Chris Duran has set up a free wifi mapping project, just what we have been waiting for (and I was too lazy to do myself):
WiFi in Australia is a “user-generated and user-moderated maps of WiFi hotspots all over Australia”.
Any one can add any wifi (open, paid, restricted) they encounter, so start contributing!
Bruce Schneier in UK’s The Guardian on the the Mumbai attacks and the use of communication technology by the terrorists, and the subsequent call of the Indian gouvernment to ban Google Earth, as well as open wifi:
Open wifi networks are useful for many reasons, the large majority of them positive, and closing them down affects all those reasons. [...] I haven’t seen it talked about yet, but the Mumbai terrorists used boats as well. They also wore boots. They ate lunch at restaurants, drank bottled water, and breathed the air.
Starting Australia Day (January 26), myKP will introduce itself as a new ISP, promising broadband without caps. Their Hero Platform plan is $80 per month and the full product details, and small print, will be released on Australia Day. The access will be offered initially on a limited basis to myKP Free Wi-Fi Community residents spread across a number of councils (mostly NSW).
Additionally, good to see that soon they’ll introduce some more Sydney CBD (Pitt Street) and Haymarket free hotspots.
Anna from Woollahra Council Library lets us know about…
“more Sydney wifi – now at the Paddington and Double Bay branches of Woollahra Council Library in eastern Sydney. At Double Bay, the network reaches through most of the surrounding gardens too – it’s a beautiful spot and lots of things to help with concentration and/or procrastination! Our provider is uConnect, so the terms of service are the same as the City of Sydney’s wifi.”
So next time, go procrastinate at:
Thanks Anna!
The Times Of India writes about the Mumbai police looking out for unsecured Wifi connections:
City policemen will be soon seen roaming in the streets with laptops
in their hands in search of unsecured Wi-Fi connections, in the backdrop of terror mails sent before blasts and terror attacks.
Owners will get notices from the police when their access point is “not password protected or secured”. How do they define “secured”? Will the owner get a notice when he uses WEP over WPA? Will they check for default and weak passwords?
So, because they send emails over open Wifi access points before the attacks, something they could have done with a wireless (broadband) modem or mobile phone, all Wifi needs to be closed up?
iiNet has teamed up with Starbucks to provide WiFi services to 20 Starbucks stores in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Check out the full list of stores, for Sydney it’s Hyde Park, Cockle Bay, Haymarket, Circular Quay, 525 George Street, Transport House and QVB. As an iiNet customer, you’ll receive 100Mb of free data to use per month in Starbucks WiFi hotspots. Keep your iiNet username and password handy.
Short video interview with Meraki’s CEO Sanjit Biswas over at Fortune.
McDonald’s has been offering $14/h Telstra WiFi with their burgers since 2003, allowing customers to work online (yeah right) or surf the Web while munching on their $6 burger and fries. Did anyone actually do that? Because, well, I know myself, and eating a greasy burger with sauce and greasy fries,… But at least they were ahead of their times compared to their competitors.
“There is a McDonald’s restaurant in virtually every community and by making this service available to so many we are taking a leadership position and anticipating the future communication needs our customers.”
Now they take the next big leap, and offer free WiFi at all their locations. That’s at 720 McDonald’s stores across Australia (roll-out over time). And at the same time they’ll make it ‘Family Friendly’ by using Clean Pipes technology from earthwave:
“Clean Pipes provides a common security framework to protect McDonald’s from both external and internal threats. The solution involved a multi-million dollar investment by earthwave to develop a defense in depth security architecture made up of layers of security including firewalls, network intrusion prevention systems, distributed denial of service protection and various web protection mechanisms. This architectural approach will enable McDonald’s ability to continually monitor and defend its networks against potential internet related attacks.”
“The ‘Clean Pipes’ service also provides McDonald’s with a number of proactive measures and reporting aimed at both highlighting and countering potential network security threats from internet traffic generated by customers using the McDonald’s free WiFi Hotspots.”
Sure sounds impressive, using all the security buzzwords. Why would you need all that to offer ‘Family Friendly’ free WiFi? As far as I can tell, that means their public WiFi is linked to their internal network?
Next, they’ll get bouncers at the door too…
Better be safe than sorry, I guess.
The annual Wireless Security Survey conducted by RSA reveals that London is still the worlds wireless networked capital, by more than 3000 more than New York.
Paris broke all the records with a 543% year-over-year increase in the number of wireless access points detected in the city. At 15%, New York City remains the leader in regards to its concentration of hotspots.
ISPReview notes:
In London, the volume of personal ‘home’ wireless access points was greater even than the number of corporate ones… Most impressively, home network users appear to be more security-savvy than their corporate counterparts.
Read on at ISPReview, or RSA’s press release.
Nothing on Sydney though.
iBurst, recently providing free internet access as a sponsor of Web Directions South , is about to terminate its wireless network, ZDNet writes. The BigAir Group was one party interested in taking over the iBurst assets, but:
“BigAir Group Limited announced today it has been notified by the Receivers for the Commander Group, McGrathNicol, that its bid to acquire the iBurst assets of Personal Broadband Australia (PBA) was unsuccessful… The Company has also been advised by the Receivers that they intend to discontinue providing iBurst services and the network will be shut down and closed no later than December 19th 2008.”
iBurst was launched in 2003, and was one of the first to offer wide area wireless broadband internet. But last couple of years mobile telcos’ coverage of 3G grew both in reach and speed, and iBurst modems were too expensive, and bigger than the small 3G USB dongles.
I’d still like to salute iBurst for providing us with free internet access at Web Directions South last month, and the technicians then present. It must have been a difficult period for them knowing the company wasn’t in the best condition.