Free FON router = fun hacking?
http://www.fon.com/gigaom/ Appears FON is at it again. I signed up for one...and I don't really plan on sharing my hard earned bandwidth :twisted: There's been some shell injection hacks that have been overun with FW updates, but the good ol' hardware method appears to be a JTAG port on the PCB which actually has nice pins sticking out so no soldering. Wire it to a serial port and you're done. I actually think I have an old serial to JTAG pin type cable from an old old Pentium Genuine. Might be fun.

heheh, i got mine ordered an hour or two ago. I plan to honor their idea since i like the free internet anywhere idea. besides, free router.

I'd consider it if my house were nowhere near anyone who should be needing wifi. If they are needing wifi, I'd question their being in my neighborhood... The idea is nice though.

is the router a wireless g? also, do you have to pay to sign up? (sorry for n00bish questions, i just dont feel like reading) :oops:

I'm pretty sure it's G (Their previous routers were WRT54G....real nice stuff). No costs to sign up, no costs to get the router (not even shipping).

bobbarkerI'd consider it if my house were nowhere near anyone who should be needing wifi. If they are needing wifi, I'd question their being in my neighborhood... The idea is nice though. I too am wondering what kind of idiots it may attract. I guess I am more concerned about a neighbor poaching bandwidth. May not be a problem because on any given day I can see about six different wireless networks my neighbors are running. I have used a few of them myself. :wink: Anyway, The router supports B and G and I did order one.

just ordered one... but im not so sure that I really want to give up my bandwidth

I only pick up three wireless signals in my house. One is my own, one seems to come from my neighbor to the right ("linksys"), and the other seems to come from my neighbor to the left ("netgear"). There is no back or front neighbor so they all seem to have their own wifi. My neighborhood has one way in/out and nobody strolls through with their laptop looking for wifi...at least on in Ohio. FRU: Love the avatar. Gotta love Red Green show.

I have a Merlin™ S620 Wireless PC Card for Sprint for my work laptop. Yet, I am learning where I can pull over and pick up a free wireless connection around town. Various hotels and Panera Bread are good candidates. bb, My wife Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaates The Red Green Show. Makes it even more fun to watch. :twisted:

they want the router back if you don't generate any money.

T&C Special Offer Conditions Special Offer for La Fonera for free (shipping cost and sales tax included) This Special Offer is valid until Thursday, February 8th, 2007 and limited to 2500 units and users of www.GigaOm.com that have received their Promotional Code and that also register or are already registered as Foneros. This Offer is limited to one router per user and shipping address. You will not be eligible for this Offer if you have previously purchased a subsidised La Fonera at www.fon.com. Once FON has confirmation that you have registered as a member of our Community, we will send you the La Fonera for free (shipping costs and sales tax are included). Once you have received your La Fonera, your will be required to install the La Fonera and maintain it activated within the FON Community. If for any reason you are not able to do so, we ask that you kindly pass the La Fonera onto a friend who wants to share WiFi as a Fonero. FON will publish your location on the FON maps that highlight the FON Community’s Access Points. Your personal data will be handled in accordance with the FON Privacy and Data Protection Policy that you will accept or have accepted when registering with FON. The FON Privacy and Data Protection Policy complies with the Spanish Organic Act 15/1999 entitled the Personal Data Protection Law and the UK Protection Act 1998, their corresponding regulations and other relevant legislation. On our website www.fon.com you can find all of the necessary information for installation and registration of your La Fonera. I don't think they are too worried about a router they sell for $30.00. They suggest to kindly pass the router on to a friend... Not much to enforce with this agreement. If they give us a hard time- I will give mine to a fellow in Cincinnati (bb) and he can give his to someone in Columbus (I am thinking, me.) I did not give the profit factor any thought (naive)- I looked at the TOU for FON. They are charging some users for this service and sharing some of the profits with the router owners. A caveat: I may not have permission to share or sell my bandwidth. Yet, I am too lazy to look for my RR T&C. :roll:

Yeah they charge for people not registered with FON. I tried to check the TOS for RR (that's my ISP, too) but flash in firefox on linux doesn't seem to want to display text in the all flash site of rr.com. I bet it is against the TOC to sell bandwidth....although RR is usually pretty lax with their rules.

Just found mine on my doorstep...weeee! EDIT: Checked it out and it's a 0.7.0 r4 FW...which I guess is like finding a 3.4 in a stack of 3.7s back before cronus. DOUBLE EDIT: Done! I plan to setup something like FON...but not FON. There's some hotspot options in DD-WRT I'll use so people don't have to sign up for FON...or pay...it'll be nice.

The model is plain ol' Fonera. http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/LaFonera DD-WRT wiki has all the info you need on getting DD-WRT on the Fonera. http://wiki.openwrt.org/OpenWrtDocs/Hardware/Fon/Fonera Open-WRT (what the Fonera uses) has a great wiki too, but I used DD-WRT for reasons......unknown.