business fixing insecure wifi?

What do people think about the idea of driving around a neighborhood, finding homes with insecure access points, and then offering to fix the problem for a flat fee?

Ian

Reply to
Ian
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Hi, Isn't your snooping illegal to begin with? Tony

Reply to
Tony Hwang

I think you'll find that they won't pay.

Reply to
Rôgêr

Now that I suspect is a moral question, He could drive around using netstumbler and a gps, thats legal, log all unsecured networks (data protection act! ), knock on peoples doors, now in the UK I suspect you are acting on information you have received by wireless puts you on dodgy ground! Some people may be happy to be told, on the other hand I suspect a punch on the mouth would be what he would receive at most doors!

Reply to
Des

Most would consider it an intrusion on their privacy. Were someone to bang on my door with that line, I would immediately ask how they found me, what other info have they extracted from my computer, and why are you bugging me during dinner? If you simply leave a document indicating what you've found, my guess is you'll get about a 10% response rate, of which only 1% will be paying customers. The problem is that most home computer users seem to think that "support" is free, and that the only time they need to pay for services is for repair or for the ISP. That means you'll need to convince them that their system is broken, something that few are going to admit. Also, just about everyone has a "friend in the computah business", whom they will want to consult before dealing with you. More than likely, the friend will setup the security for free as it's not particularly difficult.

The few customers that are interested will create a liability situation. When you work on a customers computah or network, you effectively inherit a service contract on their system. Anything that remains broken, remains unfixed, or happens in the immediate future is your problem. You have to fix everything, or get the customer to sign some kind of release claiming that you only worked on the wireless and not the computer. Since about 80% of the computahs that I see for the first time have viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, and insufficient updates, you may need to expand your business plan. I would not let some stranger work on my machine, and I don't think any of your potential customers would either.

I actually had a similar business plan many years ago. Most of the old IBM mono monitors belched so much RFI, that I could hear it on a short wave receiver outside the building. It was fairly easy to determine which houses had computers. My plan was to bang on the door and solicit a potential customer. Total failure. Almost everyone I tried considered it an intrusion.

When I disclosed how I found their computer, many went into panic mode. The problem was that I had selected to do this is the city of Capitola. Their brilliant city council decided that it was time to enforce their ban on operating a home business without a license. They were going around issuing zoning violations to anyone that appeared to be operating a home business in the city limits. That didn't last long, but it sure ruined my business plan.

When I switched to businesses, I discovered that just about every business already had a staff or outside computer expert. They would not let me even see the computer without first consulting their expert. I did manage to get one business as a customer, but that was only because they were dissatisfied with their existing computer expert and wanted a change anyway.

Flat fees in the repair business are suicide. I used to sell service contracts when I was in the commercial 2-way radio business. It wasn't because I thought I could make more money, but because the banks treated contracts as continuous income and would therefore issue an accounts receivable loan with the contracts as proof of income. I lost my ass on the contracts because customers would abuse the contract. It's the same way with computers. Too many trivial problems magically become a crisis if the customer knows they're not paying extra. I get this now even when I bill for time and materials. I get called to fix a problem, and find myself faces with dozens that nobody told me about on the assumption that only the initial complaint would be billable. It always starts with "oh, by the way...". Do it with time and materials and only switch to flat rate if desperate.

Incidentally, I suspect you'll run into a stupid problem. Many customer can't remember or find their ISP passwords. As these are inscribed in the router configuration, you may not be able to properly setup the router. If you do this at night, many support organizations are closed, so you can't easily obtain a new password. Of course, after you're done, and the customer again forgets their password, guess whom they're gonna call first?

Are you sure you want to do this?

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Yep. A former lady friend in bed. I was crushed. Also, the brats that ocassionally infest my house when I'm coerced into playing baby sitter. Once in a while, someone complains that I bore them to death in a newsgroup or mailing list. It happens all the time, but I'm used to it.

Most of my critics are a bit more colorful with their opinions of my rants. Back in the days of the dot com era, I was doing evaluations and sanity checks on business plans and product proposals for a VC. I was really good at puncturing inflated projections and science fiction products. The proponents of those plans often suggested that I was rather less than entertaining. I'll admit that it was fun (especially getting paid to do it).

I kinda wished I had the benfit of asking someone with experience when I was getting started in various businesses. I made far too many mistakes. Before embarking on any venture, I try to do as much research as possible and solicit opinions from everyone. Once I decide to do something, I then tended to ignore any subsequent criticism and predictions of disaster. I got some of the best advice from some of the strangest and non-obvious people.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

You could just tell them about our free WIFI internet blocking software at

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but please don't charge them for that...

Reply to
myWIFIzone

Jeff, did anyone ever tell you you're no fun?!

:)

David.

Reply to
David Taylor

Good point - in that case you need to rely on your router's MAC filtering and look through its log files for intruders :( Freeloaders get a captive portal when myWIFIzone is running - so at least they know they aren't welcome.

Reply to
myWIFIzone

What if you only have one laptop (or desktop) that isn't always on...?

Reply to
David Taylor

Not much use to them - myWIFIzone is strictly MS Windows based code.

Reply to
myWIFIzone

Nah, I have better but because it's a commercial product, it's not relevant.

Have you thought of passing your source code to the various guys that do the extra firmware for things like the Linksys WRT54G? I'm sure it would make a nice addition to the Sveasoft/HyperWRT/etc AP builds.

David.

Reply to
David Taylor

Yes that's why I said offer them the source for cross compiling having stripped out the bits they don't want. It was just a thought but sure, since it's your code you may want to do something else with it later on that's not so free :)

David.

Reply to
David Taylor

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