Intraweb!

[crschmidt]

Speakeasy came through! This morning, woke up, plugged in DSL modem, and it lit up. Hooray, DSL!

Of course, it wasn't quite that simple. First, Speakeasy apparently doesn't do DHCP for its static IP customers. I liked this about MV: They did everything for me. Still, the information was on the packing slip, so I was able to put it in without a problem... except then it didn't work. Called Speakeasy support, got told that it was the wrong info. (Strange, since my userid was printed right on there...)

once I updated it, everything worked fine for about an hour, until Jenn woke up and got on dialup...

Since we don't have filters right now, that completely ruined the DSL line: 95% packet loss. (I didn't realize how neccesary those filters were.) Got Jenn offline and set everything up: the modem and router are now in her room, wireless seems to reach all over the house, wires reaching to kristan and jenn's computers. still have to work out something for zeus and hermes, but that'll be okay later, and I'm set for now.

So, the commune has internet! I plan on leaving the wireless open for the neighborhood (barring abuse), thanks to Speakeasy's TOS which supports the idea of sharing the internet. I'll probably set up a website that will advertise itself or something too. Maybe set up 192.168.1.1 and move the router: smart people will try that. I dunno, what would people suggest to try and set up a community site based around people who connect to a wireless router? Is there a way to send people to a captive page when they first show up? Is there some sveasoft firmware option for things like that?

I'd really like to be able to build a free wireless "neighborhood" around our hub, so people who stop by and grab access know who's providing it, and why, rather than just thinking I'm a moron who doesn't know how to set things up. I could provide things like local copies of software using zeus, or a local wiki... hrm.

Anyone have any experience setting up non-captive portals?

Comments

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

EWRT has NoCatSplash built in, just need to make sure I can somehow set it up to exclude certain computers, or only do it once, so that communists don't always see it, cause that would get awful annoying.

Previous to this, we were all running with public IPs anyway: we weren't using the router, just a DSL modem. So, the lack of "protection" doesn't really bother me: I'm no less secure letting the few people who might wander by see my computer than I am by putting it out on the web.

I'll admit that I'm not the most security concious person in the world, to a fault.

WRT54Gs are getting pretty cheap, but not cheap enough that I'm willing to buy another just for that purpose yet. Maybe when I get some more work up my sleeve. And some checks rolling in.

[mendel.livejournal.com]

Well, there's a big difference between being accessible to strangers at the IP level and at the MAC level. If I'm not on your subnet, then I can't see traffic that you're not sending to me. But if I'm on the same subnet (and especially if it's not switched) then I can eavesdrop. They're not just capable of seeing your computer across the network, they're seeing all the data coming and going as well.

One possibility is to have a non-wireless box act as a VPN endpoint, and then establish VPNs between the household wireless computers and it; that way anyone stopping by in the neighbourhood is free to use the network but can't see the traffic others are broadcasting.

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

Good point, and one I hadn't thought of. I'll probably pick up an extra WRT54G once I have some extra cash. Right now, I'm completely broke - moving into a new house and getting all roomates to get new jobs takes time - and I doubt that our wireless router is any more likely to get traffic than the other 3 unlocked ones that are available walking down the street.

I really wish I had the free time to try to organize a wider city wireless network: I'd love to have municipal wireless, even if was just downtown or by Harvard or something. Then I wouldn't feel it quite so neccesary to offer the open wireless in the first place :)