Many years ago, when the first batch of low-cost consumer VoIP devices
surfaced, a suggestion was raised that we might want to whitelist
individual devices to allow their use without having to go through the
splash page. The main argument at the time was that to use VoIP phones
we could either eliminate NoCat from the VoIP ports or selectively
allow certain devices to connect without the splash page.

At that time we opted against whitelisting, largely because it seemed
like a headache. Now that there are many more WiFi enabled devices
that may or may not have robust browsers, it seems appropriate to
revisit the idea of whitelisting devices, especially as we're planning
to replace the NuCabs at many nodes, and generally are looking at
deploying a homogeneous infrastructure.

One way we could approach this would be to allow PTP members to
whitelist up to 3 devices for one year, by bringing the device(s) to a
monthly meeting, where the MAC address would be placed into the
database, along with the month that whitelisting was done. Every year,
you would have to attend a meeting to re-up the whitelisting. What I
like about this idea is that it encourages membership specifically.
There would be some administrative overhead, but once the system is in
place (with a central whitelist that is pushed to all the nodes that
run the homogenized software) it shouldn't be any more painful than
taking notes at meetings.

Thoughts on this? Other ideas? Other member benefits you'd like to see?

-- 
Michael Weinberg
President
Personal Telco Project, Inc.
A 501(c)(3) Non-Profit

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