[TheDuke]

Does this tool allow you to create a captive portal? There was a pc user in MI that was prosecuted for using a free WiFi network which the owner was happy to share. My understanding is that if he had seen a splash screen that said it was free he could not have been prosecuted, I'd like to show a page saying it's free to anyone to prevent others from suffering the same fate.

[AustinTX]

Whisher doesn't enable you to build a captive portal. However, if you connect to an unencrypted hotspot with such a captive portal, you will encounter it as usual. Whisher is just a connection manager, and won't interfere with it. In the future, Whisher may add a feature to launch a window with a hotspot owner's homepage, upon connection to a registered Whisher hotspot.

When people register their encrypted hotspots to join the Whisher Network, they are walked through the process of allowing restricted or unlimited access. If one can connect to a Whisher hotspot, it is because they are unambiguously permitted to do so. No splash screen is necessary.

[Mother]

AustinTX got it right - we don't offer such a captive portal technology right now, but in the future, we will give hotspot owners the option to enable a landing page to load whenever someone connects using Whisher. We will have two options to implement this, offer a homepage creation platform, and/or allow users to point this landing page at any URL.

As for the legal problem this user faced, he basically did not have explicit permission from the owner of the open signal to connect, had this owner registered it through Whisher, he would have been able to explicitly give permission to all other Whisher users, or only to those on his buddy list (hint: this is an easy way for a coffee shop owner to give access to 'regulars').

Best regards,

Mike