Wireless internet connection

[Brendan Martin]

I have been pondering the advice we are given by internet service providers (ISPs) and others regarding the security of wireless routers. Anyone who buys one and uses it is told that to stop people hacking into your system, you should lock the router and make it accessible only by use of a password.

But when you use a wireless connection in a coffee shop, hotel or other place, you have no protection from hackers. But no one warns against using an open wi-fi system. (The barrier to using some wi-fi systems is the need to pay - but many are free including the one on the Dolphin Bar & Grill.)

I expect an experienced hacker can get into your system whether or not your wi-fi is password-protected.

So who gains by telling to lock our routers? Router manufacturers and ISPs.

Supposing we had one router per house in the Square. That would be 12 routers and just 12 ISP subscriptions, which could be divided up among those who wished to use the service. (Of course, you could password-protect the 12 routers to prevent those who don't join in the cost-sharing exercise from availing of the service.)

It seems to me, we are all paying subscriptions for internet access when if we pooled the service, we could save money.

Has anyone any thoughts on this idea? Anyone know any reason not to do it?

[nick]

Certainly an interesting proposal Brendan that would be attractive to many I am sure. A few random thoughts however, in no particular order:

• Just think of the “got to moan about something now Westbrook are here” brigade’s panic-mongering concerning the wicked ruse by the landlord to secure vacant-possession of the costly (to the landlord) option B flats by frying the more vulnerable, elderly B tenants’ brains with wireless death rays!

• Anybody who has attempted to download that incredibly long, violent and occasionally rather seedy Hollywood blockbuster “War and Peace and More War – the Blue Dolphin / DSTA Saga”, will have experienced “throttling”. Not of the variety you must sometimes wish you could inflict upon your correspondents. Nope, what the likes of Virgin do when a subscriber tries to “over-use” his/her broadband connection. I suspect that if more than a handful of tenants in any one house were to use a single Wi-Fi internet connection at any one time, limits would be breached and download speeds “throttled”. Maybe one could get around this by paying a premium for an unlimited connection?

• Mantilla could not put their name on the broadband supply contract because it would probably breach the terms of their Virgin contract – and under current circumstances, they might not be able to afford the ink to sign with, anyway. Would DSTA want to be the contractor?
Who knows what that rather quiet neighbour might be downloading in these liberated times - does DSTA want a midnight visit from the vice squad?

I am sure however that there are ways around all these problems – after all, when Westbrook first presented their dreams for Dolly Square to the tenants, they included a property-wide WiFi network. I guess these days however, they are having to prioritise other expenses – such as paying the heating bills for all the Option B tenants flats and common parts, without being able to recover the recently exploded costs thereof, via service charges or rent increases!