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."

Interesting

[NEOtaku17]

Sounds like a prime location for some internal investigating...Maybe the FBI has a wireless varient of the "Carnivore" blackbox.

The AUP

[Artega VH]

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."

---
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?

Use of Limited Resource

[pavon]

It is also the weaker of the arguments. While some radio waves come into you house uninvited, they are not recieved by your eyes unless you deliberately invite the signal to be displayed on your television. Really what this argument is saying is that it is okay to sell whatever you want but should be restricted from giving certain things away, which is rubbish.

The stronger argument is that the broadcast frequencies are limited resource owned collectively by the people and thus regulated according to the will of the people.

With broadcast television, only one person can broadcast on a single frequency, and thus the number of broadcasters is limited. Therfore, content is also limited and thus suitable to be regulated by the will of the people.

However, this is not the case with the WiFi. While the airwaves it is using are a limited resource, the content is not. Therefore regulating the proper use of the airwaves is justified, but regulating the content is not.

Furthermore, the very fact that there are a limited number of broadcast TV, and an unlimited number of websites makes it possible to censor broadcast TV and makes completely impossible to censor the web. So not only is the argument flawed, any attempts to do so will have no real effect (except for creating more unevenly applied laws).

Re:Free for the home that is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah - uh, I mean that some focus should be given to creating a public wireless network that reaches homes and offices. I'm a little bias since I am in NYC, but at least in dense urban areas there would be a high return on investment. I would be happy to give my $600 a year in cable fees to a public wireless project that reaches residences. While its FREE in the parks its not going to be widely used.

I do stand corrected - slightly. I forgot about the great use of having a wireless network for rapid assembly/ group mobilization. Protests using wireless to dynamically adjust to changing security/ police opression conditions would be interesting. If you had the coordination. ...ok...now I am putting myself to sleep.