[zeromq-dev] How do we activate and connect to WiFi hotspots in edgenets?

[Pieter Hintjens]

On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 8:24 AM, crocket <crockabiscuit at gmail.com> wrote:

> Nowadays, almost every city is covered with WiFi hotspots.
>
> And, almost every modern building and meetup is covered well by WiFi
> hotspots.
>
> Most houses have a hotspot or two.
>
> Why don't we take advantage of existing WiFi hotspots? It would make things
> so much easier while we devise a way to connect phones directly or wait for
> 802.11s.

You can, of course. There are some aspects to take into account:

* It works perfectly e.g. in the home or office where people naturally
put devices on their access point.
* Many public hotspots, especially in the US, block client-to-client traffic.
* Public hotspots are trivial to tap, if you care about anonymity.
* There really is no cost to using a smartphone as hotspot except a
little delay and some battery life, while switched on.