
Karma -  pay as you go data by sharing your hotspot - ChrisArchitect
https://yourkarma.com/
======
zacharypinter
I love the concept.

One important part that should be added though (I couldn't tell from the
website if they already do something like this):

When using it to share your personal internet connection, guest wifi
connections should have all their internet traffic proxied/vpn'ed through the
service's own internet connection. That way, the service itself keeps track of
who was connected when, and if anything illicit happens through the connection
they can follow up on the account that was used. Doing so would take away the
largest concern I currently have with opening up my home internet connection.
I'm happy to share the bandwidth I'm not using, but I don't want my name tied
to that traffic.

~~~
klinquist
With this device, you are not sharing your home internet connection. You are
sharing the 4G internet connection, and I believe it does work as you describe
- the individual must login and pay for access (and when they do, you, as the
owner of the device, gets a free 100mb).

~~~
hackmiester
I don't think they have to pay, as they begin with 100 MB of traffic. They get
a free 100 MB, you get a free 100 MB.

------
mentat
"Is it safe? You have nothing to fear. Karma is as safe as Wi-Fi in your
coffee shop. Most sites use HTTPS, like Facebook and Google, making your
connection secure."

"as safe as Wi-Fi in your coffee shop" is not very safe at all. Before
FireSheep people could pick off sessions to all these major websites. It's my
understanding that mobile applications connected to Wi-Fi still often have
these problems.

~~~
trotsky
It's also trivial to be able to pose as someone else's computer on coffeeshop
style wifi networks. It's likely the same is true here, which would allow
anyone inclined to pose as the owner which could suck with a usage based
pricing model.

~~~
mentat
Yeah, I was wondering if it was MAC based. I ordered one so I'll see how badly
it breaks once they actually ship them. It's too bad because they probably
could do something clever like cross service 802.1x. One SSID for enrollment
and the other using 802.1x for all enrolled people (perhaps using a service-
wide SSID so you could "roam").

------
eupharis
YES! Bought. So disruptive. Goodbye dumbphone. Hellloooo karma. Skipped right
over the buying smartphone "minutes" and "text" nonsense.

Genius marketing model. If I get to customize the SSID it'll be something
like: "yourkarma.com, use this wifi!". SSID can only be 32 characters. A
shorter, recognizable domain like "kar.ma" would be awesome. More space for
cleverness.

Living in a busy apartment complex near the center of downtown Portland, close
to a couple coffee shops... visitors at all the neighboring apartments.... I
wonder if I'll ever have to actually buy data directly.

The train station in Portland doesn't have any wifi. Talk the staff into
letting you run a cord to one of the lockers. Or several. Win-win! Also, the
university. They do have guest access, but it's annoying to login.

So many places to stash these. The possibilities are endless!

Minor quibble: says "We'll give you 1GB for free" on splash page. Actually
only gives 100MB.

~~~
stephengillie
Please remember that this isn't a phone/text/data service. This is ONLY
internet. If you have Skype/Google Voice/Lync/etc then you can place phone
calls _with an internet (IP) phone or computer or device_. Likewise for text
messages.

You could keep this on your person, and just be a walking mobile hotspot.

~~~
Kerrick
I do this already: I use VoIP for talk and Google Voice for messaging on my
Nexus 4. I don't have a minute plan, and only use data.

~~~
fossuser
What's your VoIP set up? I messed with sip sorcery and sipgate paired with
google voice back in the day right after gizmo5 went dark, but it was a
nightmare to set up and the lag made it difficult to use.

~~~
stephengillie
GV still has multi second delay

------
morphyn
Fon (<http://corp.fon.com/en>) have been doing something similar for several
years in Europe (without the karma concept).

~~~
xyzzy123
Well, it's rather like karma: "As a member of the Fon community, you agree to
share a little bit of your WiFi at home, and get free roaming at Fon Spots
worldwide in return."

~~~
koopajah
Not exactly because you don't have the ratio idea where you have to share XXX
MB with someone before having YYY MB for yourself.

In France Free is a well-known ISP offering this kind of feature with its ADSL
box. You open your WI-FI to others and then you have access to every other
WIFI shared by users from this ISP.

------
driverdan
A good idea but with far too little bandwidth. 1GB / 100MB is nothing. Between
syncing git repos, remote backup, Dropbox, and heavy web browsing (not
including Netflix) I go through at least 5GB a day. I'll stick with Clear's
own access point at $50/m for unlimited access. It works pretty well in most
cities but can be sensitive to positioning.

~~~
jerf
You are the 1%.

~~~
digeridoo
or the future of the remaining 99%...

------
svachalek
I had an image of what this was before I clicked the link but I was
disappointed.

Here's my idea: No hardware required. You share your existing connection
(mobile or not). It's public except the user needs to give you some sort of
token that you can't forge and shows how much time they used. In turn you can
use those tokens to get time on other people's wifi.

Basically "pay it forward" with a little bit of abuse prevention. Maybe the
tokens are BitCoin, but it would probably work better if it was a little more
"karma" like and the accounting wasn't so strict.

~~~
Cogito
I was thinking about this too, but there is one problem with a purely pay-it-
forward type model - there is no 'debt'.

That is, how does one earn karma in order to buy uptime?

You can 'sell' your connection to someone else, but where do they get their
karma from?

Part of the solution might be to provide 'seed' karma to new users, but then
you inevitably will have users who don't spend the karma they gain and so
become karma sinks.

This all assumes a zero sum economy, so perhaps a different model is a better
idea. Keep track of metrics like how much bandwidth someone has shared or used
(somehow), and then allow providers to define a measure for who can share
their connection based on those metrics.

For example, one provider might let anyone connect no matter what, while
someone else might only let people who have shared their own connection
connect.

Determining what to share and to whom is a hard question, and when there are
upstream costs to the provider the balance seems like it would be hard to
find. The yourkarma model is more or less a loss-leading strategy (we pay you
in bandwidth to sign up new users) and it's hard to see that being sustainable
long term for the user. It's not completely obvious if the 100mb is for _new_
karma users connecting, or for _any_ connection, but based on their help
page[1] it seems to be only new users:

 _Why do I get extra bandwidth when I share my connection?

Every time another person uses Karma, our company grows a little bigger. The
more the merrier! So when you share your connection, you are essentially
helping us and we feel like we should help you. After all, we’re not called
Karma for nothing._

What I am really interested in are the ad-hoc networking projects [2], that
will be able to route data by hopping between networked devices, reducing the
need of centralised ISPs. Simply being part of that network adds value,
however similar problems will probably arise in any case.

[1] [https://yourkarma.com/help/82-why-do-i-get-extra-
bandwidth-w...](https://yourkarma.com/help/82-why-do-i-get-extra-bandwidth-
when-i-share-my-connection)

[2] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_ad_hoc_network>

~~~
jessaustin
> inevitably will have users who don't spend the karma they gain and so become
> karma sinks.

This doesn't seem like a problem to me. A karma sink is a connectivity source.
Surely we're trying to optimize for the latter quantity? If it makes you feel
bad you can give away prizes or something.

~~~
Cogito
The problem with a sink is that you remove 'currency' form circulation.
Without a way of circulating the karma back or a way of generating new karma
then you can get a lack of liquidity, and hence make it difficult for people
to 'buy' connectivity because they aren't able to obtain any karma.

~~~
jessaustin
It's apparent to me that there will be multiple ways of "generating new
karma". Don't all of these devices come with a certain amount built in? If
that's not enough (e.g. once most consumers who would buy one have already
done so) then people who find themselves short can buy some more with actual
money, or devices that are online can "farm" karma at a certain rate, or
whatever.

It's not difficult for the mint to print more money.

~~~
Cogito
Oh, in this particular case I agree, the Karma company generates the karma and
furthermore consumes it all as well.

What I was referring to was a distributed model where users essentially 'sell'
their bandwidth to others for a credit against using someone else's bandwidth
in the future. In that situation credit generation is a serious issue (how
does someone 'pay' for my bandwidth if they don't have any credits
themselves?). Using the term karma in that scenario is a bit confusing I guess
:)

In an ad-hoc wireless network there is the concern that some users will be
selfish with the bandwidth they use and provide. Solving the problem of credit
generation will help in that situation and in the sharing of an uplink
bandwidth. The main difference is that in an ad-hoc network simply being part
of the network adds value, and the bandwidth costs are based on power
consumption and actual throughput, rather than an upstream cost.

------
artursapek
You need a Facebook profile to give them money? Why would they do that to
themselves?

~~~
brebory
They sum up their reasoning pretty succinctly here:
[https://yourkarma.com/help/75-why-do-i-have-to-login-with-
fa...](https://yourkarma.com/help/75-why-do-i-have-to-login-with-facebook-to-
use-karma)

~~~
Groxx
Because it's _so_ hard to make a fake Facebook account. If someone actually
wants to cause trouble, requiring Facebook won't do anything except slow them
down for about 20 seconds. I see this "reason" everywhere, but it's total
garbage.

~~~
artursapek
Seriously. That's asinine.

~~~
plink
"Vomitous" is the word that came to my mind.

------
trotsky
note that this is clearwire wimax only - a network that is actively shrinking
as they transition to lte and their partner (sprint) decommissions iDen cells.

You can get a similar price item with better connectivity but without the
gimmicks from sprint's budget brand: $79 for a wimax+3g hotspot, $35/mo for 2
gigs of 3g data on sprint (evdo rev a) and "unlimited" wimax. or $5/day for
200mb/"unlimited"(activated for just the days you use it)

sprint's evdo rev a network performs pretty poorly, but it is way better than
not having a signal, something that will be true more often than not with
wimax only service.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
_"sprint's budget brand: $79 for a wimax+3g hotspot"_

I had to look for it, but here it is, apparently Sprint uses the Virgin brand
name in the US:

[http://www.virginmobileusa.com/shop/mobile-
broadband/broadba...](http://www.virginmobileusa.com/shop/mobile-
broadband/broadband-2-go/)

I'll be in the US for the rest of the year, so I'm buying one of these - way
cheaper than international roaming. Thanks for the tip!

~~~
stephengillie
@parent comment: Virgin is an MNVO that buys airtime from Sprint and resells
it.

@GP comment: AND you can just buy a CLEAR hotspot for $50 and pay $50/mo for
their unlimited service.

edit: tried to make it more clear...

~~~
trotsky
It's perhaps of questionable importance, but while virgin usa used to be a
sprint partnership mvno, sprint bought them outright in 2009. Sprint also owns
54% of Clear.

------
ybaumes
I am wondering whether Facebook ONLY connection is part of the business model.
Do it allow Karma to share your internet usage data more easily with Facebook?
And monetize those data (like the list of website you browse)?

I didn't find anything related in the "Terms of Service".

Anyway, a private vpn could do the trick I guess. But then such set-up would
prohibits me from dropping my ISP at home and rely only on karma...

~~~
mortenjorck
Exactly why I wouldn't feel comfortable with this. I haven't logged into
Facebook from my primary browser in at least a year or two because of their
Like beacons – there's no way I'm tying my FB account to my mobile ISP.

------
gfodor
So is this a valid strategy? Basically find a local coffeeshop or place of
general laptoppery that lacks good wifi and hide your karma somewhere clever,
and come back a day or two later after you watch the free bandwidth rack up?
You'd just need to figure out a way to keep it powered, probably a battery
pack or something.

I'd imagine just stashing one of these in SFO somewhere would get you a
shitton of free data. (editted, misread pricing. you'd need about 60 people to
get on it before you've paid for the device if it were stolen.)

------
dx4100
This looks like another result of CLEAR opening up their network for other
vendors to sell their data. Freedompop is doing a similar thing, just without
the Karma component to it.

Nice to see what happens when a company like CLEAR opens things up -- all
sorts of innovation springs.

~~~
ozi
Except the CLEAR network blows. I used to have a couple retail stores and sold
them off because I felt terrible getting so many complaints about service
quality and could see the company already declining as key investors were
pulling out.

The nodes were initially unsaturated and speedy -- you could often get
15-20mbps on mobile hotspot. Now people are lucky to get 512kbps on their home
modems in moderately dense residential areas.

~~~
trotsky
Out of curiosity, do you know if this is more due to wimax cell saturation or
backhaul limitations?

~~~
blaines
Clear throttles customers after a certain threshold. In addition ozi's comment
is accurate.

------
akeck
Are users who share their hotspot indemnified if someone browses something
illegal via their hotspot? In light of the recent prosecution of Tor exit-node
operators, this service seems like it could create similar risk to the end
users who share. (Edit: Ninja addition)

~~~
jiggy2011
If you had indemnity you could just set one of these up and go on your merry
way doing what the hell illegal stuff you like so I'm guessing not.

Remember that even if you don't happen to get found guilty in court you could
be looking at having the police turn up one day and confiscate all of your
computers for several months as well as digging through your email etc.

------
fatbat
FreedomPop user here and since the device and network are similar, I am going
to say the coverage is actually pretty weak (will not comment on speed since I
have not been able to use it much!)

For users seeking mobile hotspots, FreedomPop is clearly the better deal. I do
not see how Karma can compete there...

<http://www.freedompop.com/>

------
Groxx
I love the idea, but there are two massive blockers for me: Facebook, and no
encryption. Yeah, yeah, most things use HTTPS/SSL/ETC. But not everything. And
I don't have a Facebook account.

------
xyzzy123
First social hotspot? So not at all like FON then?

Edit: I don't see any U.S. sites in the FON coverage map, and the 4g aspect is
genuinely new.

------
thatmiddleway
Facebook required to create an account?

FAIL.

~~~
toxictexan
agree 100%

------
edu
But isn't that exactly what <http://www.fon.com/> has been doing for several
years already?

~~~
ybaumes
It seems fon requires you already have an isp connection. Fon allows you to
share it with others. The balance is that on a trip you will be able to access
fon hotspot for free (?). Here Karma embeds a 4G connection, AFAIU. Am I
correct?

~~~
edu
After reviewing both pages I think you're 100% correct.

------
muhfuhkuh
Could it be? Does this mean my wife and I can use our unlocked iPhones with
voice-only (t-mobile, maybe?) sim cards and use this Karma thing as our data
plan? We're paying US$15/mo _each_ for 200MB data. It's ridiculous. And, we're
on HSPA+, not even LTE (AT&T, don't even ask; I can have full bars and it
still takes forever to load up text-heavy pages).

~~~
jcurbo
I don't know about T-Mobile, but I think AT&T and Verizon both require
smartphones to have a data plan, and they can detect if you have a smartphone
and force you to have a data plan because of that.

~~~
lotsofpulp
In my experience with ATT, they only know what your phone is if you purchase
it through ATT. If, for example, you buy a Nexus 4 from Google and tell ATT
that it's a dumb phone, they won't know it's actually a smartphone since they
don't have the IMEI on file.

------
cupcake-unicorn
Haha, I also noticed this on their website:

"Everyone throws gigabytes and megabytes around, but what do they really
mean?"

It's a mystery!

Not really catering to the "Hacker News" crowd...

------
davidu
I prefer the OpenGarden model for this, which is entirely software based, and
thus only needs an Android (and hopefully soon iOS) phone to accomplish the
exact same. And as speeds and phones get faster and more pervasive, their
distribution model is far better than Karma's.

(Disclosure, I'm an investor in OpenGarden)

~~~
toxictexan
I've been meaning to try OpenGarden and I agree to some extent that OpenGarden
might be a better solution. However I think the mobile hotspot such as Karma,
Freedom, etc offer the benefit of not chewing through your smartphone's
battery and your plan's data limits.

~~~
davidu
Battery is an issue for now. Data limits will be resolved but the reality is,
most folks are far under their plan.

------
rachelbythebay
I always suspected the real money in this sort of plan is selling the devices
to people who think they're going to make money by reselling access. The
timing of this announcement is particularly interesting to me, since I just
wrote about the "selling pickaxes" model over the weekend. Strange.

~~~
pdenya
It looks like you don't make money by reselling access, you just get extra
data for yourself to use.

------
bfung
A couple of points to ponder, more on the "social" aspect:

1\. Will there be bandwidth miners / marketing / spammers? Since I get free
usage the more people connect to my device, I would tell everyone to connect
to me! HEY YOU, EVEN IF YOU DON'T WANT INTERWEBS, CONNECT TO MY DEVICE!!
(There's probably an optimal number of connected devices to the karma for best
bandwidth usage and latency, but nothing prevents someone from just mining
free usage)

2\. Will people start "selling" their free bandwidth?

But overall, I like the use of promoting sharing by positive reinforcement for
a useful, limited resource. It's close to Zynga games (spam your friends for
more virtual resources, which were unlimited in the first place), but somehow
feels better...

------
6ren
Maybe, Amway wifi? Pyramid sharing? One way to kick off _ad hoc suburban
networks_...

> _The average person uses only 500MB, per device, per month._

I used 19GB last month, without even trying. To be fair, that's at home, not
on a mobile "device".

~~~
ybaumes
They probably targeting non-geek users I guess. People only needing email
access, news/internet browsing. As stated above geek users use their
connection more actively.

~~~
digeridoo
That seems like it might be driven more by a lack of supply than a lack of
demand. Why not have Spotify on all the time?

------
syquek
Should saying "most sites use HTTPS" be the way to explain security of this
set up?

------
weisser
It costs $14.99 for 250 megabytes per month of internet for my iPad through
ATT. That's unacceptable. I bought one of these instantly.

The ripple effect of purchases was incredible when this was announced. A
musician friend who is not a tech person in the slightest posted about it
within 30 minutes of the TC article-a site I know he doesn't read-meaning it
already spread through a few people before it reached him. Within five minutes
of seeing his post I bought one. I shared it to my Facebook wall and 3 people
have said they bought one because of my post within 12 hours and I only have
269 friends.

------
SnowLprd
I find it interesting that there is no coverage in Santa Monica, arguably the
most tech-centric section of Los Angeles. Plus, requiring folks to use
Facebook to get a Karma account is a very unfortunate decision.

~~~
stephengillie
As a reseller, their coverage is completely based on CLEAR's coverage, like
how Virgin Mobile is entirely based on Sprint's coverage. It's as though Karma
is a MIVO - Mobile Internet Virtual Operator.

Why CLEAR has no coverage in Santa Monica _is_ a very good question.

------
ChrisArchitect
neat idea, useful for travelling groups or work sessions on the go. What's the
catch tho? Facebook login? Suspect. Ads popping up on every hotspot user's web
browsing? Or does paying for the device cover them

~~~
dangrossman
> What's the catch tho?

I don't see one. It's pay-per-gigabyte 4G internet plus a referral program
that pays a commission of 100MB free data usage per user.

> Facebook login? Suspect.

That's to prevent gaming the referral program. Linking to a Facebook account
means you can't give yourself unlimited data by continually changing your
device info before connecting.

> Or does paying for the device cover them

You pay for the device and the data.

------
jeepey
Are multiple devices connected to the same hotspot able to communicate? I
don't want any random person in the coffeeshop to be able to access my
machine.

~~~
otoburb
Provided the random person in the coffeeshop has a Karma account, then they
would be able to use the same hotspot. I believe the product information
states that up to 8 devices can be connected to your hotspot.

~~~
icebraining
I think the question is whether two devices connected to the same hotspot can
send packets to each other. Ideally, you want to isolate them as much as
possible, letting them connect only to the Internet.

~~~
otoburb
Thanks for the clarification. I now understand the parent's point and it's a
valid concern.

However, for a first launch, I'm wildly speculating that they didn't consider
this. If you're going to share your bandwidth and are concerned about this,
Karma will probably suggest that you disconnect from your own portal.

Karma's reasoning is probably as follows:

* Connecting via wifi usually implies a mobile device of some type (phone or laptop);

* When connecting to a public wifi hotspot, most mobile devices can see (and attack) each other on the same SSID;

* If you are normally willing to operate your mobile device in public wifi hotspots, you'd probably have no problem operating in similarly (and possibly hostile) conditions with your own access point;

* One hopes that you and (at least) Karma have the slight comfort of knowing exactly which Karma customer joined your hotspot and tried to attack you, versus an anonymous device in a public wifi hotspot.

~~~
jeepey
That's indeed what I'm referring to. However, for me there is a difference
between connecting to a public wifi spot and my own mobile hotspot. I do agree
that knowing exactly who connects is an advantage. Just something to keep in
mind when you sign up with them.

------
obilgic
So why do you want me to share my karma device? Will the guests pay for their
own internet? Do they need karma account too? Too little information ...

------
VikingCoder
This is interesting - but I'd like to see some reviews. I can get $10 for a GB
with my Chromebook, but it does expire at the end of the month...

------
kstenerud
Sounds like a chicken-and-egg problem. Unless your area is already saturated
with karma users, you likely won't get any data benefits.

~~~
Arie
If someone just uses your hotspot (signs in through Facebook :/ ), you get
free data.

------
scotty79
What I would really like is a system where I can provide open access to
internet and people who connect via my hotspot report the amount of traffic I
passed for them to central system and when I'm in need of a connection I can
use some other people connections within my credit earned by providing
internet connection for other people.

------
hosh
Now, if this were paid by bitcoin, or the karma was signed by the bitcoin
contracts ([http://codinginmysleep.com/exotic-transaction-types-with-
bit...](http://codinginmysleep.com/exotic-transaction-types-with-bitcoin/)),
then we might even avoid lock-in ...

------
cstefanovici
I just bought this. Every time someone connects to your hotspot, you both get
some free extra data. Also it never expires, and the bandwidth is tied to the
account, not the device so I can my account on someones else's device as well.
This sounds like a winner.

------
blaines
DANGER! I've been a clearwire customer, their service sucks. You'll get good
service up to a certain amount (at or below 1gb by my experience), then you'll
be throttled back to 1999 for the rest of your billing cycle. DANGER!

Also see ozi's comment below.

~~~
iloverobots
Since this is pay as you go at a rather high rate (versus an all-you-can-eat
subscription), throttling would only disadvantage the providers, especially
since Karma probably pays Clearwire by bandwidth as well.

------
harel
I'm not sure I get the deal: You buy bandwidth and then give it away in order
to get some more free bandwidth. What is the catch though? Why do they _want_
you to share your bandwidth? What are they getting out of it?

~~~
davecap1
More people sharing bandwidth = more signups = more customers = more $$$

------
cupcake-unicorn
Wasn't there a guy in Australia who got his house raided for having Tor exit
servers? How long is it going to take before people use this for something
like child pornography and you go to jail?

------
natemartin
If it is truly facebook only, that eliminates this for me. Too bad.

------
nickwoodhams
What happens when someone nearby using your Karma buys more data and the you
pack up and leave?

