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City Of Houston To Offer Free Email To Residents
Don Symes writes: "The City of Houston is getting ready to roll out 'free' email and web-hosted word processing. First to libraries and fire stations(!?), poorer areas, then to those who can afford ISPs."
It would be interesting to compare the cost of Internet Access Technologies' multi-million dollar contract with private ISP access, especially for the dozen other cities considering similar deals.
My local library has been offering free Internet access for a couple years now. Before that, you could get free access from a few government agencies.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Will the spammers be signing up all the poor people down there to do their dirty work for them? What kind of terms of service will the city impose and how bad does somebody have to screw up to lose their privileges, and how soon will the fight start over whether it's privilege or right?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
* Microsoft. The software giant last year announced it will donate $100 million in cash and software over 5 years to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to build 3,000 centers where kids can use PCs.
Far be it for me to sound cynical, but I wonder how much of that $100 million "in cash and software" is software licenses?
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Cool! Maybe someday they'll catch up to the Cleveland Freenet, 8 years of free publicly accessible e-mail!
This is a great step forward to catching up with Cleveland.
No wonder. If you're only giving them 1000 access points (PCs) for the whole of Houston then no wonder they'll have to queue for or even book their internet access. What good is a free email account when you dont have easy access to it?
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
What would a true government programm be if it didn't involve standing in a line?
There is Hotmail, Yahoo and a ton of other free email services. Why spend tax payer money for another one? What is it going to offer that the other ones don't? You can have all the email accounts you can track, but you still need a computer to access them.
Apparently, police and fire stations will have public Internet access. Does anyone else find the concept of going to the fire station to send e-mail to be a bit bizarre? "Hi, sorry it's taken me so long to respond, but I haven't been able to get to the local fire station this week..."
Also... Don't get me wrong, I have no reason to doubt the integrity of the police, but some people do. So... Wonder what they'll think about Internet censorship if you do your e-mail from a *police station*?
And yet another thing - won't people be in the way? I don't quite see this taking off that well, but if it does, it could become a pain to get to these local places for "normal" reasons...
________________________________________________
suwain_2
If they really want to make a different, why not provide vocational training for the disadvantaged so they can actually learn a skill to help them better themselves. Now, that would be money better spent.
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www.moneybythenumbers.com
When Joe Sixpack starts to need email for
things like job-hunting, things like this
will be damned important.
now the firestation comes to the rescue.
2 1337 4 u!
Say you didn't have access to a computer at home, or consitant use of any single computer at all, it would start to make a little more sense.
The whole idea, as I see it, is that you get their equivilent of a "web folder" where you can store all of your files. Working on your resume? A school project? Learning for learning's sake? You can go to any place that has an Internet connection and have access to your word processing application and files.
No pesky disk problems or anything else to worry about. (with the possible exception of crackers, Government snooping/eavesdropping, project failure/lack of funding resulting in lost documents, etc.)
load "linux",8,1
Can some one tell how bad the digital divide was before the information age?
Needless to say I am really happy that since the information age is here we can fix this problem.
Ascii artist &
I noticed a small bit when RTFA:
"People who verify their residence will get a SimDesk account number to access the software, including word processing, and e-mail."
What precisely does "verify your residence" mean? My guess is that it means you will have to have a house, or an apartment, or some other solid place to live. People who are living out of a cardboard box need not apply. So although this is lowing the bar, certain people will still be denied access.
Despite that, this is a dramatic step in the right direction. Although some say that only a thousand access points is too few, remember that the majority of Houstonians won't be using the public terminals -- they have their own connections -- and they probably don't even go into the neighborhoods where these will be installed.
Anyhow, if people who can't afford the 'net are lined up to use these, that's a good sign to me. What I'd be most afraid of is that these people would simply have no interest in using them, either due to ignorance or because a particular library terminal is part of a gang's turf.
How long will that continue?
Hotmail will not be free for long and other mail providers are dropping like flies.
Yahoo will not exist in 3 years.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
If the private sector is performing a service amicably -- e.g., providing free e-mail accounts to anyone with web access -- why would a locality waste even a tiny bit of resources to accomplish the same?
The odd legal twist on this -- that reason that I am even posting on this thread -- is that the Houston e-mail account doubtlessly will be more constrained than AOL or its ilk in what it can and cannot do to subscribers.
For example, let's say that some enterprising young tech at Houston's e-mail server decides to start reading e-mail at random, with the intention of invading privacy. That could satisfy the state action requirement necessary to make out a constitutional claim, with attorneys fees available for even a suit that garners only nominal damages.
For a more dramatic example, let's say that the e-mail system is administered in a way that creates a disparate impact on racial minorities. Let's say that some nut commandeers a server and spams hatemail across the ether. The state could be liable where a private actor would not be. (The constitutional generally only prevents state action that impinges on a citizen's rights, not the same conduct undertaken by a private actor.)
That's without even touching on the potential liability under Title VI and other federal statutes if the e-mail program employs federal funds.
Why would any municipality want to do this?
Just how will this change anything? There are already many free e-mail providers out there (e.g. Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, email.com,... etc.). If they're so concerned about bridging "the digital divide by making computers accessible to every Houstonian," wouldn't it be a better idea to get computers into these poor homes first, so they'll have a way to access the Internet without having to go to libraries, fire stations, or police stations every time they want to check their mail or do anything else? Houston could even provide the poorer areas with free (or discounted) Internet access, or they could use one of the few, but remaining Free Internet providers.
As a resident of Houston, it's actually a breath of fresh air to hear about forward thinking initiatives such as this. NO, this does not = free Internet access (as some readers have concluded) but this does give many of Houston's less fortunate (read poorer) citizens access to resources otherwise reserved for those who can afford a computer and regular Internet access. In my eyes, every step to elevate citizens beyond their financial boundaries, through the use of technology, is commendable.
On another note, Houston is also experimenting with electronic voting tablets. They've already invested millions and have held a mock election. I hope this is the beginning of a trend. When I was in SF for training a few months back, I couldn't help but notice the "Peace Love and Linux" symbols on every other sidewalk corner downtown. The perception of a Linux loving community is pretty cool and very forward thinking.
PRIME - Indivisible by anything but ME!
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
No, no, no, and finally, no. I've worked with a couple of freenet projects. We took donated old PC hardware, fixed it up and provided it free of charge (along with a free account with an ISP) to people who just couldn't afford to pay.
Strange as it may seem to you, there are people who can't afford this who can read.
Some are old folks who use the Internet as a companion when nobody else is around. Others are inner-city and/or very rural kids whose parents are so screwed up that they can barely afford to keep the electricity on, much less provide connectivity.
The Internet to them can be a form of escape. Not only in the sense of a mental escape from their harsh reality, but in a physical escape from the poverty that surrounds them by utilizing the information that they then have access to via the 'net to make a better life for themselves.
No, not everyone who can read has ready access to a computer and the Internet. Not even close.
load "linux",8,1
People like you are the reason most nations have a representative democracy. If people got to chose what their tax dollars where spent on then we would have no infrastructure* or defense**.
But, since we do get a say in who we elect to make these decisions, if you are pissed that your money got spent on something that you don't like then you can vote them out.
*The internet.
** The internet.
Ascii artist &
So, will they have the right to monitor your email, since it's a service provided by the government?
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
I believe Westplex Information Network started in 1994 or 1995.
www.win.org
You get a free e-mail address and lynx dialup access for free and in addition you can pay $8/month for a PPP connection.
It's more or less a good service. It does have short outages from time to time and during busy periods it gives you a two hour window to stay online and then you get booted and have to dial back in. This is by design.
They're working on offering DSL.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Houston's had free internet access in libraries for as long as I can remember. So what's so good about offering email? :)
The effort will (hopefully) involve an appropriately scaled public information campaign -- that's probably the only way to reach a good number of the city's residents who stand to benefit from email.
It's easy to say that the effort would work just as well if the promoted hotmail or yahoo, etc., but would that be appropriate? What if hotmail goes under (or gets hacked!) - as a Houston taxpayer, I don't want city employees providing free tech support for those services.
Now if the email is anything like the public works projects going on downtown, we're in big trouble (along the lines of 4,000 servers providing about 10 email accounts), but nevertheless, I think this is a good idea.Spam, we can just turn them on to Houston's spamgourmet
who's moderating the meta-moderators?
< alice-cooper >
/alice-cooper >
I can't get a job 'cause I have the 'Net,
Can't get the Net 'cause I don't have a job,
Don't you know where you are?
Lost in America
Lost in America
Lost in America, lost!
<
From the article, it doesn't sound like this is what they're considering, but a while back a federal program was being considered to assign each social security number would have an email address associated with it and government documents, such as ta forms, legal notices, etc. would be delivered via email. The idea was scrapped for technical, security, and privacy issues.
The question is, does Houston expect to do something similar with their system or are their goals more limited.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Not true in the details, but true enough in concept. Plus, it throws in a little MS bashing. Everyone loves that...
As a pseudo-resident, I'll say this:
Lee Brown, the mayor of Houston, has his priorities all wrong. He neglects the city and builds the new stadiums (for the "Houston Texans" (I wonder what kind of genius came up with that name), and the Astros) with the name of the energy company, Reliant, tagged onto it. So now the Astrodome is part of "Reliant Park", which consists of the "Reliant Astrodome", "Reliant Astroarena", "Reliant Stadium (a new one)", etc. We're taxed for it.
Also, Houston does nothing for free. If this ever becomes more than a plan, you can rest assured that it will be slow and pathetic. Or, better yet, they'll make you pay -- and it will still be slow and pathetic.
This is what I see in Lee Brown and the management of Houston. They have much bigger fish to fry, imo. Try the roads or the school system, not something to inflate this city's already gigantic ego...
I'll shut up.
Do you like German cars?
I don't believe Houston has an income tax. Or any other local government for that matter. I'm not sure any local government even has the right to tax income. Sales tax, yes. Property tax, yes, but not income tax.
"and the philosophy and principles it stood for,"
What, you think this is taxation without representation? You don't think there was a public quorum on this?
"but for now, it's forced charity."
... and you have nobody else to blame but yourself and your neighbors.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/aug01/voice110
Random Musings at Rum Smuggler
Has anyone thought of Carnivore, since it's technically a government ISP, though not a .gov domain?
Yes, there will be people dumb enough to send a threatening letter to the president using that e-mail.
"...and we leave you tonight with scenes from the City of Houston where residents today were up in arms because of a 'bug' in their email. City commissioners last year elected to use Hotmail as their free mail provider only to find some 'hackers' are able to read users' email. Well, Tony, looks like all their base certainly don't belong to them!"
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
This free service (known as 'SimDesk') also allows for access to software? While the article did not specify exactly what type of software will be available, I certainly hope the City of Houston has researched the possible legal ramifications of offering access to Microsoft products to each Houston resident. And, I hope the City's legal staff reviewed its city's selection for the mark of this service.
This gratis act may arguably result in one of the largest assessed licensing fees in history and a lawsuit by SimCompany.
I'd like to see the face of the attorney for the software maker of SimCity, SimTower, the Sims, blah blah everything Sim when he/she sees this story.
How much, exactly, does the city of Houston have in cash reserves?
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
If they really want to make a different, why not provide vocational training for the disadvantaged so they can actually learn a skill to help them better themselves. Now, that would be money better spent.
An even better way to make a difference would be to eliminate minimum wage laws, which serve as a barrier to employment for those with few marketable skills. Get people into the workforce and let them learn on the job, real world style.
I remember when I worked at a bike shop many years ago, there was a guy from the homeless shelter up the street who would stop by several days a week asking for odd jobs. I think he made regular rounds of all the businesses downtown, and we were just one stop of many. Anyway, the bike shop owner would pay him to clean the parking lot every Saturday, and would often find other odd jobs for him to do. The guy was hard working, punctual and honest, but really didn't know how to do anything but pick up cans.
My point is that people like this are on the verge of entering the workforce, but the value of their labor is less than minimum wage. There are many employers who would give them an entry-level position doing odd jobs like keeping the parking lot clean, but are not able to reconcile the payroll expense of a minimum wage position with the value of the person's labor.
There are some who are upset by any suggestions to lower or elminate the minimum wage. I realize that most people have a gut reaction that 'people need a living wage'... but jobs simply do not materialize out of thin air. Higher minimum wages cause higher unemployment. Lower minimum wages result in lower unemployment. Ergo, it is more humane to eliminate minimum wage laws.
I'll pass on the obvious jokes.
In this situation of free email, the obvious point is that the folks who will be getting the email are folks with less education. This would be true if you imagine that personal income is generally proportional to education.
I can imagine the poor tech support flogs who have to help these folks out, Unless they make them go through a long and extended glass first. or have it at a city facility or a hall for a long time until the folks get certified that they are expert enough to have it set up at home.
It appears that the computer market has reached saturation in the US with maybe 60% of US homes having a computer. The other 40% may not be able to afford one, or the learning curve is a bit too steep.
I can see this. It can get really ugly.
- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a general news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Westplex actually serves all of St. Charles county which is maybe 200,000 people.
No where near the size of Houston, but it's a relatively simple process. You start small and grow the service based on demand.
It will probably suck for the first year or so as they get everything worked out.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I worked for a computer center in a small rural town when I was in high school. We were offered ms products for free if we used them exclusivly. There was no way, I (the only tech guy) wasn't going to have it. It meant ditching the macs, buying windows machines, ditching the novell server, buying nt 3.11 (this was a while ago), and so on. Forget that... We did manage to get office on both platforms for free though, through another grant.
I'm having a hard time picturing the process you describe. Should I imagine these newbies viewing a CRT through the bottom of a beer glass? Or using a display two miles away with a telescope (which is certainly an extended (spy)glass.)
I get it! A looking glass.
Ah, but these "fire stations" are actually an elaborate sting operation set up by disgrunted sysadmins. Those guys sitting around sharpening their axes to a razor edge are the same ones that got paged at 3:00 am when the mail server buckled beneath a torrent of spam. They've put out a lot of fires, but not the thermal kind.
When "Dave Smith" asks for his free account, they take his thumbprint and the computer links him up with "Carlos Moreno" whose account was TOS'd last night. Yes, spammers are stupid.
"OK, Dave, we just need you to lay your head on the desk for a minute. Yeah, right on that deep groove."
Donation is something remarkable. It's giving something to other people, no strings attached, no expectations of the outcome. It may make you feel good, but without conditions, it can be even better. You can donate in many ways: Material, money, working, educating and generally helping out or being friendly.
What corporations like Microsoft do when they "donate" their own software to get tax-refunds and with conditions to ensure vendor lock-in, it can hardly be called donation at all. It's like a crack-dealer. The first dose is for free to get you hooked, then they start charging. Let me repeat: There's no way this is donation.
It should not be tax-refundable. Unfortunately, common sense has dropped significantly in later times. Now rules and laws reign supreme, and people abuse whatever holes they can to reach their own ends. It's ironical that donation is on that list too.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
What part of "there's nothing certain in life except death and taxes" do you not understand? Deal with it or run for mayor.
or there's a news story about how some molestor hooked up with a kid using his paid by Houston connection or crack dealers are running a free website - blah blah fucking blah. Then the sanctimonious pricks will be screaming to pull the plug faster than you can say "Whaaaaaat about the Chilllllldrennnnnn!!!!!!!!!"
I'm impressed :-)
Or better, be shocked when they get a follow-up email from bush@whitehouse.com.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
don't underestimate it's usefulness
after you become homeless it's hard to break the cycle
not having a contact point only increases the effect of homelessness, no one can offer you a job or a place to live if they cannot contact you
I've spoken to some youth workers who help homeless kids with email addresses (they used free services like Hotmail) and they were surprised how much it helped, even things like keeping contact with each other and youth workers
isolation is increased when communication is cut off, if you have no phone and no snail mail address, an email address may give you a little more stability...
MAKE $$$ FAST FROM HOME!!! is hardly going to be important to them, as they don't have homes, but being able to email a resume... that's another story...