

Show HN: App recommending free Wifi based on hotspot heuristics and crowd-input - brendan_gill
http://wifimapper.com/?ref=hn

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secure
Out of curiosity, what is your reason for using wifi hotspots in today’s
world?

Personally, I don’t bother connecting to a wifi network anymore (except when
I’m at home or at work) because the mobile network is just so fast and
convenient.

Even when abroad, I just buy a local SIM card and use that.

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wslh
Seems like you don't travel to the countries with poor/oversubscribed mobile
coverage (i.e: Argentina).

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JamesCRR
+1 Funnily enough, I'm in Argentina right now working on the Android version
of WifiMapper as we speak.

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wslh
Great! we can have lunch next week if you are available.

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JamesCRR
Sure, I'm on a super hectic schedule, so it may just be a drink and some
empanadas, but let's set something up.

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xexers
Is there a rating in the app that says "% of people who were actually able to
get online".

I've been to many places where they say there is "WiFi", but it's either not
free, difficult to get on, or only free for certain people.

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brendan_gill
Indeed - this is exactly the challenge we are working on. In future versions I
think we will provide more detail on the classifications (e.g. 6 out of 7
users marked this as Free).

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brendan_gill
Hi all - I'm one of the founders of OpenSignal and wanted to add some
technical detail on what we're doing here - It's a V1 (although 4 years in the
making!) and would love any feedback.

The source of the Wifi database is our existing app OpenSignal [1] which
crowdsources data on the coverage of mobile networks. We also collect data on
Wifi hotspots and have since mapped over 500 million of these since 2010.
Although we can automatically detect if a password is required to connect,
determining if it's free or not is another challenge as there are plenty of
non password protected walled-garden hotspots and plenty of (what we consider)
free hotspots where you still need to find out the password (e.g. cafes,
restaurants etc).

So our algorithm looks at a number of heuristics of each hotspots including
(but not limited to):

\- Are there clues in the SSID (e.g. does it mention +ve keywords like 'free',
'cafe' or -ve keywords like 'staff', 'private', 'employees' etc).

\- Is it part of a wider network that we know more about (e.g. 'ATT-wifi',
'Starbucks-Wifi' etc)

\- Do we know what kind of place it is? (e.g. if it's a cafe, is it more or
less likely to be free?)

\- Is there a walled-garden behind the hotspot (we attempt some automatic
background checking of this similar to the way Android & iOS will do this on
new hotspots).

\- How many distinct users have we detected connecting to a particular hotspot
(If many, is that a sign it's a public place?)

This is just a sample - we look at over 20 different heuristics on each Wifi,
none of which are individually conclusive, but together give us a strong
indication on whether a Wifi hotspot is free or not.

However, it's unlikely we will ever be able to completely accurately classify
free Wifi through a purely hueristic algorithm which is why with this new app
we are asking for user input to help us curate this algorithm. Not only can
users help tweak any hotspots that we have classified incorrectly, but we can
train our algorithms to be smarter by learning from their input. We believe
that this dual approach of an automated algorithm combined with manual
curation from the crowd is the best way to solve a problem like this in the
long run (not least because we didn't want to provide users with a blank
canvas and ask them to classify Wifi without us doing any of the hard work
first!).

Any feedback much appreciated!

[1] [http://opensignal.com](http://opensignal.com)

EDIT: Tweaked line formatting

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djm_
Nice to see London on a screenshot and not San Francisco for once! Congrats on
the launch.

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stevewilhelm
If you are in Europe, take a look at the FON service. [1]

[1] [http://maps.fon.com/en](http://maps.fon.com/en)

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icebraining
+1. Here in Portugal we're covered in FON hotspots, thanks to our biggest ISP
including it in their routers. Buying a Fonera router was the best $40 I've
ever spent - I know have Wifi on almost every populated street of the country.

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navpatel
I'm traveling in Argentina right now, and I downloaded the app before heading
out. Then saw this screen:
[http://i.imgur.com/QvaIf0w.png](http://i.imgur.com/QvaIf0w.png) while trying
to use it. ... doesn't this defeat the original purpose of the app?

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pornel
Is there a way to try Android beta without going anywhere near Google+? (I'm
banned from + for using a pseudonym).

~~~
brendan_gill
Could you shoot us an email? We can probably send you the APK file:
[http://opensignal.com/blog/contact/](http://opensignal.com/blog/contact/)

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pornel
Thanks. I've got the APK from @milankragujevic, but found that the application
itself wants a Google+ login, so I can't participate :(

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ekianjo
Nice, but isn't it a safety risk to log on a Wifi network you know nothing
about ? You should probably warn users not to do any kind of sensitive
browsing on it.

~~~
brendan_gill
Indeed, there are risks involved, but I'd argue that connecting to public Wifi
is a pretty common existing habit already. There are good ways to stay
protected though whilst doing this e.g. using a VPN.

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ekianjo
You'd be surprised how many people don't even know what a VPN is... :/

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brendan_gill
Totally appreciate this is not something the average user understands. In the
long run it would be nice if we could offer VPN style functionality without
users actually having to understand what a VPN actually is (e.g. an "Enter
secure mode" button, but that's a longer term feature.

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nodata
Does it work offline?

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nbevans
+1 Seems pointless if it doesn't.

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alexcroox
So your phone can't connect to the internet at all without wifi? You should
get that checked out.

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icebraining
Not everyone has a mobile data plan...

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gondo
i just wanted to add free wifi hotspot but i refuse to sign in with facebook.
please add different kind of login.

~~~
brendan_gill
We'll be adding sign-in via email soon.

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fcoury
Tried adding one hotspot and got "Sorry! We didn't manage to get a response
from the server".

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andreaskam
Typed in wifimapper on my iPhone here in the UK. It says no results. Have you
checked that?

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cleis
It takes a while for the App Store to index new apps for search (which is
annoying), but the app is live! You can see it here -
[https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/wifimapper-free-wifi-
maps/id...](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/wifimapper-free-wifi-
maps/id935258365?mt=8).

~~~
andreaskam
Ah I see! Congrats on the launch today! Will download from direct link
instead.

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sz4kerto
Microsoft WiFi Sense does something very similar on Windows Phones.

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brendan_gill
There are a number of others building hotspot databases like this but mainly
taking a purely automatic, heuristic approach. Our plan is to augment this
with an engaged community of users who can help curate the database further in
a way that isn't possible through an automated-only approach. See my comment
below for more details.

~~~
amk_
Wifi Sense actually shares credentials with your contacts and vice versa, so
you automatically connect to hotspots within your (social) network. Not sure
exactly how it handles duplicate SSIDs and things; probably with the
heuristics you are talking about.

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mrmondo
says 'server offline' in Melbourne, Australia

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pyvpx
it's a shame opensignal isn't more like openstreetmap with its dataset.

