It's from the government, but it's NOT here to help you.

Very interesting, what happened in Coshocton County, Ohio according to both Glenn Fleishman at Wi-Fi Networking News and an on-the-scene newspaper, when media conglomerate Sony contacted the operator of the county's city-block-sized free hotzone with regard to an alleged copyright infringement by a user of the network who supposedly downloaded a movie. The operator notified county officials, who in the grand tradition of government bureaucrats everywhere at every level, promptly proceeded to panic, wet themselves and completely shut the hotspot down.

Now where do we start with this? Obviously neither the county nor the operator was exposed to any potential liability to the copyright holder, since ISPs are exempt from responsibility for their users' actions in this regard. Perhaps if they'd paused to take a deep breath and then put in a call to the county attorney before dashing to the restroom, these officials would have at least saved themselves from the well-deserved roasting they're receiving in the blogosphere for their rashness.

Then again, maybe this is just a belated example of why "muni-fi"-large-scale networks planned or in some cases actually set up by local governments during Wi-Fi's first great wave-never panned out. Not counting the local public libraries-which, of course, are a special case-the only publicly run hotspot I'm aware of locally is the one up at KCI Airport-and even it was originally built and operated by Sprint. The bureaucratic mindset is, sadly, one firmly ensconced in the twentieth century or earlier, and thus not well suited to the challenge of providing such services despite gallant efforts to do so earlier this decade.

Too bad.

Oh, and to ath64...One is tempted to suggest that had one bought a Mac to start with, one would not face the need to point out what one sees as the shortcomings of the current product line, would one?