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London's Mayor Promises London-Wide Wireless For 2012 Olympics
Pax681 writes "[London Mayor] Boris Johnson declared that London will have all bus stops and lamp posts Wi-Fi enabled by 2012 for the Olympics. In an article on Tech Eye, Boris waxes lyrical (or as lyrical as he can get) about how it would be done at a Google Zeitgeist event in Hertfordshire. These would be public Wi-Fi hotpots; as such, would these break the new law on open access points? Would they be just the thing for people to use to infringe with impunity and anonymously bypass the chances of running foul of the Digital Economy Act?"
For whoever can download the Al Queda Operators Manual while at the table next to the Mayor.
You may also get a congratulatory beating.
Someone needs to pirate the Olympics on this wireless.
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
how many lamp-posts there are in London? He's a well-meaning right-wing buffoon.
So, one branch of the government (central) is a bunch of nazi control freaks, and another (local) is reasonable?
But too bad, it's the central one who gets to issue laws, and sadly, in this case it looks like the local initiative will be ruled illegal.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
What a load of Wiff-Waff!
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
To the joy of nerds everywhere in the UK, it seems like the Digital Britain bill might not last very long with the current Government.
Whether or not Cameron and the conservatives can splinter away from Murdoch enough to let this happen remains to be seen, but I am currently naive enough to be genuinely optimistic about the results of having liberals in power for the first time in over a century.
My UID is prime. Is yours?
I thought open WiFi was illegal in the EU?
I agree that wires can be dangerous to your health when you stumble over them, but are they really ready to run all systems from battery and recharge using induction?
Sorry, couldn't refuse...
I recall Telstra Australia coming up with a plan to put WIFI in all the old payphone booths, instead of junking them beacuse everyone was going to mobiles (but may now swing back, thaks to cancer concerns). I don't know if it took off or not. Any other readers know?
Waiting for the other shoe to...
They have to build out the wireless network to feed back the images from the new security camera on every lamppost anyway..
Why not install the first ones around the Highbury and Kings Cross areas...
Everyone in England thinks he is a buffoon, who still somehow manages to earn a very high salary indeed as an editor, get his government pay and somehow won the election for Major from Ken Livingston (who himself was an outsider, a left wing socialist who ran against his own party candidate when right wing "labour" Tony Blair was still somewhat popular).
Search for "boris hignfy" on youtube, seriously funny stuff. The guy gets away with gaffs that people have torn Bush and Blair apart for. NO journalist even dares to jump on any slight mis pronunciation or botched fact Boris makes. It is BRILLIANT. He has given himself a license to say what he wants to say and not have to worry about weighing every word on a silver platter. Nobody will ruin his career because he "claimed to have invented the internet" or he mixed up the date the US declared independence.
Watch his appearances on the show and then realize he makes more money then you ever will.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
FTA "Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet, was a Londoner and “so we claim paternity of the internet”.
ugh...It's embarrassing to be a Londoner with a Mayor that spouts out this kind of inaccurate tripe. Besides, everyone knows Al Gore invented the internet.
Nah, parent was just being a smartass; not that I'm wrong, mind you.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Would they be just the thing for people to use to infringe with impunity and anonymously bypass the chances of running foul of the Digital Economy Act?
Not necessarily... there are ways of having public WiFi without letting everyone use it anonymously. Singapore has pretty much full coverage, but to use the public hotspots you need to create an account, and your account has to be tied to a cell phone number (with a confirmation text that you have to respond to). Now I'm sure a clever person could find ways around the system, but it's still just another barrier. I wouldn't be suprised if London did something similar- from TFA:
Not only will this allow people walking the streets to access the wi-fi connections, but it will also allow local homes access too. This will most likely require some sort of payment, however, but may be significantly cheaper than current packages offered through internet service providers.
If it's going to be payment system, then there has to be some sort of personal account that people can create (and the ability to individually monitor people can then be spun as an added bonus).
And every phone box to be a TARDIS.
See you in the future Borya.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
Instead of investing money on this, they should have gotten better Olympic mascots. I mean, have you seen those weird assed things? What generic anime did they them out of? Wenlock and Mandeville, more like Angry and Creepy. They look like something you'd see pestering Scooby Doo.
hell i'd actually vote for him. he cant do worse than brown and he is crazy enough that i like him.
Boris 'waxing lyrical' goes something like this:
Er, well, yes, you see it's about, oh she's locked me out, er, so yes, you see you can't, oh sorry I seem to have spilled, er, so as I was saying, yes, please could you pass me the, yes, it's all about how much, oh, this cloth is soaked, yes, it's about how much you can really, oh thank you, I'll just clean that up...
(etc).
In short, he's the ultimate politician: Talk lots, say nothing.
As for free wifi - well, one wonders how this is really going to work. When we say 'free', so we mean 'after obtrusive registration', or 'free when you buy xyz' or what? When I think of 'free wireless', I think of an open hotspot I just tune to and get on the Intarwebs immediately. I suspect this won't be quite as easy as that.
However, now I've been reminded open wifi is 'illegal', I'll go home and set one up immediately. I've even got a big aerial for maximum range and signal quality. I just need to work out QoS so I don't get flooded out of my own broadband connection.
1) Get your works people to design set up and instal wireless devices. Make it an access point with no hoops to jump through. Call it good.
Here is how NOT to do it:
Partner with smoen hoping to leverage it to make money through people connecting.
That is what royally screwed Portland wi-fi. They partenerd witha company that want to sell an addition tier of faster service, wanted you to jump through there website, and generally made it too hard for most people to get onto.
Thanks Matt Lamp for funking that up. It was good to see your ass going out the door.
Had Portland designed the infrastructure and then did it themselves Portland would have open access.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"Free" London Wifi eh?
I am sure there will be no spying or monitoring, and that all privacy will be maintained. They certainly won't use that connection to infiltrate your computer to search for illegal files such as movies and music!
Though if they play the bond music every time you connect it might be worth it. That shit makes everything more exciting...
Easy to come out on top when you've been to Eton and Oxford, been a member of the same exclusive private drinking club as the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequor, and have nobility as your ancestors.
If social networking is as useful as it is supposed to be for getting you £250K jobs, this man is well connected...
Just put a wireless router with every security camera best coverage ever.
1 for each direction of the intersection.
Boris is what is known as a national treasure in the UK. That is, someone whose utterances should be greeted with an amused smile of appreciation, but is sometimes, maybe a lot of the time, very much on target and right. But usually not conventionally right, right in a sort of coming out of left field way. Boris is as likely to be heard making comparisons to ancient history, complete with Latin or Greek quotations in the original, as to opine on Wifi. Don't take this stuff too seriously. On some things, like the subway, Boris will be crisp, matter of fact, to the point, and obviously correct when you think about it. On other things, like these here lamposts, all Londoners will know this is Boris being a national treasure, and smile indulgently. There is a code for when to take Boris seriously, which is most of the time, and when to take Boris as joking, which is some of the time, and when to take Boris as being a national treasure, as in the present instance. In this case all Londoners know that he is not to be taken all that seriously. There will be some wifi, and there will be some lamposts. But no, the whole of London will not be blanketed with open relays, and Boris, as soon as someone explains that to him, will see immediately that it is not on.
How you have to see Boris, he is Mayor Koch, but in London. That is, he is like Koch was a real New Yorker, Boris is a real Londoner. The code is different, but its the same animal. Like Koch, he will get elected over and over again. He's what the Londoners think of as one of us. Though, of course, he is not at all one of us in any real sense. But he is a real Londoner, and people look through differences of class and education, and see that. As they looked through Koch's differences from them and knew they were looking at a real New Yorker.