At the Hackers on Planet Earth conference next month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation plans to release software designed to let you share a portion of your Wi-Fi network, password-free, with anyone nearby. The initiative, part of the OpenWireless.org campaign, will maintain its own flavor of free, open-source
router firmware called Open Wireless Router. Good Samaritans can install this firmware on a cheap Wi-Fi router, creating a public slice of bandwidth that can dialed up or down with a simple
smartphone interface.
“We want to encourage a world of open wireless, sharing Wi-Fi with each other for privacy, efficiency, and innovation in devices that don’t have to fall back on subscriptions to wireless carriers,” says EFF activist Adi Kamdar. Many locked wireless networks sit idle for much of the day, Kamdar argues. OpenWireless.org would put that untapped bandwidth to use while still allowing the router’s owner to take priority when needed, limiting freeloaders to as little as 5 percent of the pipe.
And just how does opening your network protect privacy, as Kamdar claims? 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.”
