NYC Just Converted 10 Payphones into Free WiFi Hotspots | Hacker News Reader

NYC Just Converted 10 Payphones into Free WiFi Hotspots

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But doesn't this hurt private Internet providers? Free wifi damages their ability to succeed in the marketplace.

I said that tongue-in-cheek but that is the counter argument to free or municipal wifi projects.

Other city-run free wifi initiatives have actually been run with AT&T. So, in conclusion: I have no idea.

Somebody Zero Cool, Acid Burn, and Crash Override - they can now rollerblade up to payphones again.

I wonder how long it'll take someone to set up a fake hotspot with an identical name right next to it.

This is actually a pretty serious legit concern that I'm surprised we haven't seen a proper solution for.

I feel like there should be some sort of trusted certificates or other method to determine whether or not you can trust the access point and alert the user when they may be moving sensitive info over that network.

Just use an encrypted tunnel and your safe.

If a Van near the hotspot spoofs the network name running the equivalent of BlueCoat, even SSL traffic can be silently monitored or tampered with.

The problem is 99% of folks don't know how to setup a stunnel and the remaining 1% understand the performance implications of being paranoid all the time.

Not if you don't ignore cert warnings.

Why? You would use tls anyway with any service you think is even remotely important to you.

Yeah, malandrew probably would. But what about the 95% of the world that has no idea what TLS is?

They're already hosed, a borrowed SSID isn't going to do much more harm.

For a variety of reasons it doesn't really matter if you authenticate the hotspot if the rest of the traffic goes in the clear as unless you also do key exchange as part of the authentication and then use it for protecting your traffic someone could just forward the authentication to a real box and then take over or simply hijack your connection after you've authenticated. There is also the problem of wide deployments like coffee shops making it pretty easy to steal certificates.

WPA Enterprise / WPA2 Enterprise with PEAP (and several other flavors) includes a server certificate as part of the authentication process that you can validate before supplying your credentials. While it's not perfect, you can run public wifi with WPA2 Enterprise and just set the login to guest and a blank password (and say that in the ESSID). That allows anyone to connect but still allows them to authenticate the hotspot and have a fair level of protection from session snooping or hijacking.

Realistically future versions of 802.11 should use some type of system like that for unprotected connections, but they don't seem very interested.

Yea, EAP-TLS was one of the oldest EAP methods, and the client certificate is actually optional per the spec, though most supplicants require it (using a dummy cert is the workaround).

Hong Kong already does this. Practically all their pay phones are WiFi hotspots operated by PCCW. In fact, it's hard not too find a WiFi hotspot within 100m in Hong Kong.

Do you know if the wi-fi coverage is sufficient to where you could ditch having a cell phone? Just use an iPod Touch with Skype + Gtalk or something?

wi-fi does not allow you to take calls while driving. So, it's just a question of how much convince your willing to give up to avoid a cellphone bill.

My employer has "roaming" wifi. I can walk around, change floors, change buildings and not lose connection. I don't know how they do it. It's very cool.

Compared to... I was contracting at AT&T Wireless for a few months. Worst enterprise IT I've experienced. Getting a desk phone to work was near impossible. No one could access their voicemail. No voicemail - email bridge. The in-house chat/voice conferencing didn't work (stutter, dropped connections, couldn't login). You'd lose wifi connection walking down the hall, requiring full reauthentication for everything (signin, VPN, db connections, etc).

"Mobile" phones come full circle. Cell tower coverage still isn't even sufficient for a lot of my use. Unless I'm at home or work, I almost never am in range of a wifi hotspot. I am very frequently not at home or work.

Random event: I just walked by one of these (Grand Central-UN area) on my way to the library today and said "Wow. I wonder why I didn't hear about this before...or see it before?" So I started looking for other payphones/WiFi-stations and didn't see one.

Great idea.

I wonder if hotels, and other businesses that want to attract taxi drivers awaiting fares, will push to convert nearby pay phones to WiFi, thinking drivers might prefer to wait near a WiFi hotspot.

I always wondered why telcos haven't made a business model out of this. It is too late now that 3g/4g is pervasive and fast enough, but for a period of about 7-8 years they could so easily have wired DSL to all those idle pay phones around the city and I would easily have paid $10/month (or more) to have Wifi connectivity when I was out and about.

I remember in 2000 or 2001 a company in Chicago negotiated with Ameritech to put hotspots on the top of telephone poles around the city for something like $3/mo. The deal ended up falling through... I think too many parties had to get involved that it just became a nightmare to deal with.

You might be referring to Ricochet Wireless. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricochet_(Internet_service)

I'm wondering what some of the legal consequences would be if a project like that were implemented in Europe.

In Germany (and other countries), if you as a private person do not secure your wi-fi, and someone else piggybacks on it to do something illegal (say, download pirated data) you are liable.

What is the situation in the states? If the legal situation is similar, does it make a difference if the open wi-fi is provided by a city rather than a private person? Obviously it wouldn't be piggybacking when the free wi-fi is intended to be used by others, I wonder if that makes a difference. Also, could ToS be used to avoid the liability issue for a city?

Also, in the EU, ISPs are required to store the connection data of all customers for six months. Would a city that provides free wi-fi be considered an ISP and thus have to store all connection data too?

The Swedish telco Telia converted all their phone booths to Wifi hotspots a few years ago, but it's a pay service.

Ah yes, standing around and taking pictures in the bike lane. Just like everyone else in NYC...

... while the bikers attempting to use the bike lanes get ticketed for riding in the street when a bike lane was available. (yes, this does happen, despite the law saying that a biker can leave the bike lane if an obstruction makes it unsafe to ride within it)

If people like the government setting up wi-fi hotspots, would people be open to sharing their wi-fi hotspots (securely) for the chance to roam across other wi-fi hotspots? As in, blanket the city in a grass roots network.

Love to see cities that care about their users..er citizens.

I don't feel like having SWAT storm my house at 3am because some idiot posted a death threat using my wifi.

They have this in the UK with the ISP BT. It's opt-in, but while lots of other people use it, I've never used it.

The Telekom (parent of T-Mobile) has been doing that as well in Germany, although they are not free. Berlin has probably almost full coverage.

I don't get the 'free' bit. I mean a pay phone was just that an opportunity to plug into the communication network for money, why not a 'pay hotspot' ? Now I could see that NYC could create a token system which would make using a licensed paid hot spot practical, but don't see what they are trying to achieve with free access here.

I don't see what they are trying to achieve with free access here.

Probably the same thing they're trying to achieve with free streets, trees, parks, and so on: making the city more livable for those that pay taxes there. (And trust me, we pay a lot of taxes.)

Fair enough, I think you can make a reasonable argument that network communication is a basic city service like sewers and sidewalks, so why wouldn't that argument also require a taxpayer funded phone service? If you go the whole basic service argument then not only do you provide a wifi hotspot but you also provide a way for someone to browse the web, send and receive email, and maybe chat at these same kiosks. If you don't provide that then you run into the social justice argument that you are discriminating against the poor who can't afford a smartphone or laptop to hop onto the 'free' WiFi in favor of the rich. Whereas if you charge for the access and dump that money into the general fund (after expenses of course) then its a service fee that achieves a socially acceptable taxation of people with more disposable income to provide services to those without. So do you see my confusion?

All I can tell you is that's not how the world works. My taxes pay for a ton of things I can't use; I don't have a car, so I can't drive through the Lincoln Tunnel. That doesn't mean it's not in society's best interest to pay for it anyway.

Woah! I didn't realize you were a New Yorker! If you can make it, you should come by the next Hack and Tell on the 25th! http://meetup.com/hack-and-tell

Yeah, I moved here in January :) Hack and Tell sounds pretty cool, I'll try to be there. Thanks for the invite!

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