel, InvestInTK2016 or some such. It struck me as pretty clever. > if your business is using public unlicensed spectrum then you should be required to let the public in "Unlicensed" isn't really "unlicensed", as much as specifically licensed for anyone to do with as they please. But to take your idea just one step further, once you've opened up all wifi for the general publics consumption (what a renaissance for wired networking!), would people using it be allowed to use it for private gain? Why is it wrong to use unlicensed spectrum for private gain, but not to use a service provided over the same spectrum for private gain? Also, as a business, under this doctrine, are you allowed to enable wifi access to a closed non-internet LAN, with only locked-down non-public servers on it?

jackvalentine 10y ago
> But to take your idea just one step further, once you've opened up all wifi for the general publics consumption (what a renaissance for wired networking!) I think this requires clarification - I don't mean no business should ever use wifi. I mean businesses like telephone companies shouldn't be using to augment their networks. Obviously offices and the like need secure wireless networking that normal hardware can connect to. > Why is it wrong to use unlicensed spectrum for private gain Maybe with my above correction this isn't needed, but in cities the 2.4ghz channel is loaded to death and in a few years the 5ghz channel will be the same. All I'm objecting to are these closed commercial networks from people who should be paying for the spectrum bunging up the open one the rest of us use. My city is soaked with a wifi network that is closed to everyone except the customers of a telco. If your primary business is providing network connectivity, perhaps you should pay for the finite resource you use.
- mseebach 10y ago
  So you're speaking of a specific problem in a specific place - this is kind of hard to know when it was phrased as a general principle. Also, it's hard to discuss the issue when there are no details about the specific issue available. But two points: First, where I am, 2.4Ghz is perfectly swamped with normal residential access points. It seems unlikely that this telco in your city did much more than move up the point where the spectrum is swamped, rather than causing it directly (also, if their use is affecting everyone else, they themselves are affected, too, rendering their investment pretty pointless, which leads me to wonder just how bad the situation actually is). Second, if you do want to regulate, in a rule-of-law-compatible way, well, it's going to be hard to distinguish a Starbucks access point operated for the benefit of customers of Starbucks from a telco access point operated for the benefit of customers of that telco. (If you want to use spectrum ownership as the metric, consider that many telcos cover both spectrum-owning mobile and commercial and residential broadband (ie wifi-providing) subsidiaries). To further muddy the waters, the telco is very likely to be selling access to their wifi network to non-subscribers.
  - hueving 10y ago
    >it's going to be hard to distinguish a Starbucks access point operated for the benefit of customers of Starbucks from a telco access point operated for the benefit of customers of that telco Not really. Usually there is an actual Starbucks where there is Starbucks WiFi and it doesn't extend much beyond the coffee shop. In this case and the case of Comcast in the US, the company is using other people's property for broadcasting wireless.
  - jackvalentine 10y ago
    No I am speaking of a general principle and using an example. I don't particularly want to get out the spectrum analysis gear and argue with your points in a ground war. I think for discussing a general idea it's a distraction.
simoncion 10y ago
> "Unlicensed" isn't really "unlicensed", as much as specifically licensed for anyone to do with as they please. One does not need a license to operate a radio in the WiFi bands, so that spectrum is unlicensed. However, it is not unregulated. :) > Anecdotes: 1: on London Underground, my phone authenticates using the SIM somehow... That might be EAP-SIM [0]. EAP (and WPA2-EAP) is really cool. I really wish that MSFT would configure their WiFi supplicants to not care if the key of the PEAP or TTLS server they're talking to is signed by an unknown CA. This would let coffee shop owners deploy encrypted but password-less WiFi and shut down a whole class of attacks. [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Authentication_Protocol#EAP-SIM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Authentication_Prot... [1] Seriously, MSFT obviously designed their WPA2-EAP GUIs only for use in an enterprise environment. There's no way for a Windows user to connect to a WPA2-EAP network that uses PEAP or TTLS with a cert from an unknown CA by just clicking on the network in the network browser and punching in some credentials. You must manually configure the network, then uncheck a checkbox buried beneath a couple of menus. What's more, the error you get if you don't do this is entirely unhelpful. :/ In contrast, Apple's GUI for this is actually useful: "This cert is unknown. You want to trust it for this WiFi network?". Say yes and off you go!

jackvalentine 10y ago

> But to take your idea just one step further, once you've opened up all wifi for the general publics consumption (what a renaissance for wired networking!) I think this requires clarification - I don't mean no business should ever use wifi. I mean businesses like telephone companies shouldn't be using to augment their networks. Obviously offices and the like need secure wireless networking that normal hardware can connect to. > Why is it wrong to use unlicensed spectrum for private gain Maybe with my above correction this isn't needed, but in cities the 2.4ghz channel is loaded to death and in a few years the 5ghz channel will be the same. All I'm objecting to are these closed commercial networks from people who should be paying for the spectrum bunging up the open one the rest of us use. My city is soaked with a wifi network that is closed to everyone except the customers of a telco. If your primary business is providing network connectivity, perhaps you should pay for the finite resource you use.

mseebach 10y ago
So you're speaking of a specific problem in a specific place - this is kind of hard to know when it was phrased as a general principle. Also, it's hard to discuss the issue when there are no details about the specific issue available. But two points: First, where I am, 2.4Ghz is perfectly swamped with normal residential access points. It seems unlikely that this telco in your city did much more than move up the point where the spectrum is swamped, rather than causing it directly (also, if their use is affecting everyone else, they themselves are affected, too, rendering their investment pretty pointless, which leads me to wonder just how bad the situation actually is). Second, if you do want to regulate, in a rule-of-law-compatible way, well, it's going to be hard to distinguish a Starbucks access point operated for the benefit of customers of Starbucks from a telco access point operated for the benefit of customers of that telco. (If you want to use spectrum ownership as the metric, consider that many telcos cover both spectrum-owning mobile and commercial and residential broadband (ie wifi-providing) subsidiaries). To further muddy the waters, the telco is very likely to be selling access to their wifi network to non-subscribers.
- hueving 10y ago
  >it's going to be hard to distinguish a Starbucks access point operated for the benefit of customers of Starbucks from a telco access point operated for the benefit of customers of that telco Not really. Usually there is an actual Starbucks where there is Starbucks WiFi and it doesn't extend much beyond the coffee shop. In this case and the case of Comcast in the US, the company is using other people's property for broadcasting wireless.
- jackvalentine 10y ago
  No I am speaking of a general principle and using an example. I don't particularly want to get out the spectrum analysis gear and argue with your points in a ground war. I think for discussing a general idea it's a distraction.

simoncion 10y ago

> "Unlicensed" isn't really "unlicensed", as much as specifically licensed for anyone to do with as they please. One does not need a license to operate a radio in the WiFi bands, so that spectrum is unlicensed. However, it is not unregulated. :) > Anecdotes: 1: on London Underground, my phone authenticates using the SIM somehow... That might be EAP-SIM [0]. EAP (and WPA2-EAP) is really cool. I really wish that MSFT would configure their WiFi supplicants to not care if the key of the PEAP or TTLS server they're talking to is signed by an unknown CA. This would let coffee shop owners deploy encrypted but password-less WiFi and shut down a whole class of attacks. [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Authentication_Protocol#EAP-SIM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Authentication_Prot... [1] Seriously, MSFT obviously designed their WPA2-EAP GUIs only for use in an enterprise environment. There's no way for a Windows user to connect to a WPA2-EAP network that uses PEAP or TTLS with a cert from an unknown CA by just clicking on the network in the network browser and punching in some credentials. You must manually configure the network, then uncheck a checkbox buried beneath a couple of menus. What's more, the error you get if you don't do this is entirely unhelpful. :/ In contrast, Apple's GUI for this is actually useful: "This cert is unknown. You want to trust it for this WiFi network?". Say yes and off you go!