Topic: Bounty 20 BTC: Wi-Fi Hotspot, enabled by bitcoin - page 4. (Read 27526 times)

NEat !

Good luck!

Just posting an update on this thread ... there appears to be a party interested in building this:

 - http://www.rugatu.com/questions/739/wi-fi-hotspot-enabled-by-bitcoin/3384

Further information on this project is now occurring on the thread on Rugutu:

 - http://www.rugatu.com/questions/739/wi-fi-hotspot-enabled-by-bitcoin

Automated payments are not currently possible.  This would likely require a second, independent wallet app made for the purpose.

It can just be built in to existing Android mobile clients. It's fair to ask that users have this, as that way it can be totally transparent ... users can end up on your wifi gateway without even realizing, if your fees are acceptable.


You buy access ahead of time in small amounts. The user can never be in bandwidth debt. They can have bought small amounts of traffic they didn't use, though.


The proposal on the wiki is per kilobyte. The negotiation is cheap enough for that to be feasible, I think.

Sounds very nice, but would require a special client used to meter the bandwidth and to sign/create these transactions, right?

Also, what happens if the Access Point thinks the user has used 100 MB of traffic, the user client thinks he has used only 99 MB of traffic though and refuses to "pay up"? Overprovision by some percentage? Choke (=rate-limit) the client till he pays up? This might lead to some bad user experience if consequences are harsh and immediate or in some not-paid traffic (or whatever) if there iss too much leeway.

It might work perfectly for per-minute flatrates though, maybe even for "per 10 seconds" types of contracts. Even per second maybe, though this might already start to have some timing issues (or packet loss issues!), especially with wireless connections.

Something where this might also work out, would be a bitcoin powered online hosting provider...

For APs the biggest problem might be to get bitcoins you own into that client - either it has to access your wallet file or it has it's own single private key(s) pre-charged with some amount. One could sell pre-charged private keys at the counter in a cafe for example and the added benefit for the customer would then be that they can use up as much as they like of that and transfer the rest to their wallet and use these as "normal" bitcoins after their session ends.

That way, even if you sell access "vouchers" to the local W-LAN for 30 USD or so while 1 hour only costs 2 USD, they still can afterwards keep and use the remaining balance.

If somebody is going to do it, read this first:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_7:_Rapidly-adjusted_.28micro.29payments_to_a_pre-determined_party

Bounty created  http://www.rugatu.com/questions/739/wi-fi-hotspot-enabled-by-bitcoin

Rugatu pledges 1 bitcoin.

I have one, and it's pretty cool; but you will be surprised at how many consumer devices will refuse to cooperate with it.  Both Amazon Kindles & Apple products need to be able to communicate with their parent companies servers in order to do much of anything, which kinda makes them useless with the piratebox.  Android phones don't seem to care, and can happily upload & download without complaint.

Indeed. I always have at least two in stock

+1, really cool project.

Sounds pretty good to me.  Ditto on the Open Source.


Sorry, haven't used rugatu before.  But sure, as long as the code is open source, works, and posted.

My only requirement is Open Source

I think there are varying requirements for what would earn the bounty so probably what would be useful is to have each bounty offered list the requirements.

I have [Edit: had] a use case where a bounty would be offered [Edit: I'm no longer a backer for a bounty], but I haven't put the specs for it together yet.  It will be along the lines of:

The ability to share a router for use by the operator for internal use as well as offering access commercially.

Software License: [flexible, GPL or BSD]
Hardware supported: [incomplete]  (probably WRT54G, etc., also Ubiquity Nanostation2)
Payment methods: Both Bitcoin or Voucher Code (i.e., a code for a 2 hour pass, 1 day pass, etc.)
Private access: Second SSID for internal use, WPA2 protection
LAN /ethernet: Full access
WLAN DHCP: Supported (optional)
WLAN Static IP: Supported (optional)
Remote admin: Supported (optional)

I'm probably forgetting a few details.

Maybe we should do a bounty question on rugatu, would you still be in ?

I am still in for 10BTC

Quoted for future reference  



It's an interesting project and with very high potential, hope we see it done some day.

I'll pay up at least...

Maybe, maybe not.  Build it and find out.