• IdealAccessPoint

The Ideal Access Point

Recently (and maybe not so recently) people have said things like "gee, PTP would really rock my socks if they could provide me with an access point that does everything I need to do for cheap and I wouldn't need to even think about it". Well, this is certainly something that is possible (or at least, some approximation of this goal). So, let's get a description going and then build a prototype and then build lots of them and then accomplish ThePlan.

Things We Want:

• Cheap (less than $100)

• Powerful (60+ mW with ability to attach an ExcessivelyLargeAntenna)

• Secure
  • The node host's internal network is isolated
  • The node host can still access their internal network safely
  • All wireless users can have some MAC-layer crypto if they want some (WPA2 and friends) but don't have to if they don't
  • The node host has some liability offloaded with a splash page
  • It acts as a firewall and does a good job at it
  • It has some sort of traffic/bandwidth throttling control and/or prioritization (wondershaper and friends?)
  • VPN tunneling and TOR and stuff
• Access
  • Personal Telco NOT members can get into it to help fix it (with new members added automagically to the keychain)
  • The node host can get into it
  • It will (automatically?) participate in PersonalTelcoVPN (especially if it is behind a NAT)
• Freeness
  • It runs a free operating system (Linux) and other free software (OpenWRT?)
  • The hardware is open (unlikely, but would be very cool)
  • No filtering of client-to-client traffic

  • The radio has a good, hopefully open, driver (MadWifi?)

• Ease of Use
  • Should be easy to configure things that need to be configured easily
• Robustness
  • Waterproof enclosure
  • PoE

  • No moving parts (CompactFlash storage)

• Growth

  • It is running some mesh protocol we all like (OLSR? HSLSR?) and looking for neighbors

• Applications
  • It has a place people can upload stuff and this stuff is easy to discover (zeroconf etc.)

Recipes

The RussellSeniorBuffalo:

• Buffalo WHR-G54S ($60 or thereabouts)
• OpenWRT
• A bunch of work

FINISH ME!!!