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07/18/2007Free AND Secure?
This has been an exciting couple of weeks for the idea of the free municipal wireless network.
Just when the refrain for free municipal wireless networks had quieted down, it seems to have started back up again. Wasn't it just in Chicago in May that we heard Mark Myers from Cisco explain how "free municipal wireless puts citizens at risk"?
And yet in the past few days, both London, England, and Regina, Saskatchewan, have unveiled networks that are accessible at no charge.
These projects join other high-profile networks, such as in San Francisco, Riverside, and St. Cloud, Florida, that are or plan to be free.
The case for free wireless is being troubled, however. For example, Nicole Ozer and Kurt Opsahi argue in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle: "If city officials fail to bargain aggressively in the final stages of contract negotiations, San Franciscans will pay a high price for free Internet access -- with their privacy and free speech rights." Those who use the free part of the network must not be penalized by having their information tracked, the authors conclude.
This would seem to support Myers' assertion in Chicago (from a different perspective, granted). Another article that appeared last week in the Houston Chronicle asserts that online security is the users' responsibility. Jim Parsons, editor of the blog Houstonist, replied in a post, stating that while wireless networks should be secure, many people will not take the initiative, and "it will be interesting to see how that goes down."
Another interesting trend in the past couple of weeks is the high-profile projects that have disintegrated -- Anchorage, Toledo, Punta Gorda -- all citing funding and/or security concerns.
So what's going on? What's the connection between FREE and SECURE? Is the relationship real or perceived? Has a false problem been set up where the two are seen as mutually exclusive, or are they separate concerns that have been correlated by coincidence? Are both possible, or even ideal? Let us know what you think.... P.S. See the ACLU's reaction .
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Related Items:
• Maine InfoNet
• W2i Digital Cities Convention Returns to London
• Free Wi-Fi: Where's the Fon in that?
• Municipal Wireless a Questionable Business Model? Nope…Been There, Seen That!
• Glenn Sangiovanni, Mayor, St. Cloud (FL)
• San Francisco '05
Comments
Daniel Aghion
The issue of security of free networks needs to be more clearly defined as security is a very broad subject. Are we speaking about security of the information made available, the privacy of the user (where does freedom start and end, and who determines that?), does freedom require authentication, what constraints should the user accept in return for a free service.... On the other hand the real issue with free is how to fund and sustain the network as it has now become clear that such investments are capital and resource intensive. As such is the question, assuming that there is an underlying social inclusion concern, who is it free for and why? And a corollary question is who is going to pay for that freedom, and how to make the network economically viable?
01:57 PM, 07/18/2007
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