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The Story Behind "Free Public WiFi" - It's Not

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Re: The Story Behind "Free Public WiFi" - It's Not

#3

Post by pavel_lishin »

rwwmike wrote: post #2

I still want to believe that, somewhere out there, there actually is Free Public WiFi...

Addison, TX provided city-wide WiFi for residents for awhile, but I think they're phasing it out this month. Their reasoning was that 3G was ubiquitous, so there was really no reason to provide WiFi any longer.

Re: The Story Behind "Free Public WiFi" - It's Not

#5

Post by thewordpainter »

rwwmike wrote: post #2

I still want to believe that, somewhere out there, there actually is Free Public WiFi...

i couldn't believe how long it took starbuck's to reevaluate their stance on wifi considering they've become the library of the 21st century.

as for other locations, get ready for the subway system if you didn't catch it before... http://mashable.com/2010/07/30/nyc-wireless-subway/

Re: The Story Behind "Free Public WiFi" - It's Not

#9

Post by Cushman »

So this is basically a self-propagating virus started by someone indeed offering Free Public WiFi, now kept alive by hopeful XP users clicking on the network?

That is so wild. It's like the ad-hoc wifi equivalent of a chain letter.

Edit: Thinking about it, it's even crazier... Because the bug only happens when there aren't any available networks, it springs up in situations when there are a lot of people looking for wireless, but there isn't any— on buses, conferences, etc. The exact sort of situations where people are most likely to try out "Free Public WiFi", so the virus is more likely to propagate.

Furthermore, the name is important. In order for it to become a widespread phenomenon, it has to be a name a lot of people will click on. But we can imagine that a lot of people have set up ad-hoc networks with different names that wound up being temporarily duplicated by the bug. Some of those with attractive names may have caused further duplication before finally disappearing. The more attractive the name, the more likely it is to be duplicated before being overwritten. In effect, the name "Free Public WiFi" has been selected for.

I'm calling it: This is the first (global?) distributed wireless network that evolved on its own. Unfortunately, evolution doesn't require that it actually be useful to people :P

Re: The Story Behind "Free Public WiFi" - It's Not

#10

Post by anon-e-moose »

This is not a "bug" or a virus.

XP simply remembers the last ad-hoc network you connected to, to be used when there are no actual APs around. As a blindingly obvious differentiation, ad-hoc networks have a different icon and say "computer-to-computer network".

Back when Windows XP was introduced, ad-hoc was extremely useful as lots of places didn't have wireless internet access. My friends and I often used it to swap files or play network games.

If anything I would call this an unintended phenomenon of people just clicking something and hoping it worked. The network does not spread because of Windows, it spreads because people select an ad-hoc network without knowing what is.

Why we as a society think its totally great to be completely ignorant and reckless with our computers, I'll never understand.

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