Well, perhaps it's illegal but at least it's also inconspicuous....

legality my ass, of course this thing qualifies as fair use, a lot more so than the evil companies using DRM to force us to pay 3x for one song, or the shitty coffee companies that make us pay an arm and a leg to t-mobile just to use their WiFi, when half the time, someone nearby has fon set up.

Lame.
There is nothing new here.

Just a bunch of empty buzzwords and pothead politics.

So there has to be one computer that's paying for the wifi that redistributes it to everyone else?

If you really want to be that generous with someone else's bandwidth, why not just set up your own free wifi network?

And anyway, if I sit down in a public place and I see my options are a T-Mobile hotspot and "J3ff'z L1b3r4t3d W1f1," which one do you think I'd rather send my data through?

Improbable

Ever heard of browsing through a proxy and an SSL?

Judging by the blurry picture, and clearly photoshop added text, I'm going with this is a hoax. There's no way a USB device could do that, not universally for any network, and it can't force anyone to share with anyone else.

from what i saw on the site its only a Mac program? but once a nice mac does this anyone can pick up the wifi... and with all those steps i'd rather just pay the 9.99! by the time i finish the instructions my coffee will be cold!

Oh, sorry, I thought it said WiFi Vibrator

why would you need an external wifi donggle if the airport card in a mac can share it's signal already?

This is rather stupid. It doesn't help you at all; it only helps people around you -- and it only helps them if you're willing to pay for the initial access. Why would anyone get one of these?

@ 1of3stooges
come to think of it, he would have been better off making that a Wifi Vibrator instead!

It's not A code breaker....it's THE codebreaker!

And, it's $9.99 at your local Target.

Yeah this isn't legit. You can't give somone ISP access and also force them to share it with everyone else through their computer, network setups don't work that way. Just by broadcasting wireless access you can't force and reconfigure everyone elses systems to do the same, not possible.

Is it April already?
Totally fake.

I used to work near a a very nice local coffe house in upstate New York. They had free Wifi and even live Jazz on Sundays. I once asked them about the free wifi and their answer was simple. They said, "It costs us $30 a month for internet access. Why should we charge our customers for that?"

Some larger companies like Panera Bakery also have free wifi.

"And anyway, if I sit down in a public place and I see my options are a T-Mobile hotspot and "J3ff'z L1b3r4t3d W1f1," which one do you think I'd rather send my data through?"

Neither, really. The Starbucks in my area have problems with evil twins. I usually brave the Cingular auditing gauntlet and tether to my crappy EDGE phone.

On a Mac lappy, it's totally easy to share network access. Basically you connect, then share the connection using whatever open device you have. If you are connected via WiFi, then your open devices can include: Ethernet, Bluetooth, Firewire and USB. For the win, connect a second lappy to yours on a hardwire, then share the network through the WiFi. Of course, then it requires two laptops and some agreement between two parties and... dun-dun-dun... someone still paying for internet access.

I run an open network here, and I share with all my neighbors. As long as everyone plays nice and doesn't hog the bandwidth, then all is good in the 'hood.

Yeah, the fact that the seeder has to pay to initiate the share is a detriment of this device. I do love the idea. Most independent cafes and the like in PDX are free anyway, and the city's on the cusp of free metro wifi. It's just a matter of time before the insane charges for wifi are as funny as pay-per-minute 14.4 dialup. Lets hope the free pron is as sexy as those 320x240 mosiaics of Jenny McCarthy while we search for change in our pockets at Starbucks.

It's fake and you can check it yourself with a ruler.

1) Remember the rules of perspective when you
learned to draw? You Didn't? Well...pay attention then.

2) Look at the lower and upper edge of the device.

3) Take two rulers (or straight pieces of whatever..) and place each piece parallel to the edges.

4) You'll find that your rulers comes to a cross over to your left. This is what we call the perspective vanishing point.

5) Now - take the edge of the text (the I in WIFI) and place a ruler parallel to that character as well)

6) You'll find that it does not cross where the two edged lead to a single cross...if it did...it would have been an adequate photoshop fake...but it's not it's so amateurish that it makes the biggest noob in the world look cool. :)

So yeah - duh....fake!

"Oh, sorry, I thought it said WiFi Vibrator"

LOL! There's already one. My GF and I was going to buy it but the thing wasn't powerful enough :-(
Was a cool device though, you could control it via the internet for long distance web sex.

It does not require ANYONE to pay for the internet access, it allows the buyer to get access without paying and requires that he or she share it with the other people around them.

I'm use it uses either ssh proxy or ssh over DNS or some other such hack. I actually thought of this a few months ago.

Yes, picture looks fake. It is a concept photo? Sounds cool enough in theory if I understand it.

Fuckin' Starbucks. Damn them and their deicious coffee-related drinks that defy the laws of nature.

Great another reason for people to hate Mac users.

Folks, of COURSE the dongle photo is a fake... he says straight up you can use *any* USB WiFi adapter. This thing is a piece of SOFTWARE that your run on your machine, the picture of the dongle is just a placeholder for whatever USB adapter you're using.

Sorry for all the EMPHASIS, but remember, R.I.F. ;)

Ooo Starbucks YOUR GOING DOWWWNNN !!!

Free Internet FOR ALL

@JoOngle
You n00b. It's a concept photo, not a real one. Get your undies out of a bundle, Sherlock.

Hey, I pay for that expensive Wifi. My reasoning? If I pay for it, I'm damn sure gonna use it!

I.e., I break out my BitTorrent client and set it to full open on private trackers. I might as well pay and improve my ratio...

Yes, I've done this - there was a place where I had to pay something like $30 for unlimited internet (the other plans were by the hour), so that's what I did. Downloaded a few torrents and seeded them. Bumped my ratio by 10GB (I think I uploaded close to 15+GB, but my computer crashed and the tracker didn't update :( ).