FoN HoM

So, I got my new Fon Social Router delivered yesterday.

http://en.fon.com/

It doesn't look like too bad a deal - for $13 you get a nice modified linksys 802.11G router.

You set it up and provide access to the internet over that router to Fon users that may have access to your hotspot. You can provide free service for Fon network members or Billable service where Fon gives you 50% of the revenue. If you setup the free service you then get free access to the thousands of Fon network hotspots around the world.

There's been a lot of hacking and mod talk about these devices. Apparently it's quite easy to setup a simple cron job to mimic the heartbeat signal the device sends to show Fon you're online (thus verifying you're actually providing access). It's also been stated that it's quite easy to flash the memory on the box back to factory defaults and just drop it into service.

This particular router is very popular with the hacking community because it's linux based.

Linksys WRT54GL

Which is probably why Fon picked it for their service in the first place. I'm not sure about the kit they deploy in europe.

I would recommend reading their use agreement before you sign up, and keep it in mind if you do decide to mod your router. They'll bill you something like $40 (the additional cost of the router I imagine) if you don't keep up your end of the deal. Keep up your end of the deal though, let's stop waiting around for governments to build wifi umbrellas for our communities.

Living way out in the boonies the way I do I have little or no concern about sharing my connection - security through obscurity. I don't know how useful free access to their service will be now, and I couldn't make any money off it (no customers). But, being the geek I am I just can't turn down a little blinky box that does interesting things for $13.00.

I think I'll put it out in the open as part of the network, but I'm fairly sure I'll be pinching the bandwidth it uses through my firewall and logging its activity to make sure it's not being used for p2p and the like.