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Use one wireless Mac as an internet access point
Authored by: Graff on Jan 05, '04 10:53:20AM

This is actually not turning the Mac into a repeater, but is rather turning it into a proxy server. So the internet connections is not shared out per se, but rather this is a means of circumventing a paid service or corporate firewall. Proxy servers do have very legitimate uses but the original hint is not using it in any of those ways.

When you are part of a network which requires you to register for web access that network will divert your normal internet access to their own server. Some examples of this are a corporate firewall or at a Starbucks when you need to pay for access.

What this hint does is it takes a verified computer (say, one who's owner has paid for access) and sets it up so it makes the requests for you. This computer then downloads the web page and re-serves it to you. There are many valid uses for a proxy server such as this, but the original hint referenced was so that a group of people could get around needing to pay for access. By using this hint only 1 person would need to pay for access, the rest could get a free ride and not have to pay.



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