Print 14 comment(s) - last by Solandri.. on Jul 14 at 12:39 PM

NYC is running a trial on 10 phone booths at the moment







Source: ABC News

Comments     Threshold


RE: This sounds like an excelent idea.
By WalksTheWalk on 7/13/2012 9:45:29 AM , Rating: 0
How is this an excellent idea?

This is the government getting into places they don't belong at the expense of taxpayers. Do you think the government's role is to provide the citizenry with free WiFi? Make no mistake about it, nothing is free. The government is paying for the infrastructure and service. The are also paying for maintenance of this network too. This is cutting the throats of businesses that pay taxes; the very thing the government depends on.

Let's all clamor for free WiFi, healthcare, computers, iPads, etc. The more things that government takes over, the more it sinks the entire country.

RE: This sounds like an excelent idea.
By andrewaggb on 7/13/2012 2:39:14 PM , Rating: 2
Not sure why they down voted you. But I agree, why? and why is it free? It's not like phone booths are free to use/maintain, etc

I don't live in NYC, but if I did I'd rather have tax money going to something else.

RE: This sounds like an excelent idea.
By Solandri on 7/13/2012 3:00:31 PM , Rating: 2
If the bandwidth is low, it'll be close enough to free to provide the service. Most of the money to maintain phone booths is emptying the coins and wear and tear. With this you simply place a DSL modem/wifi router on the same line. No moving parts, and it's free so no coins to collect.

I know people still make fun of cloud computing, but we need to think ahead. Internet access is becoming more and more a ubiquitous and necessary part of modern life. Having a low-level amount of bandwidth blanketing your city and available for free is probably something that's going to happen eventually (since the phone carriers insist on charging an arm and a leg for wireless data bandwidth).

Think of it like public drinking fountains. Yes the water and the fountain isn't free, but the convenience to the public for access to a cheap resource makes it worth it.

RE: This sounds like an excelent idea.
By WalksTheWalk on 7/13/2012 4:25:56 PM , Rating: 4
Sounds like a fine place to setup a packet sniffer if I were a criminal and start collecting data or pushing malware and viruses. For the comparison to public drinking fountains you can get plenty of viruses from those too.

Several years back the city of Minneapolis, MN installed several drinking fountains that were "artfully designed" at a total cost of about $500,000. They were vandalized within months. That sounds like every public phone booth I've ever seen.

By WalksTheWalk on 7/13/2012 4:58:41 PM , Rating: 2
And for those that want the link to the fountains I mentioned:

And this is an article defending it. It's maddening.

By Solandri on 7/14/2012 12:39:16 PM , Rating: 2
You do realize access points can be configured so clients can't see each other? Properly set up, there's no way to push malware. You can still sniff the wifi packets, but those should be encrypted (with a second SSL layer of encryption for important traffic like accessing your bank account).

The bigger concern is someone setting up a rogue access point disguised to look like the real one. That can be used for a man in the middle attack.

