Earthlink finally pulls out of Wireless Philly, but all is not lost

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TANSTAFWF (with apologies to Robert A. Heinlein)

Frankly, it all sounds good but the pitfalls

are many and the security issues surrounding

free & open WiFi are non-trivial.

Among those pitfalls will be Philadelphia being on the legal hook when (not "if") their free wifi WAN is hacked - perhaps by our wonderful friends in the People's Republic of China - and mass economic and physical chaos ensues.

Such a service is really nothing more

than an additional public utility. Giving

it away for free makes no more sense than

giving away city water.

But when Wired, which survives on advertising of intellectual property, can have the motto "Information wants to be free" (which has been held to excuse theft of copyright and other information property from Wired's own advertisers), ideas don't have to make sense to be widely held - or to drive public policy. Contradictory ideas are spoken in the same breath; often they co-exist in different sections of the same law.

There Ain't No Such Thing As Free Wi-Fi - even if the Mayor says so. Heck, here in Denver, the city won't even chip in for their share of it if the people are paying for theirs twice (once at tax time, once a month when the Wi-Fi bill comes due).

Probably better to get politics and Internet access as far apart as possible, anyway. Otherwise, our two activist FCC commissioners are going to begin imposing "fair comment" rules on Hugh Hewitt and letting Markos Moulitsas run wild.

Posted by: jlafitte Posted on: 05/14/08 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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