Hotspots for Obama (or Romney)

61 points by OJKoukaz 12 years ago | 48 comments
  • nostromo 12 years ago
    I like HackerNews to be a supportive environment for startups, but this raises some questions.

    Publishers trying to make an honest buck will dislike this. So will cafe customers that just want coffee and wifi and not your political positions, and the privacy conscious who now have their browsing data being sent off to an anonymous third party.

    And that's putting the security question aside. (If these guys got hacked, they could very easily harvest your bank and email passwords; I'd be more trusting if they're weren't also using an anonymous whois proxy.)

    The best businesses find win-wins (Airbnb is good for travelers and real-estate owners) -- but I only see one win here.

    Edit: If this company ends up expanding available public wifi hotspots by rewriting some ads and providing some revenue back to the wifi provider, that could be a win-win for customers and cafes and could be a real hit.

    • guelo 12 years ago
      > Publishers trying to make an honest buck will dislike this.

      Publishers most likely won't know this is happening.

      > Cafe customers that just want coffee and wifi and not your political convictions will dislike this.

      It is up to the cafe owner whether they want to do this, or whether they want to put a political sign on their windows for that matter.

      > The privacy conscious who now have their browsing data being sent off to an anonymous third party will dislike this.

      All advertising networks sends browsing data to third parties. Whether it is this one or some other one doesn't seem that big a deal.

      • rlt3 12 years ago
        >It is up to the cafe owner whether they want to do this, or whether they want to put a political sign on their windows for that matter.

        His point wasn't about whether or not the owners could or could not support a candidate, it was whether or not they should support a candidate.

        You're absolutely right, it is up to the owners. And this seems to be pretty cool. But most coffee shop owners (which seems to be the target) will not want to alienate part of their already small group of customers.

        • theevocater 12 years ago
          This may come off as a joke, but dead serious:

          It seems you have never gone to get coffee in San Francisco.

      • lincolnq 12 years ago
        If these guys got hacked, they could very easily harvest your bank and email passwords.

        I don't think so, because secure sites will use SSL, and your browser does certificate verification.

        • nostromo 12 years ago
          Sometimes yes, HSTS sites would be harder to crack.

          However, many people still manually enter website urls (citibank.com) which redirects to https. If the DNS points citibank.com to a fake citibank phishing site, they simply wouldn't redirect to an https site at all.

          Very savvy customers may notice that they aren't connected vis https; most people wouldn't.

        • OJKoukaz 12 years ago
          Couldn't the argument be made that Airbnb is bad for hotels and landlords though? If it's my wireless network, shouldn't I have the right to dictate what gets broadcast on it? You don't have to connect to it.
        • MartinCron 12 years ago
          I'm not going to pass judgment on the ethics or usefulness of this app, so I thought I would try some constructive criticism.

          1. The top-right page curl to switch between Romney and Obama has mismatched alt-text.

          2. Instead of being partisan, maybe you would want a "HotspotsForAmerica" that would just remind people to vote for the candidate of their choice, instead of telling people who they should vote for.

          • blafro 12 years ago
            >I'm not going to pass judgment on the ethics or usefulness of this app... >2. Instead of being partisan, maybe you would want a >"HotspotsForAmerica" that would just remind people to vote >for the candidate of their choice, instead of telling people >who they should vote for.

            I'm not going to criticize this comment but ...

            • MartinCron 12 years ago
              I was contrasting my feedback with the "this is a horrible thing to do" comments that popped up before mine. But, yeah, point taken.
            • 12 years ago
            • lukifer 12 years ago
              This is the tackiest possible way to do this (who hasn't already seen every political ad 50 times?), not to mention the extreme inpropriety of asking for a user's router password.

              Far easier, and more tasteful: rename your SSID. It's the digital equivalent of a sign on your lawn.

              • PanMan 12 years ago
                How does this work? They have an android app. I guess that connects to your router to change your DNS. (which then resolves their IP for some ad hosts). But how does it set their DNS in your router? Is there a standard API for that? Or did they make a scraper-app for lots of routers?
                • 12 years ago
                  • PanMan 12 years ago
                    I get that: My question is how they control the router.
                    • 12 years ago
                • mindslight 12 years ago
                  Why is everybody expending so much effort to support the Obama+Romney campaign? Isn't it pretty clear that they're going to win?
                  • ceejayoz 12 years ago
                    The "they're identical" meme flies in the face of reality. Compare Antonin Scalia with Sonya Sotomayor and tell me Obama and Romney don't have significant differences that'll affect the country as a whole.
                    • clarkm 12 years ago
                      I often hear people use this argument, but I'm not sure I buy it. Won't the Justices just wait until a President of their preferred ideology is in power before retiring?

                      Justice Ginsburg is only 79 -- both John Paul Stevens and Oliver Wendell Holmes retired when they were 90.

                      Edit: It looks like Ginsburg has expressed her desire to retire at 82 (in 2015), so unless she changes her mind, it will matter.

                    • pkulak 12 years ago
                      Or Keynes and Hayek.
                      • scarmig 12 years ago
                        Romney, it bears repeating, has an utterly conventional and mainstream take on economics. This isn't Keynes versus Hayek (or Minsky or Marx or etc.), here. It's Keynesian with one set of tuned parameters versus Keynesian with some slightly differently tuned parameters.
                      • mindslight 12 years ago
                        Did I say they are identical? Of course they aren't. But one has to be quite out of touch, immature, or just content with corruption to think that expressing a preference for one set of these lesser differences is worth supporting their overriding commonalities.
                        • ceejayoz 12 years ago
                          Or, instead of being "out of touch, immature, or just content with corruption", things like outlawing abortion, preventing same-sex marriage, and installing theocratic laws don't seem so "lesser" to me.
                      • brown9-2 12 years ago
                        This seems more like a play at the advertising revenue rather than an altruistic way to support Candidate A or B.
                      • jlees 12 years ago
                        On first read I thought this implied it would add Obamads to my browsing experience, but looking more deeply, it just replaces other ads with Obama. Neat idea.
                        • bengl3rt 12 years ago
                          I would love for Barack to win, but this is just dirty. Who's going to pay for web advertising anymore if any malicious DNS in the middle just feels entitled to hijack them for its own purposes?
                          • bacon_blood 12 years ago
                            Who's going to pay for web advertising anymore if just anybody can install a browser extension able to block ads? We should boycott Firefox.

                            What kind of world is this where I can't fund companies by learning about the best kind of paper towels or being retargeted about a product I already bought?

                            I recently saw an interesting thought about the state of piracy, and it being a symptom of a flawed business model. What's to say advertising in its current state is the future of Internet business models?

                            If enough users don't want to see the current kind of ads, don't they become far less effective?

                            • bengl3rt 12 years ago
                              My issue with it is that it's silent. Unless there is some landing page that tells every new MAC address once "Listen, some content is being replaced", they are SILENTLY manipulating peoples' web traffic and presenting it as canonical. That rubs me the wrong way.
                              • bacon_blood 12 years ago
                                Ad providers already silently notice context and provide relevant ads (manipulating the eventual result of your page load). Isn't that just as creepy? (especially when it happens inside e.g. Gmail)
                            • OJKoukaz 12 years ago
                              I wouldn't consider it a hijacking. You're opting in.
                              • bengl3rt 12 years ago
                                On behalf of everyone who uses your router which, depending on where your router is, might be rather a lot of people.
                                • FelixP 12 years ago
                                  It's still your connection / property, so I don't see a problem with this.
                            • beatpanda 12 years ago
                              Add Jill Stein please.
                              • beatpanda 12 years ago
                                And given the political character of HN probably a lot of people here are voting for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate.
                                • pilom 12 years ago
                                  Socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and vowed to stop the drone killings. The only reason not to vote for him is the whole "3rd party" thing (not that that will stop me).
                            • 12 years ago
                              • tmarthal 12 years ago
                                Is there a geolocation map of all of the hotspots that have supported either candidate? I would assume that would be more interesting than the configuration to a lot of people.
                                • ck2 12 years ago
                                  If you change your vote based on a hotspot name, I'd like to ask you not to vote.

                                  Or drive or be around children for that matter - because you are dangerously ignorant.

                                  • 12 years ago