Bitcoin Forum

When I've set up my wallet, I expect to be running Bitcoin core over public WiFi connections. So I've got a couple of questions with regard to this.

Will my activity have much of an impact on other users of the WiFi service?
Will it increase the costs for the service provider by a noticeable amount?
Do many other users run the core regularly over public WiFi?
Is my activity likely to result in the blocking of relevant ports, and thus remove the facility for other potential users?

I am aware that there will be some personal security issues, but I hope to discuss these in another thread when I understand a bit more.

Depends. Bitcoin core can make streams load sluggish. I hardly notice it while Im surfing regular web pages though. This is also somehow what I would expect from public WiFi, so I dont think anyone would complain.


No. They should have a flatrate or other means to limit the traffic.


No idea, you are the first I heard about. Not that that means anything.


It might, but this greatly depends on who is responsible for the public WiFi and how uptight they are. Someone that has no idea what is going on might jump to conclusions and assume the high traffic can only be used for illegal downloads. There is hardly something you can do about this, besides maybe talk to the employees and try to explain to them what bitcoin is.

The local employees don't know much about the WiFi apart from setting up customers to use it. That's probably all they need to know normally. There is an issue at this site. Recently the aircon had a major overhaul, and since then, there has been intermittent interference over the transmission. They have said that they will get their IT guy to look into it, but so far there has been no action. I can't connect my Chromebook here since the work, but it works well everywhere else (including other MasD branches). There are also regular dips in the block transmissions as show in the network analysis tool.

MacD seems to be quite progressive when it comes to technology and payment systems, especially if it involves cost reductions, so it may be that they are already evaluating Bitcoin, but that would be at a corporate level. I might write to them in the future, but for the moment it might be best to leave well alone until somebody says something.

Most public wifi is time limit and have privacy policies who tickle high usage of the network. Also the posibilty with abusing the network they stop offering free wifi. Just short term connection would not be a big problem I guess.

running bitcoin core can make you caught in serious trouble in my opinion. As you have to sync the block all the time and we all know that everything touches the internet it will cost some for the service provider. When syncing you, you are downloading the whole blockchain (which is 50+ GB) so yes things will go bad quite easily if you are trying to do so.

But if you are running bitcoin core for normal transaction not syncing then I think it's fine ;D bitcoin core doesn't take up much bandwidth.

You cant use bitcoin core "for normal transaction not syncing". It will not broadcast a transaction until its fully synced.

Also if someone offers free WiFi they can hardly blame those that use the free WiFi. Most contracts for shops do not charge per byte anyway, so Im not sure where your "everything touches the internet it will cost some" comes from.

I suspect that MacD pays for b/width at the national level, so they will get a good deal. The profit on the coffee that I buy is probably much greater than the computing costs that result from my actions. And that includes the free cups of coffee that they give me. Also I buy snack wraps (I don't buy burgers), and I have some friends who visit me and spend money. I suspect that it is a good symbiotic relationship with MacD making a reasonable profit out of it.

Are you just wanting to use the wallet? Is it essential that you use bitcoincore? I much prefer a lite client as it was a pain for me having to download the blockchain all the time and it will stop you worrying about bandwidth etc.

That depends on what country you are in.

In the U.S. most McD restaurants are independently owned by local business owners.  They pay fees and rent to the McD corporation for the rights to represent themselves as a McD restaurant, but they pay all the business costs themselves.

It's possible that McD Corporation may have gotten involved and assisted the local McD owner in negotiating the broadband rates, but it probably isn't paid for at the national level.


That being said, they provide the service because it is a competitive thing for them to do.  Doing so encourages more people to spend more time in the restaurant.  They already have to pay for broadband service for moving business data in and out of the restaurant, so allowing the customers to share that bandwidth probably doesn't cost them much.  If your use becomes a problem I suppose they may limit you, but it probably isn't going to be an issue.

I suspect this one is owned and operated by MacD. There are at least three levels of manager above the main man for this site, and I have met all of them. They seem to take an interest in regular customers.

I do not think that this would be beneficial, for you never know when you will be limited an with the number of users getting on and off, you never know when you are going to get logged off or such.  You also have to weight the possibility of getting hacked by someone who wishes to see what you are up to.  There are a number of things to consider.

Well I've learnt a lot by downloading the blockchain via public WiFi. Well actually it has been taking far too long, so I'm finishing the download through a domestic connection. Unfortunately it is based on overhead copper wire, and it's a bit windy out here in the country. I'm well into the final year at the moment, so I can move to the next stage fairly soon. I might try to run a full node on a Chromebook - I haven't seen anyone report on this.

As an alternative, you could consider running it in Amazon's AWS and connecting in remotely from your notebook.

Since AWS also has a 12-month free usage tier for anyone with a credit card (including prepaid gift-card types), you can try it "risk free"* without having to bring the whole blockchain down to your notebook. You also get free usage for both Windows and Linux systems so you can play with both.

* may contain traces of risk

Thanks for the suggestion, but if Amazon needs credit card details, it would seem to defeat the basic philosophy of Bitcoin.

If you just save the block chain with AWS, they will not know the bitcoin account linked to the blockchain.

Has anyone run a full node on a free(!) AWS? I doubt its working. IIRC free instances are crawling at best.

No way it gonna work, I don't think the free AWS will support 40 GB download, the free services have limitations of course. You may be charged and maybe have some bad surprise when you credit card bill arrives

And if you account is terminated then everything will be lost, just run a light client is more safe

Free tier EC2 at AWS only supports up to 30 GB of Amazon Elastic Block Storage.

I believe that the blockchain is currently larger than 50 GB.

That means that you would exceed free tier size by more than 20 GB.

EBS pricing can be as cheap as $0.05 per GB per month, so you'd be paying more than $1.00 per month just for the extra 20+ GB of storage.

In addition, I think free tier allows up to 15 GB of outbound internet traffic per month.  After that you'll pay $0.09 per GB.

There may be additional charges on top of that for other services.

I started this project to see if Bitcoin could help people with no banking facilities, and no home connection, so if Amazon asks for a credit card, then it will not be suitable. I've already had to "cheat" by using a home connection to complete the blockchain download. I feel that it is still within the spirit of the project, as it should be possible to procure the blockchain on a dvd if one wanted to run a full node. I take the point about using light services and 3rd party wallets. Maybe I'll look into that later. I've checked my credit card, and the MacDonalds costs alone probably exceed anything Amazon would charge. The WiFi is free, the cost is for a few gallons of coffee, plus a load of egg wraps etc.

Yeah I would definitely use a light wallet like electrum.  You don't have to bother with all the syncing.

Here's a link to the electrum wallet download.
https://electrum.org/#download

-Aglacan

Online wallet is not secure for large amount of bitcoins. I would save most coins in my local wallet.

This is agreed. Remember that Bitcoin Core-QT has to sync blocks and every single transaction that are present in the ledger.
Multibit HD and Electrum are the way to go if you don't wish to wait to conduct transaction.
But Bitcoin Core-QT is the original "Satoshi" wallet if you want to keep that in mind, I recommend using it 100% if you have hard drive space and time to wait for the sync.

We need a lot of core clients running so that the wallet service is not centralised. If all of us use online wallet, the network is centralised.

Your activity should not have much of an effect on other users, however I would not recommend updating the initial information through wifi, you will be there forever.  I think you would be safe for now, for there are not to many people looking to hack public wifi bitcoin access, just my opinion though.

Thanks for the warning. I'm considering using a dead mobile as offline storage. Dead as in without a network connection of course. :)

There is nothing to hack, the data is verified locally if its modified it will be discarded. If I wanted to get hold of a bitcoin wallet I would not sit at a McD for a week either. Its more likely that you are targeted in general over a public WiFi (e.g. your Windows) than a targeted attack on full nodes. Finding full nodes is easy online, why go to a place where the chance is smaller than finding a block with a CPU?

I'm on a domestic connection in the Somerset countryside. The connection is made using overhead copper wire. I'm having more trouble here than I had in MacD. It's a lot better since I disabled everything I could find in Windows 10. The Cromebook is better. but I decided that trying to run Bitcoin core over public WiFi on a Chromebook, whilst it appears technically possible, was not a project worthy of the setup time.

That is a good idea.  It will hold battery life for a long while and you can connect through wifi when ever you want to use your account.  That is a great idea and I think it trumps my laptop that I keep off the network until I need it.  Not to many people would expect a cell phone that is out of service.

But with cell phone, you can only use online wallet. Is that safe?

Isn't there a way that you can download a wallet onto your cell phone through wifi or you could download to your computer and then back up to the storage on your cell phone.  I also thought there was a cell phone app you could get to use?  Just wondering.

No, e.g. bither has an offline mode for phones.

how about if there is a free public wifi that have no privacy policy to limited the usage of network is it still secure to still running bitcoin wallet using that public wifi if we considering it from the security issue of our bitcoin wallet

Why do you want to use a public WIFI?  Unless you do not have internet at home or something like that I would not take the chance in using public WIFI.  There are some people who have nothing better but to break into private systems connected to public WIFI.  Is there a reason behind this?

A cell phone with an expired sim card can still communicate with a notebook. I've got an Alcatel Pixi which I think is rubbish, and I don't feel comfortable using it as a phone. It has bluetooth, USB connectivity, and an SD card slot.

There are many reasons for using public wifi.

1. Living in the country can mean you have to rely on an erratic service utilising overhead copper wire. This can be slow, and affected by high winds.
2. Making Bitcoin exchanges in a public restaurant with WiFi is safer imho. I don't like the idea of online exchanges with wide spreads. This aversion is probably related to my PayPal experiences some years ago.
3. Businessmen on the road, travellers, holidaymakers, yachtsmen, nature photographers, and many others all find an internet connection useful whilst they are away from a home base.

Running a full node seems to be a viable option, although I only run it to syncronize the files. and to stay active for about 15 minutes a couple of times a day. If you are going to use public WiFi long term, then you need to make sure you keep up to date, and synchronize every day. I'm getting a transfer rate of about 30Kb/sec.

One useful side effect is that, by leaving the network traffic analyser on display, I've started a few discussions about Bitcoin with other customers. Some of the MacD staff seem to be interested as well. :)