FON, a Spanish start-up on an ambitious crusade to turn home Wi-Fi connections into wireless “hotspots” for nearby users, is set to unveil on Monday a plan to hand out 1 million wireless routers for just $5 apiece.
This is all well and good but, what measures are they going to be taking to ensure that these devices are secure? Thus far the Google backed company has manged to sign up 54,000 people. The catch here is that people that sign up must agree to share their connection. This is fine for the John Q. User that happens to be just checking email or writing a blog.
But FON could face legal battles with telephone and cable TV carriers who bar users from sharing Web access they supply, similar to how Hollywood sued and put the original Napster out of business for enabling millions to illegally share music
Hmmm, OK, so what if someone hacks into a bank via one of these hotspots will Interpol coming looking for the owner of the access point? This presents interesting questions. The access points are supposed to be limited to subscribers of FON service but, as we have seen time and again this is no guarantee.
[tags]Wi-Fi, Wireless, FON, Router Giveaway, Blog, Google[/tags]