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Verizon To Offer WiFi At Pay Phones
Makarand writes "Verizon has ambitious plans to catapult pay phones from the pre-cellular
era to the WiFi era by
creating hotspots around pay phones using an extension of
their DSL service. The current plan is to upgrade 200,000 pay phones
in the New York metro area to provide a WiFi service. Although major
metros are spotted with hotspots, finding them is usually a big problem. Verizon
thinks that specially marked WiFi enabled pay phones would
solve the problem of locating the hotspots." Sounds similar to Bell Canada's move to do the same.
I'd love to see payphones miniaturized and extended into both wireless broadband hotspots and VoIP phone points. This could lead to more bang for the buck for Verizon.
"I am root. Bow before me." To this I say, "You are root, and you bear the sins of the world upon your shoulders."
I can imagine some guy loading up a copy of aim at one of these hot spots to recieve a message "if you log out of aim, I'll shoot you, do not tell anyone what I've told you" etc.
they could even make a movie about it.. er
--
|-_-| . o O ( bEef!)
The Wi-Fi at payphones has potential, plus they just lowered the Verizon DSL price while increasing the download speed, AND they're standing up for their customers privacy rights. Now, if they'd just unblock port 80...
Google doesn't index user sigs, so stop trying to "Google Bomb" with them.
Hey, you, get out of my office!
WiFi sniffer is a handy tool for finding wireless networks, its a credit card sized device that detects networks and their strength...Public WiFi spots are nice..It'd be intresting to see which platform of 802.11, a b or g..maybe all of em..very cool inovation
i wonder if this is also a bit of a security risk. i mean, yes you can have some kind of authentication procedure, but will that stop everyone? and besides, once on illegaly, who knows what havoc will be wrought.....
just a thought.
xao
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
"As Americans, we're all trained to look for pay phones,"
:)
i wonder if this is true for non-americans as well
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Yeah brain what are we going to do tomarrow night?
The same thing we do every night, Pinky, try to take over the world!
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
This is a great idea.. imagine walking along wanting to check your email, just stand next to the payphone and check it!, a neat idea might be to provide some form of printing facility in the phone booth as well.. i can't see things like this happening in Australia for many many years though!!!
Verizon is obviously not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. Even the telecomm analyst says this could be a, "moneymaker." Yet conspicuously absent from the press release is any discussion of pricing.
Is there any word on how much they expect to charge for this? How the billing will be performed? Can you use your laptop as-is, or will you be required to install some custom software (almost certainly Windoze-only)?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
"...please insert another quarter to get one more megabyte"
War driving just got 100 times easier thanks to Verizon. First they defend us against the RIAA, now they're giving us free wireless access throughout NYC!
(sorry, couldn't resist)
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Hmmm, maybe they plan to have some type of system where the wifi transmitter is only turned on when you insert the correct amount of money. Also, they mention high speeds but they never clarify, what kind of network are the phones gonna be hooked up to?
"Guns don't kill people, bullets do."
This is a last attempt by independent business units to make pay phones viable. The fact is that pay phones are very obsolete technology but very expensive to maintain. The business units responsible for them need to find SOME way to survive but ultimately they are a decade behind the curve...
About half those phones lack electrical power needed for the transmitters, he told a conference on wireless security hosted by Stevens Institute of Technology, his alma mater.
What they can do, instead of upgrading the phones, is install solar panels with battery packs. the only downside is they'd be subject to lighting conditions and vandalism, but it would probably be cheaper in the long run.
.. when we all have our own portable phones/pdas/computers/etc. will be a space that provides privacy and quite, as well as either a damm good external universal anteanna setup or a hard wire.
I also predict that you will be able to drop a dime/quarter/etc. in a glass jar and get a free connection, since pay authentication will be sound based.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
And while we are at it, will they still have handsets for the rebels to zap back to their ship with?
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I'm wondering who will be willing to stand next to a payphone, attnetion focused on a laptop, in the middle of a major city. It seems like an open invitation for muggers.
I really cant say i think wi-fi is ready for this
In its current capacity....wi-fi is very insecure...its ok for inside a corperate building... and for a home network...but out on the streets? Currently there is nothign to secure wi-fi connections, i have an access point in my house with 2 laptops on it....when i was setting up the last one...in order to debug a problem i sat there and sniffed the traffic...the traffic over wi-fi goes over the air with no security protocols on it at all....now ethernet isnt much better (with the exception of wrappers like PPPoE to help disgues info) but its also not brodcasting to everyone within 100 meters.
The problem isnt the traffic being sniffed...i can fix that with a simple ssh tunnel...my problem is with the machine authentication...its basicly a clear text (well not quite...but from a security stand point it basiclly is) protocol...i can drive thru downtown boston and spoof myself onto any wireless network I encounter...a simple shell script chooses a victim and pretends to be them..there really is nothing to it.
Now for small restricted locations, were the general public dosnt have access too..this really isnt THAT much of a problem...however, if you have people subscribing to this, in downtown new york, out int he open...unless they adapt their own wi-fi protocol....they are basically putting hundreds of thousands of free victim for a hacker with a "war drive".
the tcp porton of the protocol can realistcally stay the same...but we need to find a better way to authenticate boxes onto the network at the physical layer. Right now anyone with prisim II drivers can wonder onto any wi-fi network they encouter.
Wi-fi is definatly cooll...i run it at home because its nice...but for a production network, I just dont think wi-fi is at that point yet.
slashpot
I'm sure this will work the same as most broad-band in-hotel services. A NAT will not pass your packets until your MAC address has been authorized to do so. Until then, only outbound port 80 traffic does anything -> It redirects to the "Authorize this computer" webpage.
Perhaps existing Verizon customers can log-in to their account and authorize a MAC address (I'm sure it will be made easy), or a quick credit-card transaction will activate service.
I highly doubt you would ever have to actually "touch" the phone-booth. Just get close, flip the lid on your powerbook, have Safari auto-fill your authorization and away you go.
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
w00t w00t!! waste those mod points!!
Mod this post up. sure it is offtopic, but damn its funny. stop being little nazi bitches for once.
You can do better than that.
For further proof that they're not the BFG you imply, there's also their plan to sell customer's calling records: see the EPIC letter.
Egads, I've turned into a bitter Slashdot geek.
Josh
heh heh heh
Please. Wires are only marginally more secure than wireless - you can sniff ethernet cables with a directional antenna, too, and there's a much lower tech inductive couple mechanism for your phones.
Saying wireless is insecure should be like saying a wire is insecure. A wire IS insecure, if it's connected to anything. You should always assume wired and wireless networks have been compromised and do the only intelligent thing: Hard transparent encryption (ssh killed the telnet star, like you said) from end to end. There are many well-documented means for doing this on wireless networks. The only additional attack you might be vulerable to is DOS attacks - and you can usually find the person doing it and beat them with a bat. You don't get away from bandwidth DOS vulerablities with a wire, either.
There are many people running wireless in a production environment, myself being one of them. You just have to have the mind in gear before engaging your hands.
This could be easily automated for the masses, ala PPPoE. Try configuring that in linux or a *BSD, then try it with the install packages from most major DSL providers. Click, click, done. Implementing a daemon to do some sort of VPN through the hotspot could be made just as easy.
..don't panic
I'm aware of the real reason they don't want to comply... it creates more work for them. But, if it has the side of effect of benefiting me, great. They blocked port 80 because it was easier than tracking down vulnerable/infected web servers, and that upset me. I'm just taking the good with the bad.
Google doesn't index user sigs, so stop trying to "Google Bomb" with them.
It would be interesting to know what the decline in revenue payphones generate is over the last, say, 10 years. Anyone have info on that?
At least, I assume they have declined in revenue (at least figuring in for inflation and the price level). Maybe usage statistics would be more of an indication?
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
I could just imagine one guy stuffed in a phone booth with his laptop with a line of people forming down the street. "Hey, will you hurry up in there!?" "Just a sec - I'm busy downloading the latest fake Madonna MP3 from Kazaa in here!"
I thought pay phones were dead.
LOL could you imagine that??? That's HI-fucking-Larious.
Please, get back to watching Star Wars and/or Star Trek, you tool.
At least with the current system gas stations and convience stores get a percentage off of the pay phone revenue. I wonder if they will get any part of the revenue from the WiFi? If not, what is to keep them from just saying hey get that thing out of here?
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
"...pfft,more like Megabit"
-Anonymous Verizon Marketing Spokesman.
If you think
So...the same guys hawking phone cards will be more than happy to hook you up.
The article says they're "studying pricing plans." I wonder if they'll do a flat rate or what. I imagine they'd just put a DSL modem and a 802.11x box in each phone, and as we all know, once the cost of installing the base stations has been recovered, there's really almost no operating expense. They've got the DSLAMS in place around the city already and the could make support on the web only.
They're not likely to give it away, though. If they're smart they would tie it into their DSL service. They could provide one concurrent WiFi login per home DSL account. It could be your same login/password that you use for the crappy PPPoE service at home, and they could use the "captive firewall" as described above.
That might make me switch from Road Runner cable modem.
I can email CAA and send them a detailed description of where I am using mapquest.
Thank you Verizon.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Now the pawnshops near the darker, more secluded phone booths will have better, cheaper prices on handheld devices and laptops.
I like to see companies piggybacking new technologies onto existing infrastructure. That guy who was trying to cover the nation will fail because he has to set up nationwide infrastructure, whereas Verizon has a space in most cities.
In addition, payphones are probably already laid out through the city to provide optimal reception (payphones have to occur at certain places and every so often). Also, not having to rent out new space in Manhattan is worth its weight in gold. The cabling is already in place, they just need to add a $30 piece of hardware to the top, and they'll probably use a large antenna to ensure a decent line of sight. The only thing left is to make them tamper-proof (fortress router anyone?).
I don't know how this would be done, but I'm sure it's possible. What if someone were to place some signal strengthener/extension so they can use the WiFi network while in their apartment right down the street from the payphone?
Why not combine this with a packaged VOIP service.. beats standing in line for a pay phone right? stay within 50 feet or so of the phone, break out your laptop and makes calls via VOIP. yes i know my sig is broken.
magnanomous.
Good to see public phones may have a use after all...at least the space the consume. I wondered the other day what was to become of all these pay phones as many people have cells, except me. Good idea.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
I know nothing. Lets be clear. I beg your forgiveness if this is a stupid comment.
But...............
Is there any way someone could steal credit cards by hiding a laptop within a hotspot sniffing packets and recording the transmissions?
It occurs to me that you know that anytime someone boots up into this thing they are using a credit card. It is kind of hard to resist such an idea.
The most anyone could do is get past the authentication, so Verizon loses a little money, it's not a big deal. That certainly isn't havoc in my book.
Now what would be interesting is to have that wifi dsl and then also do an ad-hoc network and allow several people to get on through their own little gateway. Brings down the cost quite a bit I'd think...
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
Wow. Are there really that many in New York? In Chicago, they've all but disappeared. There are still some inside buildings, and maybe that's what Verizon is targeting, but you can walk for many, many, many blocks before stumbling across one outside. I only remember seeing a couple in the entire Loop.
You are going to steal from Matt Groening at least give him some credit.
Cheese and crackers, have you read the balance sheet lately? Verizon is up to its eyes in debt and its income won't cover financing costs, let alone the principal.
From the MCI / Worldcom adventure, they realize that the courts are going to let telecoms go into bankruptcy and wipe out debt. Since all of that investment in the 1990's is only returning 2.5% -- not enough to cover the financing -- they may as well build all they can in new and potentially profitable technology (wireless) and grab broadband market share (cheap DSL) before declaring bankruptcy.
They will continue to build infrastructure as long as there are creditors foolish enough to lend them money.
Will my red box work with this?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I don't want to be a bummer.. but there are a lot of factual errors in this post.
A switch will not protect you, and an attacker is certainly not screwed if a switch is in place. A switch is NOT a security measure, not in the least.
Look up ettercap, and read about arp spoofing / arp poisoning.
It is highly effecitve, and extremely easy to do... I can plug into your switched network, redirect all traffic destined for any computer or computer(s) I want (including something really interesting like your gateway, so I can see all internet traffic), analyze/sniff/steal/modify it, then send it on the way to where it's supposed to be. You won't notice.
Thinking switches == preventing sniffing attacks is a common mistake made by those new to the concept of switches.
There are other reasons why switches don't help... switch logic is generally (but not necessarily) like a hub that learns what NOT to do. If it doesn't know where a certain mac address is, most switches will broadcast the packet to all ports (otherwise, they aren't acting transparently). A switch is a way to squeeze more traffic out of a lan.. a way to deal with congestion.. not a security device. You can trick many switches into broadcasting all traffic by simply arp spamming them to fill up the switching tables with bunk.
That is still crude, compaerd to arp poisoning, which doesn't involve manipulating the switch in the least...
Speaking of "TCP is not secure ofver wifi and is not always secure over ethernet" is inaccurate.
Ethernet is not a security layer. neither is tcp. TCP Is *never* secure. Security happens at other layers.. ipsec, secure tunnels, etc.
The 3-way-handshake has nothing to do with security.
PPPoE does not strip the ppp stuff from the frame and route the ethernet packet.... it allows a PPP session to be created , usually to an access server of sorts, via ethernet protocols, which then removes the PPP layer to be left with whichever protocols were sent via PPP.. usual IP, and then does whatever it is configured to do with that particular protocol (such as routing IP)
If you want it in terms of encapsulation it's
(Ethernet(PPPoE(IP))) (could be ipx instead of ip, or any other protocol, as PPP is general purpose)
PPPoE does not require physical connectivity.. it requires Ethernet connectivity. It works perfectly fine over any gizmos that work with ethernet. 802.11 family, proprietary wireless ethernet bridges, adsl bridges, cable modems, etcetera.
Wireless creates more risk by increasing the availability of your network to attackers.. that's it. There is no other magic reason it's more insecure than other protocols.
From a networking point of view, it is no more secure than wired ethernet. It's the same thing.
From a physical point of view, it is less secure, as it can allow someone in an area you don't have physical control over to access your network.
Because those adsl modems are really ethernet bridges of a sort, and it's easier for the isp to build a large layer 2 network than it is a large layer 3 network, what with changing topology and such. So they roll out a huge layer 2 network, then use PPPoE to move the actual data in question, as if it were a real dedicated circuit.
Cable providers, on the other hand, treat their networks as a more static, and use things like dhcp instead.. they don't need pppoe (and they were around earlier.... and had some nifty dhcp + filtering hacks)
...this will keep payphones from going extinct, and maybe even bring them back where they've disappeared. That'd be cool. Maybe they could even roll out a lower bandwidth version for inexpensive pay-as-you-use internet, just to get email and stuff.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Hey, you know with a phone booth, mounting the antenna on top of it would probably help prevent loss of signal. When I'm far away from my WAP, if I sit directly between my PowerBook and my WAP, the PowerBook looses its connection. Elevating the antenna may help prevent that from occuring, and I do beleive phone booths are tall enough to have some effect.
That's what Japan's been doing to great success for years and years. They coupled iMode transmitters with Pay Phone towers and offered better cell phone service to their customers.
WiFi - way to go
I wonder if, as a paying Verizon DSL subscriber in NYC, they'll give me access to this for free or a discount?
Wireless ISPs have to have some kind of mutual pricing scheme or its just not going to take off. Here in Chicago there are more than a few wireless providers, each taking a very small chunk of the city. Say I wanted wifi access at the coffeeshop next door I'd have to pay x amount per month or a pay for a punishing day pass price. The other coffeeshop or the wifi at O'Hare wants my money also, but I'm sure as heck not paying all three of them a month. That would be like $100 just for occasional wireless access.
Wifi cannot be sold like this. Its like a different owner for every cell phone cell in the city. "Oh so you drove into my cell, pay $30 a month buddy!"
There is a huge need for some kind of central billing authority that all these ISPs can share. Its this, spotty coverage, or some big monopoly is going to waltz in and buy all these small providers.
Considering that 802.11's range is exremely limited I don't see how anyone could be making real money off of it when it comes to in-store access. The coffeeshop has one lousy AP and even with a kick-ass 802.11 card you can't get much further than the curb outside the store. I'd much rather see business treat wifi as a service for its customers like free newspapers, bathrooms, etc. A DSL line and an AP and some authentication scheme isn't that expensive. I'd much rather pay a couple pennies extra per cup of coffee than pay yet another wireless provider.
Before I needed 2600Hz to get free phone calls--but it was integrated into my Cap'N Crunch whistle, so it was no big deal.
Now I need 2.4Ghz to get free Internet, and I can only get it integrated with a new Centrino processor. So much for 'technology for the masses'.
(In all seriousness, though, this is a kind of a wet dream for 2600NYC and anyone else who figures out how to h4xor the payphone network)
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
You attempt things that you do not even plan because of your extreme stupidity.
Doesn't sex with kangaroos and wallabies get old after a while?
Tech Public Policy stuff
how secure can this be for the people using it the way this is described? seems like its very apt to be very open to monitoring by vultures as it were.
how do you know the access point your using is actually the pay phone's?
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
isn't this just going to generate a bucket load of radio "noise", that will make Wireless networks of businesses harder to setup/maintain..
I really don't think that this tech was meant to be used in such a "overpopulated" way..
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
Not trying to be snarky but if you break out your TiBook on any random NYC street and spend more time looking at your screen than at the people around you, you'll have it jacked right quick. If Verizon thinks that people will be logging in while on the street, I doubt it. Maybe from the cafe nearby?
Try sheep!
Tech Public Policy stuff
I fucking hate Canada.
Chicken fried butter sticks? Do
Now the drug dealers hanging out on the corner can use their laptops for drug transactions...and keep track of their inventory/order more product at the same time!
Fiction, my friend. Like santa-claus.
0x or or snor perron?!
This is what is so important about internet... That any product, whatever it is good or bad is able to connect. Wireless networks is a new trace. I don't belive in free public wireless...We'll at some time have to pay for this service. I think that important data communications have became, the goverment should pay for wireless. Then we can ensure free access, and so on, and all'll be paying. Depending on the coverage of each node, it would not require that huge amount of transmitters in flat land. It is also important in the future that we ensure that all standars are open, and controlled by non-profit organizations. this way, we can ensure that anyone have access. Maybe the right to communicate, has turned into the right to send emails? Freedom of speach must also be preserved...
Assembling etherkillers for fun an profit
But with WiFi, you'll be hanging around these hotspot phone booths with your flashy PDA. You might as well have a sign over your head.
And just who the fuck are you, faggot?
you insensitive clod!.
I'm smarter than the average bear.
This is great! Now, Neo won't actually have to pick up the pay phone to leave the Matrix, he merely has to be within WiFi range of one. This could also be a boone for citizens of Zion who are occassional Matrix visitors, and have trouble finding an exit.
I know if I could get mobile internet access on my laptop just by being having Verison do my cell phone, I would switch in a second.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Here is an idea to solve the "how do I pay for this access" problem as it relates to pay phone based WiFi (not a general solution for roaming)...
You walk up to the new WiFi phone, press a special button (marked WiFi), swipe your credit card. Your laptop, PDA, whatever, is set up for DHCP and grabs the next IP address that is freed up from the phone/AP.
Then you are charged per minute with some minimum time charge ($1 for the first 10 minutes then $0.10 per minute after that).
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
I have a few comments to this, mostly stemming from being a long-time former NYer....
1. is this to be in what NYers call NYC (Manhattan) or NYC in what the NYC government calls NYC (The 5 boroughs, Including Manhattan). Typically It means Manhattan, Which has a majority of the businesses, and relatively few residents. (fourth most populous borough in NYC, following Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, if you count residents). A majority of the pay phones are in Manhattan, but like all other telcom in the city had been "deregulated" years ago.
2. This is an attempt to take away the 'hot spot' advantage that T-mobile has with its Starbucks Affiliation. In NYC, they seem to be on every block, Unlike seattle (where they seem to have two on every block).
3. NYC seems to have a plethora of pay phones in NYC, and odd Dead zones as well, Particularly after the loss of the WTC which was the basis of a lot of cell traffic (and TV reception, and Phone exchanges, Electric substations, etc). Why bother with WIFI when verizon cant even get cell phones working properly on 68th and First Avenue?
"the difference between myself and a madman is that I am not mad" -Salvadore Dali
Access points at a payphone seems silly in the age of GPRS. I think most folks would rather have a GPRS/Bluetooth/Wi Fi combo card something like a Nokia D211 in their laptop. This way you could have solid coverage, but when you roll up into a HotSpot its free. Use a proxy and frame the content with ads. Maybe Verizion was thinking payphones inside of facilities, but T Mobile is aready making in-roads here with h-spots in airports, starbux,kinkos, etc.. I hated coming back to the States. I wish I brought my Pocket PC/GSM phone with instead of selling it, but T-mobile was just getting foot hold in Mid-West. I just hate hauling all this fscking equipment around(2way pager,palm,cell phone,laptop). At some point maybe the EU handie centric view will converge with the NA WiFi craze.
Going on a year with no copper, and loving it. I think the abilitity to do so depends on where you live, your carrier, etc. It's been two years since I used a payphone, and that was b/c I was outside of the country prior to GSM phones becomeing available in the US.
I only have a cell phone, no wired line. I have two roommates sharing a house, and we've all got our individual cells. If we had a landline, we'd have to worry about getting messages to the right person, who pays what part of the bill, etc. etc. Just an extra bill I'd have to pay at the end of the month. It's a lot easier for there not to be a landline at all. Coverage where I live is great, reception is great, I've never had a problem. When I talk to my parents on my cell, there is a lot of static-- because they live out in the country with ancient copper, and the static on their line makes ME go "What, What did you say?" Whether it's on my cell, or on my copper line at work.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.