Would you open your Wi-Fi connection to strangers? The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argues that partially opening up your home Wi-Fi network could actually enhance your privacy, and is working on a tool to make it easier to do so.

The EFF plans to release firmware that will “let you share a portion of your Wi-Fi network, password-free, with anyone nearby.”

How does that work for your benefit? They argue that by being a "good neighbor", the traffic on your network can’t necessarily be tracked back to you.

Critics site an example of a man in Buffalo who was suspected of downloading child pornography after his neighbor used his open Wi-Fi network for these illicit purposes.

However, the EFF says that it will put a limit on access to as little as 5 percent of your bandwidth.
That way, someone can check their email, but not download a multi-gigabyte file.

The OpenWireless.org team says it plans to “integrate an option to route guest traffic over the anonymity software Tor or a VPN that ties it to a different IP address” in a future version of the firmware.