Wireless Access: The Next Great Municipal Crisis

[Guest LilBambi]

eWeek: Wireless Access: The Next Great Municipal Crisis

Opinion: Municipal Wi-Fi plans like Philadelphia's are security disasters in the making. "We're from the government and we're here to help you" is a very old and sad joke, but there's a lot of truth to it. Municipal governments, especially in big cities, have a tragic history of policies with unintended consequences for their constituents and others.The movement to have local governments provide wireless Internet access is a classic case of do-gooders ignoring the implications of a policy. Since I write about security, that is the issue I'll focus on. Certainly the advocates of municipal Wi-Fi haven't focused on it.

Larry Seltzer's closing arguments:

Also, insecure ISPs are the bane of the Internet, imposing huge costs on other users as well as their own.It's hard to believe that an ISP operating at low cost will be able to provide support needed by what will have to be a technically unsophisticated user base.Even if you believe everything they say about the network, it's still a train wreck in the making.