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Open Park Project Gives Free Wi-Fi to Capitol Hill
mindless4210 writes "The Open Park Project has made free Wi-Fi internet access available to anyone around the Supreme Court, Library of Congress, and Capitol Visitor's Center. "It's a hotspot for democracy," said Greg Staple, Open Park's co-founder. The non-profit organization has also received a significant donation of Wi-Fi equipment from Tropos Networks, which it plans to use to establish a mesh of free hotspots across the National Mall."
What kind of bandwidth can you get on the WiFi, measured by Libraries of Congress?
First correct reply gets a cookie.
now I can receive SPAM while I am around Supreme Court, Library of Congress, and Capitol Visitor's Center.
On the positive side, I can go in the supreme court sue the spammer.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Hordes of geeky types hanging around the Mall with their laptops trying to hack into Senator's and each other's PCs.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Now I can anonymously hack into the government while sitting right in front of a government building!
"free Wi-Fi internet access available to anyone around the Supreme Court, Library of Congress, and Capitol Visitor's Center."
That's all we need: A flock of music pirates, child porographers, warez people, movie pirates, huge doom or quake mulitplayers all in one area...
Hmmm actually, it sounds like a party, lets go!
Time to get the nice 10db 802.11 antenna up on the jeep, park nearby and soak up the packets!
1.) Park Car/hangout with laptop, with linux->kismet->dsniff
2.) Soak up logins/passwords, web surfing (pr0n), instant messaging habits of congressmen, aids, lobbyists etc
3.) PROFIT!
Sounds like a prime location for some internal investigating...Maybe the FBI has a wireless varient of the "Carnivore" blackbox.
Creative Demolition
One of the arguments for government censorship of broadcast television and radio is 'pervasiveness'. That is, since radio and television broadcast signals can come into the home 'uninvited' and received into the eyes and ears of children, the government must provide a filter. As free Wi-Fi access points like this become more ubiquitous, giving internet access a similar pervasiveness, it will be interesting to see if internet censorship gains more support.
They've been pretty dangerous with LANs, I don't want to think about open/poorly encrypted WiFi.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Just some interesting points from their AUP:
"Open Park supports the free flow of information and ideas over the Internet." but conversely
"THE USE OF THE SERVICE FOR THE FOLLOWING ACTIVITIES IS PROHIBITED:"
* "Obscene or Indecent Speech or Materials"
* "Defamatory or Abusive Language" (we aren't allowed to swear?)
* "Forging of Headers" does this mean I can't change my User Agent ID to pretend to be M$IE?
* "Hacking" - I can't program?!? oh wait they mean cracking: "Accessing illegally or without authorization computers, accounts, equipment or networks belonging to another party, or attempting to penetrate security measures of another system." but for some reason it doesn't allow alot of network diagnostic tools to be used: "This includes any activity...including, but not limited to, port scans, stealthscans, or other information gathering activity."
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It seems to be the following would be more appropriate: You are not to use our network to do anything illegal or take "actions that may lead to liability for Open Park".
Why can't they just say that instead of all this legalese mumbo jumbo?
groklaw, wired and slashdot. The holy trinity of work based time wasting.
Lots of folks besides the USG will have their ears perked right up. Israel, China, and the Soviets come to mind.
Like the terrorists and our other enemies won't be sifting through that network data looking for gold.
Sorry, maybe I read too much bad sci-fi. It just seems to me that this free stuff, while it might be a wonderful thing, could be used against someone pretty easily.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.