Photo: CC/Niall Kennedy
Universal Hub relays the news that Boston’s languishing municipal Wi-Fi project–that is, its government-run wireless internet service–has been reinvented as an ad-hoc, mesh network:
The effort initially focused on traditional wireless access points (like the ones you can see on lightpoles all over Brookline), but organizers realized that would prove impossibly expensive and so are now using a “mesh” approach, in which each subscriber’s computer is essentially equipped to act as an access point through a cheapo router. The result: Free WiFi in parts of the Fenway.
This is not likely to be good news for individual privacy and security.
First, consider the following:
- Muni Wi-Fi projects in other cities have been marred by conflicts of interest and mismanagement
- Users in other cities are already being charged for what they were told was going to be “free” access
- Boston is among the cities planning to piggyback police and other government communications onto its muni Wi-Fi network. (This “dual use” for the network has the potential to bring Homeland Security dollars into the city’s coffers.)
Now, for the “ad-hoc” piece:
- Some of the equipment Boston will be using was developed with money from sources with direct ties to the intelligence community.
- Ad-hoc networks were not created with privacy and security in-mind. Rather, the technology was first deployed in vineyards and parking lots.
- Ad-hoc wireless networks are more prone to unreliable connections and speeds–which means the folks on Mission Hill, and in Boston’s other poor neighborhoods, will be getting less service for their money.
- Cheap wireless equipment might also be more vulnerable to backdoor attacks.
