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Comment by bogomipz | Hacker News Reader

>"So what would a city designed by Google look like? It would likely include features such as LinkNYC, the public Wi-Fi hubs installed around New York City."

Make not mistake about it the LinkNYC "kiosks" are digital billboards that give allow Google to flash ads at residents on every block. I haven't seen anyone engaging with these "kisoks" for any kind of informational purposes. On rare occasions I have seen someone using them to charge their USB device.

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You can use the WiFi on these things from a surprising distance (hundreds of feet) with a proper antenna. Even with an IPSEC tunnel in place, one can achieve a connection with over 100Mbps upload and download with 5ms latency. That's much better than what most ISPs in NYC provide. And it's free. So, there's that.

I appreciate my own experience is only anecdotal evidence but I see people using them all the time. It is mostly homeless people who use it to make phone calls but I've often seen people charging devices.

They used to be used a lot more but I heard they started blocking video so the homeless couldn't use it to watch inappropriate content.

> I appreciate my own experience is only anecdotal evidence but I see people using them all the time. It is mostly homeless people who use it to make phone calls but I've often seen people charging devices.

So a free VOIP phone and a USB charger? This strikes me as a failure to live up to their stated capabilities.

I believe they also provide free wifi. That is harder to quantify since you don't have to be directly adjacent to the kiosk to use it.

I'm just countering the initial claim that one person never sees anyone using it. At least in my neighborhood, especially along my walk to work, I see people physically interacting with the devices very frequently.

Sure but this isn't really additive since New York City already has WIFI around all subway stations. See:

https://transitwireless.com/

https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/8/10737408/nyc-mta-subway-wi...

And that Transit Wireless WIFI is not paid for with advertising blight. So really the net utility added for all of this advertising is is a USB charging station. You could always make 911 calls at the phone kiosks these replaced.

> mostly homeless people who use it to make phone calls

> blocking video so the homeless couldn't [watch porn]

The latter is what I used to see them used for. I've rarely seen them used since the video block went in.

The more interesting aspect are the always on cameras that are built into each billboard. The data being collected and analyzed across a city over time must be generating very valuable data.

For more information, please see here: https://cryptome.org/2016/06/linknyc-spy-kiosks-installation...

Reminds me of eye-scan advertising in Minority Report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bXJ_obaiYQ

Relevant: https://www.bestvpn.com/privacy-news/widespread-facial-recog...

Has LinkNYC responded to this? It seems at least plausible that some feature of the devices (video chat?) requires a camera. Do we know that the cameras are always-on?

Edit: https://www.link.nyc/faq.html#cameras

Looks like it’s not completely unreasonable—they’re not doing straight-up tracking, and wanting to figure out who damaged your expensive machine is a reasonable goal. However, this still (I think) allows tracking anybody they claim is dangerous or a criminal. Better, but far from good.

Good. I'm not the only one. My first thought wasn't about how interesting or cool this could be. My first thought was that this was a blow to privacy.

The free wifi is useful as a tourist. The surprising amount of them in Manhattan means you don't need to use relatively expensive roaming data as often. Once you've pressed the required buttons on the captive portal your phone just connects and sorts out your email & notifications as you stroll near one.

I'm not disputing the utility of free WIFI and while that might be great for the tourist who visits NYC the residents have to live with advertising blight.

> I haven't seen anyone engaging with these "kisoks" for any kind of informational purposes.

How do you see how people are using a public WiFi hub at all? Are you intercepting and inspection traffic?

Engaging physically with the Kiosk which is ostensibly what you are supposed to do as there is a screen, camera and keypad on the front of each one.

If the main purpose is/was just to provide WIFI there would be need to up multiple kiosks on the block.

Since there is also a WiFi hub, engaging wirelessly is evidently also something “you are supposed to do”, and presumably moreso than physical interaction as the number of supported simultaneous physical interactors is much lower than the supported simultaneous wireless connections.

Then there is no need for a 10 feet high dual sided digital billboard controlled by Google to accomplish that.

Have you actually seen one of these in person? I can assure you they are not unobtrusive. This pic gives some idea of the scale of these:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkNYC#/media/File:EHB_1773_(...

You choose to live in the big city and advertising signs bother you? That's like choosing to live in the forest and saying trees bother you.

Nice strawman. So if unpleasant elements exist in one's environment, a dramatic increase in those unpleasant elements shouldn't bother you? Yeah that makes a lot of sense.

Also nowhere did I say I lived there.

> I haven't seen anyone engaging with these "kisoks" for any kind of informational purposes. On rare occasions I have seen someone using them to charge their USB device.

I think they have the opposite problem -- people who camp out at the kiosk literally all day for the free charging/internet.

Also seems like a useful captive waypoint to monitor MAC addresses & movement across a city.

Modern smartphones randomised their Bluetooth MACs. I'm not sure about WiFi. But anyway if you wanted to track people's movement it's easier to do it via the cell network, or... Google Maps.

Nexus 5X used to be able to randomize its MAC; not sure if it still can. MAC randomization does not seem to be present on the Pixel.

iPhones randomize wifi mac.

Not just MACs... here's a talk on the subject: https://livestream.com/internetsociety/hopeconf/videos/13081...

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