This weekend at the “Hackers on Planet Earth” conference, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) plans to demonstrate new open source firmware for wireless routers. While open source wireless firmware is nothing new, in this case, the firmware is designed specifically to support the Open Wireless Movement. This movement is promoting the widespread sharing of unencrypted wireless networks with no password protection, so anyone can easily access and use them. Libraries are big on sharing, of course, and also big providers of public wireless, but will they embrace Open Wireless?
- What is the Open Wireless Movement? (openwireless.org) “We are aiming to build technologies that would make it easy for Internet subscribers to portion off their wireless networks for guests and the public while maintaining security, protecting privacy, and preserving quality of access. We’re also teaching the world about the many benefits of open wireless in order to help society move away from closed networks and to a world in which openness is the default. Our efforts follow the opinion of nationally recognized computer security expert Bruce Schneier, who considers maintaining an open wireless node a matter of ‘basic politeness’.”
- New open-source router firmware opens your Wi-Fi network to strangers (Ars Technica | Joe Silver) “[OpenWireless.org’s] mission statement reads. ‘And we are working to debunk myths (and confront truths) about open wireless while creating technologies and legal precedent to ensure it is safe, private, and legal to open your network.’ One such technology, which EFF plans to unveil at the Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE X) conference next month, is open-sourced router firmware called Open Wireless Router.”
- This tool boosts your privacy by opening your Wi-Fi to strangers (Wired | Andy Greenberg) “One goal of OpenWireless.org, says EFF staff attorney Nate Cardozo, is dispelling the legal notion that anything that happens on a network must have been done by the network’s owner. ‘Your IP address is not your identity, and your identity is not your IP address,’ Cardozo says. ‘Open wireless makes mass surveillance and correlation of person with IP more difficult, and that’s good for everyone.’”
- EFF wants you to open your Wi-Fi to IMPROVE privacy (The Register | Darren Pauli) “The EFF sees the proliferation of segmented open wireless networks as a key tactic that will foil intelligence agencies’ ability to track individuals. By opening home and business wireless to all, it became more difficult to tie people to their online activity.[…] Provided the software is sufficiently secure, the obvious outstanding threat would be to the open wireless users who could find themselves blamed for online crimes committed by anonymous users of their network.”
Articles from Ohio Web Library:
- Open source Wifi hotspot implementation. (Information Technology & Libraries, June 2007, p35-43 | Tyler Sondag and Jim Feher)
- Administering an open-source wireless network. (Information Technology & Libraries, September 2008, p44-54 | James Feher and Tyler Sondag)
- EFF: At the crossroads of technology and digital liberty. (Information Today, March 2014, p1-33 | Donovan Griffin)
