Bounty 20 BTC: Wi-Fi Hotspot, enabled by bitcoin

[legkodymov]

I would like have hotspot based on some popular WiFi router, like Linksys or Ubiquiti.
Person pay with BTC and get access to internet.

- Better if hotspot will be self sufficient. Some hardware, like Dlink DIR-320 has USB port. It can be used for USB flashdrive as storage of blocks.

- Better if it will have options, like counting traffic or time, several bandwidth throttling degrees, depending on price.

- Better if hotspot will have 2 SSIDs - one private and one public.

How do you think to start implementing this?

My bounty is small, but I think someone on this forum would need the same and also pay for developer.

[Garrett Burgwardt]

How'd they be able to pay with bitcoin if they don't have internet to begin with?

[unfinishe]

How'd they be able to pay with bitcoin if they don't have internet to begin with?

I assume that you could restrict the connection in order to allow them to pay, kind of like in the airport hotspots (e.g. Boingo).

[legkodymov]

Yes, I assume 64 kbit/s session with 15 minutes limit is free.

[TiagoTiago]

Bitcoin tunneling FTW

[FreeMoney]

How'd they be able to pay with bitcoin if they don't have internet to begin with?

Even a free hotspot usually requires you to give them data to get it opened up. This is obviously possible.

Now what would be really cool is if there was easy software you could run on your home computer or router to give access to others for coins.

[MoonShadow]

I've thought of this one as well, and the simplest way to allow users to pay in bitcoin is to whitelist mybitcoin.com and port 8333, and have a captive portal splash page that is one of those "pay with mybitcoin account or pay with other bitcoin" setups.  There is next to nothing else that users could do without first paying you except update their local bitcoin blockchain or send coins to someone else from their local client.

[MoonShadow]

I would like have hotspot based on some popular WiFi router, like Linksys or Ubiquiti.
Person pay with BTC and get access to internet.

- Better if hotspot will be self sufficient. Some hardware, like Dlink DIR-320 has USB port. It can be used for USB flashdrive as storage of blocks.

- Better if it will have options, like counting traffic or time, several bandwidth throttling degrees, depending on price.

- Better if hotspot will have 2 SSIDs - one private and one public.

How do you think to start implementing this?

My bounty is small, but I think someone on this forum would need the same and also pay for developer.

Take a look at the Buffalo 'Air Station' 300GN wireless router.  It does all that you want except maybe the 2 ssids.  It has three independently functioning transceivers, a fully capable usb port, and dd-wrt.

[ryepdx]

If anyone wants to do this, they may be able to learn something from the Pirate Box project:
http://wiki.daviddarts.com/PirateBox

[shooter_mcgavin]

Using some custom firmware, you could relatively easily set up a portal where this could be achieved. Hmm...I'll see what I can do.

[shooter_mcgavin]

Off the top of my head, this can be achieved relatively easily with a Squid proxy, but I'm assuming you want something that non-tech can roll out to a place like a coffee shop with relative ease. Modifying the firmware on a Linksys/Buffalo router could be the way to go at that point, but setting up the startup script would be the real trick. There's a lot of homebrew apps you can run like that & couple it with some script-fu you could definitely have this.

I imagine this is going to be a big proponent for the Bitcoin. If coffee shops can freely have this as passive income potential, adoption rates go up & Bitcoin exposure goes up. I am keenly interested in developing for this

[MoonShadow]

Off the top of my head, this can be achieved relatively easily with a Squid proxy, but I'm assuming you want something that non-tech can roll out to a place like a coffee shop with relative ease. Modifying the firmware on a Linksys/Buffalo router could be the way to go at that point, but setting up the startup script would be the real trick. There's a lot of homebrew apps you can run like that & couple it with some script-fu you could definitely have this.

I imagine this is going to be a big proponent for the Bitcoin. If coffee shops can freely have this as passive income potential, adoption rates go up & Bitcoin exposure goes up. I am keenly interested in developing for this

I don't think most businesses would be interested in a pay portal for their customers, most already offer free internet as a side benefit to being a paying customer.  I think that will eventually become the norm, much like being a paying customer entitles you to free use of the bathroom, but it's still rude to walk off of the sidewalk to crap without buying anything.

I would find this kind of thing useful at public events, say with a WiMax WAN uplink, some QoS code to keep things even among customers, and a built in Bitcoin client that all attempts to use port 8333 are redirected towards.  I don't want those new BitcoinJ clients trying to repeatedly download even the blockchain headers over the WAN when they would be available locally.  Put the entire system into a large lunchbox or cooler, with a couple of decent antennas neatly sticking out the top.  A decent battery and/or a solar cell on the top of the cooler, and roll it all up to the highest point one can get to early in the day before the (air show, tailgate party, race, outdoor concert, fireworks show, whatever) starts, fire it up and let the crowd discover it.  Some people are going to have 4G/wimax accounts anyway and simply won't care, but if the price isn't too high for a day's casual connectivity or a not-to-bad per MB rate, then those who have metered data plans are going to be intrigued.  And I know that it's downright painful for some young people to have connectivity problems at any event with long periods of calm before the main event.

Sometimes, having it mounted to the top of my minivan would be even better.  Another system with just the piratebox, so that both of these things can coexist in the same space, would be ideal.

[legkodymov]

I don't think most businesses would be interested in a pay portal for their customers, most already offer free internet as a side benefit to being a paying customer.  

Yes, like in Libya, $.1 per litre of gasoline, free electricity, $700/month unemployment compensation.
Compare this to any US airport (I was SF and Washington) - pay 100 times of real price for Internet.
Are we live in communism???

I'm pretty sure there will be huge amount of bitcoin-enabled hotspots, if some simple solution would be available.
Also it will increase awareness about bitcoins and will work for all bitcoin users.

[MoonShadow]

I don't think most businesses would be interested in a pay portal for their customers, most already offer free internet as a side benefit to being a paying customer.  

Yes, like in Libya, $.1 per litre of gasoline, free electricity, $700/month unemployment compensation.
Compare this to any US airport (I was SF and Washington) - pay 100 times of real price for Internet.

Sorry, I was thinking only of the US again.

Does Internet really cost that much in airports?  I smell an opprotunity.  I have a line of sight from the back of my garage to the local airport, and I could hit it with a high quality beam antenna.

[ryepdx]

I have a line of sight from the back of my garage to the local airport, and I could hit it with a high quality beam antenna.

+1

[Rage]

Let's look at it for a moment in a distributed partnership sort of way and see if this works...

Most COTS routers (like Linksys, D-Link, etc) run two things almost invariably: a tftp server and a web server. The tftp server allows the router to be flashed with new firmware and the web server allows the user to configure the router through a nice web interface.

So imagine a centralized site that anyone wishing to run a commercial bitcoin hotspot would join. They would sign up and provide the static IP address of their internet connection (or maybe a dyn domain if their IP changes though this is a bit less stable). The site would send them an email with a confirmation link and a link to download a small package that they would install on their router. All the package would contain would be a script to take input from the central site and update the authorized MAC address table in the router then send the centralized site confirmation that this had been done. Any connection from a MAC address that is NOT in the allowed table on the router would be automatically redirected to the centralized site where they could purchase time.

So a new user rolls up to the hotspot and connects. Since he's a new user and his MAC address isn't in the allowed table, he would be redirected to the central site to purchase credit. Once done, the central site would immediately communicate with the hotspot, update its allowed MAC addresses and the user would then be able to use the router to connect to the internet.

The central site would survive by either taking a cut on time sold or perhaps they would charge a flat fee to hotspot operators per month. The operators would make money by selling time on their hotspots.

All this glorious money, of course, would be Bitcoin.

Thoughts?

Rage

[marcus_of_augustus]

Just give the prospective client splash page access only to his Instawallet and an address to send the coins to ....

https://www.instawallet.org

[Sukrim]

Just give the prospective client splash page access only to his Instawallet and an address to send the coins to ....

https://www.instawallet.org

For this you would need to have funds already on this "instawallet" service (which could go down/take your BTC any second they want to). If oyu just have your local wallet.dat, you would need to get the most current blocks before being able to issue any transaction.

If you limit bandwidth there, this would lead to long downloads + frustrated clients who anyways have to wait ~2-3 blocks until they are allowed into the network in the first place!

Bitcoin might be nice for real money transfer, but for small + quick payments (on the airport I want to check mails 5 minutes before the plane leaves, not wait half an hour until my payment is verified!) you would need either a centralized prepay-solution or something else.

[shooter_mcgavin]

Just give the prospective client splash page access only to his Instawallet and an address to send the coins to ....

https://www.instawallet.org

For this you would need to have funds already on this "instawallet" service (which could go down/take your BTC any second they want to). If oyu just have your local wallet.dat, you would need to get the most current blocks before being able to issue any transaction.

If you limit bandwidth there, this would lead to long downloads + frustrated clients who anyways have to wait ~2-3 blocks until they are allowed into the network in the first place!

Bitcoin might be nice for real money transfer, but for small + quick payments (on the airport I want to check mails 5 minutes before the plane leaves, not wait half an hour until my payment is verified!) you would need either a centralized prepay-solution or something else.

It is my understanding that the system verification speed will increase as time goes on, and transaction premiums become more commonplace.

[m4rkiz]

there is quite few hotspot managers build in in dd-wrt already
http://www.dd-wrt.com/demo/Hotspot.asp

not that i ever tried to setup one, but that should be easiest way to go, most likely requiring just minor modifications

if anyone want some dlink 615 routers flashed with dd-wrt let me know (europe only)