30 May
2017
30 May
'17
3:42 p.m.
Thinking about how we might use the voucher system for access control in
Caimito and other communities in the area...
1) I imagine the process might be that someone connects to the wifi,
opens a browser (or on Android, sees a notification to register on the
network, like in airports), gets caught by the captive portal, and has
an option to use the network without registering, or enter a voucher
code. Correct? Other options?
2) In order to make the voucher code as easy as possible to use, three
options occur to me:
-- 1) the code is 2 or 3 letters (maybe up to 6), case insensitive,
automatically generated by the system. (My favorite)
-- 2) the code is a word or pair of words, automatically generated by
the system. (My least favorite)
-- 3) the code is defined by administrator, and checked by the system to
avoid duplicate codes. (Maybe useful in some cases)
Letters instead of numbers because we get more options for each digit,
thus making a shorter code.
number of letters - unique codes:
1 - 26
2 - 676
3 - 17,576
4 - 456,976
5 - 11,881,376
6 - 308,915,776
Airlines tend to use 6 letters, and I can usually remember those codes.
With 2 letters, we could give unique codes to everyone who comes through
Caimito in a year, and with 4 letters we could cover 87% the province,
and with 6 we could give 19 codes to each person in Ecuador. I imagine
most community networks would be fine with 3 or 4 letters. Maybe the
length of the code can be defined by admin, or it can grow sequentially
as needed (first code is A, 27th code is AA, 677th code is AAA, so on).
3) Codes expire and get recycled, yes?
4) The vouchers are part of Pitbull, or separate-but-connected?
5) Probably "it'll be ready when it's ready, no later than October",
but... Any idea when a functional build might be ready? There are a
number of things that seem not feasible until this system works (e.g.
community library / internet cafe).
6) Can we define roles or profiles in Pitbull / the voucher admin
system? This way I can look at a list of currently active vouchers, and
see who's connected, how much time they have left, and whether they're a
library/network member, library visitor, tourist, or other. When I
create a tourist voucher, they get access to 50% of the available
bandwidth, and by default the voucher lasts 1 day. A library visitor by
default gets 90% access and lasts 1 hour. A member by default gets 100%
of bandwidth and 1 month.
7) When a voucher expires, keep the code reserved in the system for 10%
of the time it was valid, in case the person wants to renew the voucher.
Examples:
-- A 1 hour voucher of a library/ciber visitor expires, and they have a
6-minute grace period to request another hour on their voucher. The
admin interface makes extending the voucher easy.
-- A 1 month voucher has a 3-day grace period. The device doesn't have
access once the voucher expires, but renewing is easy: the admin doesn't
have to create a new voucher, and the person doesn't have to enter a new
code.
If there's a better place to share these ideas, please tell me.
~ Pato