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Since this is an adware redirector and possibly something more sinister, it's binned for now.

Sorry for the delay in responding. I guess I should not be surprised that people assume the worst when it comes to a free program. We've all been burned... Hopefully some additional info will help people understand our business model.

1. We do NOT Phish!
2. The black screen on install: myWIFIzone binds an NDIS driver to your network card so it can put it in promiscuous mode, and send and receive packets. For some reason (known to only Microsoft) this process takes a while to accomplish. If you really don't trust us on this, just close the window, and install the driver manually (instructions are on our site)
3. Phone Home: myWIFIzone contacts our main server every time it is started (using SSL). It does not send data to our server (other than it's site ID). Our server looks up to see if the site is hotspot enabled - if it is not a hotspot, no further communications with the server occurs. We might send a scroll-up message to the site on start-up announcing new versions or features. This message times out and closes itself in a short time.
4. EMail blocking: myWIFIzone blocks eMail packets from PC's not on its whitelist. Any logon boxes which result from this block originate from your eMail client, not from myWIFIzone.
5. Advertising: we redirect PC's not on the whitelist (intruders only) to our redirect site, which may contain ads - we haven't sold ad space yet so they get a page with links to our site.
6. Our core business is hotspot support which will be available soon.

How it works:
myWIFIzone does not filter packets, it watches for and hijacks session requests. (That is why it does not need to run at the gateway). When an intruder's session is hijacked, a scroll-up message is displayed at the installation PC. If the intruder is trusted (like presumably the user's wife), you can click the message to add her PC to the whitelist. The message times out and closes after 10-15 secs. Maybe we'll make this duration adjustable in future versions. As far as the redirect page, we have the ability to make this site-specific, but we will likely charge a small fee for that.

We'll add this info to our site in the near future.

Meanwhile, thanks for not flaming us too much!

Thanks for responding. Pulled from the bin, and moved to to the Windows Software Forum.

Question for the OP:

Why was it while I had it running it was popping up real world IP's, apparently IP's from your AD server, indicating that the IP was attempting a connection to the network? To me that would appear to be a bug in your software, and something that should be addressed before you distribute it. A normal user would be terribly cornfuzed by this behavior.

streaker69 wrote:Question for the OP:

Why was it while I had it running it was popping up real world IP's, apparently IP's from your AD server, indicating that the IP was attempting a connection to the network? To me that would appear to be a bug in your software, and something that should be addressed before you distribute it. A normal user would be terribly cornfuzed by this behavior.

Don't want to cornfuze anyone. First report we've heard of external IP showing in block message. We are in Beta test phase - so may be a bug. A screen dump of that message sent to support@myWIFIzone.com would be greatly appreciated. BTW - it's not really an AD server, we prefer to call it a "sticky page" (captive page to some).

myWIFIzone wrote:Don't want to cornfuze anyone. First report we've heard of external IP showing in block message. We are in Beta test phase - so may be a bug. A screen dump of that message sent to support@myWIFIzone.com would be greatly appreciated. BTW - it's not really an AD server, we prefer to call it a "sticky page" (captive page to some).

And a turd by any other name is still a turd!

That's true - and our users don't mind handing one to an freeloader!

myWIFIzone wrote:That's true - and our users don't mind handing one to an freeloader!

Correction.. You HOPE your users don't mind lending their bandwidth so YOU can serve ads to freeloaders.

I understand your motives, as you would like to earn some revenues on the program, but unless you are going to explicitly inform users of your software about this, your program are IMHO no better than any other adware program.

Something like this in huge letters on the install screen, and not hidden away in the EULA:
By using our software (myWiFizone), you (the user) are giving us (The software author) consent to utilize your Internet connection, to serve advertisements to unauthorized users of your WiFi Accesspoint, without us (The software author) sharing the revenues gained by using your Internet connection.

In other words : Adware, with a twist.
So put your intent where your mouth is, and include the above (or something similar) in the software installer at a clearly visible spot, otherwise I for one will continue to call it Adware.

Dutch

Hello again

We just released Version 2 of myWIFIzone. New features include - works with WEP/WPA, logs intrusion events and works with network/wireless cards that don't support promiscuous (monitor) mode. We did a rethink on the advertising idea - probably will only redirect to our own page so we can sell our hotspot service. Download for free at http://www.myWIFIzone.com

myWIFIzone Support Team

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