Re: [OSM-talk] Automatically adding open wireless access points
-1 I'd rather see collaboration with www.wigle.net rather then adding Access Point information to the OSM DB. After looking at things like the Dupe Nodes map and KeepRight, I'm much more interested in cleaning up the existing dataset rather than adding new stuff to it, especially if there are long running projects out there (WiGLE has gone on since 2001) that are already taking the strain. Cheers, Joseph On 25 March 2010 14:09, Gaz Davidson g...@bitplane.net wrote: Hi I've just got a Google Nexus One and was thinking about making an application for it. The first thing that came to mind was a minimalist app to add open WiFi networks as points of interest. I imagine it working something like this: The app continuously scans nearby WiFi access points. When one is found, it connects to it and posts the GPS position, accuracy, WiFi strength, (E)SSID, connection type and recent user movement to a script running on the web. If it doesn't get the correct response then that access point is blacklisted (avoiding paid but open networks which redirect to a login page). The data is released into the public domain (or maybe CC:SA?) and at some later time the positions of all known access points can be estimated and imported into OSM's database. Some clever rules could be used to avoid moving hotspots which have been moved manually, or to delete ones which haven't been seen in a long time. I know that there are already companies and communities doing this, but I can't find anyone with data that's free enough for my liking. There are also objections to adding wifi hotspots on the wiki, but no sensible ones as far as I can see. Open wireless access points are useful to me, I work away from home and often need to find the closest place with free wifi so I don't use all my data allowance when downloading large files. Thoughts, objections or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Gaz ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Automatically adding open wireless access points
On 26 March 2010 20:15, Gregory nomoregra...@googlemail.com wrote: I seem to remember certain BT home packages you can use their network for free when your out and about. But then it lets other BT customers connect to your wifi. Hopefully they explained this in large enough print. Just put this here for interest. I think they actually have two WiFi signals going on in these ones. They're usually accompanied by a BT Home Hub which is locked down. On 29 March 2010 12:16, Joseph Reeves iknowjos...@gmail.com wrote: -1 I'd rather see collaboration with www.wigle.net rather then adding Access Point information to the OSM DB. http://wigle.net/eula.html Do you know of anything with a better license? These guys make a fortune from selling their data to the likes of SkyHookWireless, I doubt they'd give it away for free. Gaz ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Automatically adding open wireless access points
On 26 March 2010 13:51, Emilie Laffray emilie.laff...@gmail.com wrote: have you looked at a project called openbmap? Essentially a few months ago, I suggested to those people to merge their data in OSM. However, it became clear they didn't want it to be done, as there was plenty of problem to do so, and I accepted the fact that it belongs in something other than OSM. Oh, I missed this. This is cool. Maybe I should make my app for openbmap instead, I'll do that providing I can download the database and play with it. Thank you :-) ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Automatically adding open wireless access points
On 25 March 2010 19:13, Claudius claudiu...@gmx.de wrote: Am 25.03.2010 15:09, Gaz Davidson: (...) at some later time the positions of all known access points can be estimated and imported into OSM's database. I think WiFi are too temporary a feature to be added to the main OSM database. Why not keep it in a seperate project database? I suppose I could keep it separate, but it sucks to have all kinds of city geo-data split across multiple databases in different formats. It makes using them more awkward. Also, I've not seen any evidence that a large number of open wireless networks are temporary, unless you mean that the technology ages fast? All the ones I've found are deliberately open and belong to businesses, at least in the UK it's no longer the open wifi free-for-all that it was several years ago (all new routers come with WEP enabled by default, access points are used until the hardware dies). Perhaps store the last seen date, then we can auto-purge them from the database. Maybe have the site collect complete user traces so that we can see when people went past a now dead hotspot (though users may not like this, specially if the data is PD!) Besides: Nice idea. But will it be needed in times of 3G access? Well, you could say the same about amenity=phone_box, I can't remember the last time I used one of those. Open wireless networks are of interest to me personally, probably lots of other people too. When I'm out and about and realise I need a 700MB file it doesn't make sense to use 3G for this. On my old prepay plan it would have cost me £14 to download 700MB, on my current contract it would eat a week's worth of data allowance. Gaz ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Automatically adding open wireless access points
I think you would need a separate database for the collection. Then every week or so you have a rule that estimates the access point location and says where a few people have seen this network, and it has been seen recently, then add it to OSM and update your db with the OSM node id. Some information might be best kept in your database, some might be good in OSM. It is helpful to be able to add the osm tags operator (e.g. T-Mobile, BT OpenWhatsit, or LocalTon Free Wifi), url, and maybe something to say if it is free or not. How do you deal with nodes(tags and/or location) being changed in the OSM data not by your tool? What if your tool adds a node which is already there? I know of a village that has a free wifi setup (by residents) that I would like to know the points of but you have to give an e-mail address to 'log in'. I suppose I would have to login and then use your tool if I wanted it recorded. I think a possible objection is like the legally-grey use of open networks. Home routers usually come open as default(it aids installation), you have not been authorised to use them but maybe the settings being left open is authorisation(so you tell yourself). Well more worse that you taking their bandwidth, is you plotting a big X on their house (yeah, I know their fault for not closing the network). On 26 March 2010 03:34, Gaz Davidson g...@bitplane.net wrote: On 25 March 2010 19:13, Claudius claudiu...@gmx.de wrote: Am 25.03.2010 15:09, Gaz Davidson: (...) at some later time the positions of all known access points can be estimated and imported into OSM's database. I think WiFi are too temporary a feature to be added to the main OSM database. Why not keep it in a seperate project database? I suppose I could keep it separate, but it sucks to have all kinds of city geo-data split across multiple databases in different formats. It makes using them more awkward. Also, I've not seen any evidence that a large number of open wireless networks are temporary, unless you mean that the technology ages fast? All the ones I've found are deliberately open and belong to businesses, at least in the UK it's no longer the open wifi free-for-all that it was several years ago (all new routers come with WEP enabled by default, access points are used until the hardware dies). Perhaps store the last seen date, then we can auto-purge them from the database. Maybe have the site collect complete user traces so that we can see when people went past a now dead hotspot (though users may not like this, specially if the data is PD!) Besides: Nice idea. But will it be needed in times of 3G access? Well, you could say the same about amenity=phone_box, I can't remember the last time I used one of those. Open wireless networks are of interest to me personally, probably lots of other people too. When I'm out and about and realise I need a 700MB file it doesn't make sense to use 3G for this. On my old prepay plan it would have cost me £14 to download 700MB, on my current contract it would eat a week's worth of data allowance. Gaz ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk -- Gregory o...@livingwithdragons.com http://www.livingwithdragons.com ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Automatically adding open wireless access points
Le 26/03/2010 12:39, Gregory a écrit : I think you would need a separate database for the collection. I a first time, it would be nice to have access to the Fon database. http://maps.fon.com/ And to tell them to use OSM rather than google map ! Who is a Fon member in the OSM community ? -- FrViPofm ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Automatically adding open wireless access points
On 26 March 2010 11:39, Gregory nomoregra...@googlemail.com wrote: I think you would need a separate database for the collection. Then every week or so you have a rule that estimates the access point location and says where a few people have seen this network, and it has been seen recently, then add it to OSM and update your db with the OSM node id. Yep, I was thinking of just using a flat file for the collection (published to the world) then a database to keep track of the nodes which have been imported (node IDs, last known positions etc) Some information might be best kept in your database, some might be good in OSM. It is helpful to be able to add the osm tags operator (e.g. T-Mobile, BT OpenWhatsit, or LocalTon Free Wifi), url, and maybe something to say if it is free or not. I was thinking I'd avoid the BT OpenZone and other non-free networks, they personally irritate me and there are hundreds of thousands of them (I think they piggyback other people's connections). If the tool can log in via the wifi and make a connection to my server, then it's a good one. How do you deal with nodes(tags and/or location) being changed in the OSM data not by your tool? In this case I think we can assume that humans are always better at setting locations, but software is better at SSIDs and other machiney things. I guess just don't update the location in future once a user has moved it (maybe What if your tool adds a node which is already there? That's a bit harder. I guess it would need to search for both the ESSID and the SSID before adding a node, and be aware that the node ID might change (ie be deleted by a user) I know of a village that has a free wifi setup (by residents) that I would like to know the points of but you have to give an e-mail address to 'log in'. I suppose I would have to login and then use your tool if I wanted it recorded. I suppose you'd have to add this one manually, the tool would see the open network, connect try to post data to my collection page but be redirected to the login page. It would then assume that this network is a private/pay one and locally blacklist the ESSID so it doesn't connect multiple times to pinpoint the location. I think a possible objection is like the legally-grey use of open networks. Home routers usually come open as default(it aids installation), you have not been authorised to use them but maybe the settings being left open is authorisation(so you tell yourself). Well more worse that you taking their bandwidth, is you plotting a big X on their house (yeah, I know their fault for not closing the network). I can only speak for the UK, but all the ISP provided routers I've seen in the past few years come with a key printed on the bottom of them, plus you have to actually press a button on the device to authorize it. The open wifi anarchy of the recent past doesn't seem to apply to home users anymore. I guess it could just stop updating the node once a user has deleted it from OSM's database, but I wouldn't remove it from my source list. Gaz On 26 March 2010 03:34, Gaz Davidson g...@bitplane.net wrote: On 25 March 2010 19:13, Claudius claudiu...@gmx.de wrote: Am 25.03.2010 15:09, Gaz Davidson: (...) at some later time the positions of all known access points can be estimated and imported into OSM's database. I think WiFi are too temporary a feature to be added to the main OSM database. Why not keep it in a seperate project database? I suppose I could keep it separate, but it sucks to have all kinds of city geo-data split across multiple databases in different formats. It makes using them more awkward. Also, I've not seen any evidence that a large number of open wireless networks are temporary, unless you mean that the technology ages fast? All the ones I've found are deliberately open and belong to businesses, at least in the UK it's no longer the open wifi free-for-all that it was several years ago (all new routers come with WEP enabled by default, access points are used until the hardware dies). Perhaps store the last seen date, then we can auto-purge them from the database. Maybe have the site collect complete user traces so that we can see when people went past a now dead hotspot (though users may not like this, specially if the data is PD!) Besides: Nice idea. But will it be needed in times of 3G access? Well, you could say the same about amenity=phone_box, I can't remember the last time I used one of those. Open wireless networks are of interest to me personally, probably lots of other people too. When I'm out and about and realise I need a 700MB file it doesn't make sense to use 3G for this. On my old prepay plan it would have cost me £14 to download 700MB, on my current contract it would eat a week's worth of data allowance. Gaz ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk --
Re: [OSM-talk] Automatically adding open wireless access points
On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 8:38 AM, Gaz Davidson g...@bitplane.net wrote: ... I guess it could just stop updating the node once a user has deleted it from OSM's database, but I wouldn't remove it from my source list. Anybody check to see if one of the existing wifi data collectors has this, or the other technical and maintenance issues solved? Sounds like a mash-up of their specialty data would be a lot easier then starting from scratch. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Automatically adding open wireless access points
On 25 March 2010 15:09, Gaz Davidson g...@bitplane.net wrote: Hi I've just got a Google Nexus One and was thinking about making an application for it. The first thing that came to mind was a minimalist app to add open WiFi networks as points of interest. I imagine it working something like this: The app continuously scans nearby WiFi access points. When one is found, it connects to it and posts the GPS position, accuracy, WiFi strength, (E)SSID, connection type and recent user movement to a script running on the web. If it doesn't get the correct response then that access point is blacklisted (avoiding paid but open networks which redirect to a login page). The data is released into the public domain (or maybe CC:SA?) and at some later time the positions of all known access points can be estimated and imported into OSM's database. Some clever rules could be used to avoid moving hotspots which have been moved manually, or to delete ones which haven't been seen in a long time. I know that there are already companies and communities doing this, but I can't find anyone with data that's free enough for my liking. There are also objections to adding wifi hotspots on the wiki, but no sensible ones as far as I can see. Open wireless access points are useful to me, I work away from home and often need to find the closest place with free wifi so I don't use all my data allowance when downloading large files. Thoughts, objections or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Hello, have you looked at a project called openbmap? Essentially a few months ago, I suggested to those people to merge their data in OSM. However, it became clear they didn't want it to be done, as there was plenty of problem to do so, and I accepted the fact that it belongs in something other than OSM. In addition, positioning a wifi signal is not that trivial. OSM is about mapping physical objects and I don't think a wifi router qualify for this. Else I would like to ask permission to go and check your wifi router at your home, so I can be sure of the coordinates. Anyway, check other projects that might be more adapted for this. Emilie Laffray ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] Automatically adding open wireless access points
Hi I've just got a Google Nexus One and was thinking about making an application for it. The first thing that came to mind was a minimalist app to add open WiFi networks as points of interest. I imagine it working something like this: The app continuously scans nearby WiFi access points. When one is found, it connects to it and posts the GPS position, accuracy, WiFi strength, (E)SSID, connection type and recent user movement to a script running on the web. If it doesn't get the correct response then that access point is blacklisted (avoiding paid but open networks which redirect to a login page). The data is released into the public domain (or maybe CC:SA?) and at some later time the positions of all known access points can be estimated and imported into OSM's database. Some clever rules could be used to avoid moving hotspots which have been moved manually, or to delete ones which haven't been seen in a long time. I know that there are already companies and communities doing this, but I can't find anyone with data that's free enough for my liking. There are also objections to adding wifi hotspots on the wiki, but no sensible ones as far as I can see. Open wireless access points are useful to me, I work away from home and often need to find the closest place with free wifi so I don't use all my data allowance when downloading large files. Thoughts, objections or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Gaz ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Automatically adding open wireless access points
Am 25.03.2010 15:09, Gaz Davidson: (...) at some later time the positions of all known access points can be estimated and imported into OSM's database. I think WiFi are too temporary a feature to be added to the main OSM database. Why not keep it in a seperate project database? Besides: Nice idea. But will it be needed in times of 3G access? Claudius ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Automatically adding open wireless access points
Claudius claudius.h at gmx.de writes: I think WiFi are too temporary a feature to be added to the main OSM database. Why not keep it in a seperate project database? Besides: Nice idea. But will it be needed in times of 3G access? Why not? It can be dirty expensive to use 3G when you are abroad. -Jukka Rahkonen- ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Automatically adding open wireless access points
I think that public access points are reasonable for the main db. It would be a lot of effort to set up a separate system, and they are only nodes after all. We do include bus routes after all, which would also be candidates for a different db. Graham Graham Jones (from my phone) On Mar 25, 2010 10:53 PM, Greg Troxel g...@ir.bbn.com wrote: It's sometimes a tough call what belongs in the database, but all open access points seems to me not to fit. It certainly seems like a good candidate for a separate database also under a cc license. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Automatically adding open wireless access points
hi On 25.03.2010, at 21:34, Jukka Rahkonen wrote: Claudius claudius.h at gmx.de writes: I think WiFi are too temporary a feature to be added to the main OSM database. Why not keep it in a seperate project database? Besides: Nice idea. But will it be needed in times of 3G access? Why not? It can be dirty expensive to use 3G when you are abroad. i think it was less then 2 month ago (not sure about that) since someone had the great idea to map the strange of some signals (don't know it it was DVB-T, WLAN or even mobile networks). Anyway the discussion was nearly the same it doesn't make a lot of sense because these information are to temporary. let's see it from another point of view... a similar problem. If you add the opening times of restaurants to the OSM database it would be nice for everyone, not only for people who come from somewhere else and want to visit a good restaurant. But who takes care of the entries? Who checks that these opening times are still correct? I have a bounce of shops and restaurants here within walking distance. But I'm clearly not willing to do that in my area. It is hard enough to keep track of the name and the type of restaurants and shops sometimes. There are a lot of programs available managed by larger ISPs or hot spot companies and even some third party products. and from what I can see there... even companies who should know where they offer free WiFi (or the paid version) are not able to keep track of them. hey they have a database with places where they installed such equipment and they are not able to link it to there apps! sorry as much as I can think of good reasons to add free WiFi to OSM, I clearly wouldn't rely on such an entry. In my local Starbucks they offer WiFi. Served by BT Openzone and T-Mobil is still listing this location for there customers. But I haven't seen a function to login as T-Mobil user. cu AssetBurned ps. I never said that it isn't allowed to add this info to OSM, but if you do so... pleas ensure that the data is always up to date! smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Automatically adding open wireless access points
I think putting these on the map would be a good thing. I would like to see them on the map. They should be identified and there should be an application that removes stale ones (part of the job of the app that adds them). -Dave On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 4:01 PM, Graham Jones grahamjones...@googlemail.com wrote: I think that public access points are reasonable for the main db. It would be a lot of effort to set up a separate system, and they are only nodes after all. We do include bus routes after all, which would also be candidates for a different db. Graham Graham Jones (from my phone) On Mar 25, 2010 10:53 PM, Greg Troxel g...@ir.bbn.com wrote: It's sometimes a tough call what belongs in the database, but all open access points seems to me not to fit. It certainly seems like a good candidate for a separate database also under a cc license. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Automatically adding open wireless access points
2010/3/26 Graham Jones grahamjones...@googlemail.com: I think that public access points are reasonable for the main db. It would be a lot of effort to set up a separate system, and they are only nodes after all. +1, I also encourage you to put them now. If we find out in some years that they're all gone and nobody ever maintained them we can still delete all Wifi-Nodes. cheers, Martin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
