Into The Unknown

Update, July 2009: Fon are currently running a promotion where active Foneros (like myself) can 'invite friends' to join Fon and pick up a La Fonera v2.0 for just $/€19.95, instead of the regular $/€49.95. The LFv2 is a great improvement over the LFv1 (which I have) - it has a USB port, allowing for connection of external HDDs and sharing over the LAN, an independent uploader and downloader mechanism (so you can torrent to your external HDD without having the PC on) and it has more ethernet ports on it too.

Oh, and did I mention that because the firmware is opensource, the device is inherently hackable (and that many people have already managed to flash other firmware to it, increasing its functionality yet further?)

If you want an introduction to the La Fonera 2, check out the Fon blog entry with a video from Fon's CTO introducing the device. I have 20 invites to give away to people who want to score the 60% discount on a La Fonera 2 - to request an invite, just send me an email.

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I'm a grumpy old grouch, but one email I received today did cheer me up - Fon is offering people who are active Foneros (users who don't make money from people using their wifi, but who can use any other Fon spot worldwide for free) three free Fonera routers! That's free as in beer, no shipping costs or tax or anything, and I just placed my order.

You can't just go on to the site and get them, if you qualify for the offer you'll receive an email from Fon with the promo code in it (which is unique to you) and you enter it in the Fon Shop to apply the offer. Two more clicks and you're done. Shame it's not the Fonera+, I would've liked to have one of those (a subsidised offer promo code would've been even nicer because they're currently around €44, but I expect they'll do an offer similar to my idea later on in 2008).

There are certain terms and conditions; you have to keep the routers online and active once you get them, or if you either already have one or don't see the point in running multiple routers, you're encouraged to give them to other people. I might give one to my parents, and give one to my friend who's just gotten cable but can't afford a wireless router.

Here's what Fon has to say with regards to the terms and conditions of the offer:

Special Offer for three La Foneras for free. (Shipping and Sales tax included)

This Special Offer is valid until December 31, 2007 and limited to 15000 La Fonera Bundles (with three La Foneras) and to users/customers/members of FON 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 Bundle (with three La Foneras) for free including tax and shipping. Once you have received your La Foneras, 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.

So, if you have one of these emails sitting in your inbox, what are you waiting for?

This is great news! On top of the announcement fron Fon the other day that they're teaming up with BT to offer all their Total Broadband customers the chance to get a Fon wifi router (and share some of their wifi), McDonald's has just announced that they're going to offer free Wifi in partnership with TheCloud.

Now, normally you have to pay for TheCloud access, so that's very nice indeed. It also means that I can sit in the much posher upmarket sandwich shop with my laptop next to McDonald's in the centre of Brum and use their free wifi ;) It does make me wonder to an extent as to how vulnerable BT users are with regards to lawbreaking (because it's already acknowledged that running an insecure hotspot allows others to perpetrate IP theft and other cybercrime, punishable by UK law, and there's not much they can do to stop it), but I suppose BT is willing to take this into account - or just doesn't care - if it happens once BT users start opening up their networks.

I'm a little more worried for newbie home users, because they're the ones who may well become compromised security-wise. Back in January I had to make our wireless access point open for a couple of days (because one of our housemates was having problems connecting, something I eventually sorted out) but in the meantime someone who lives in the vicinity of us managed to get onto my laptop's root drive, save an RTF file to the root dir and inside write me a rather worrying message! I'm still figuring out how they managed to do that, because my Windows shares are pretty secure and I use strong passwords combined with an in/egress firewall... They must've done something along the lines of sniffing the wifi signal to retrieve some NTLM or MD5 hashes of my password, and then bruteforced their way onto my machine. A little bit worrying, but that was in January and my network setup is a lot stronger than it was back then. If I can have a machine compromised, it doesn't bode well for newbie users who just turn on and go with Windows Firewall. I may have even been compromised via my own La Fonera... Still investigating.

Back to business, however, and thinking about Fon, I must get round to posting my review of my La Fonera sometime! It's already been taken apart, photographed, examined, compared and praised/criticised, I've already done my own testing so I have my own real life results to post up! Might as well, I have them all on my laptop.

... I can't wait to give it a spin and see how it compares! Update (29/08/2007): I've had my Fontenna for about a fortnight and I've put it through its paces, doing a writeup at the moment. :) I guess there's advantages to being a Fonero and a long-time Fon user; I got my La Fonera for gratis (I managed to invite myself and get a free unit! so it wasn't quite one of those 'press review units', haha) but the promo code arriving in my inbox to get a Fontenna for just €2 (plus delivery) was definitely something I couldn't ignore!

If you're a keen geek, you'll most likely have already read the (badly) translated Engadget China review of their own Fontenna, but, you know, it's always nicer to have a natively-written English version. Other excuses for doing my own review? Manufacturing tolerances, different signal transmission capabilities of EU-licensed kit versus Chinese kit (which is probably only FCC-approved instead of both FCC- and CE-approved, if there's different models) plus subtle design differences... The wall wart has different pins on it...


Mine'll have nicer pictures.

Ok, off to bed for me - working nightshifts at the moment, 10pm-7am weeknights. They're horrible things - but oh well, needs must! I'm a student therefore my bank balance is in constant need of replenishment, and we students'll do almost anything for a bit of cash!