This is worse.

Disturbing story from the Kansas City Star about a homicide last summer.  Apparently the victim was sitting in his car in a restaurant parking lot using the establishment's Wi-Fi (either after hours or while only the drive-through was open) when he was accosted by a robber apparently attracted by the glow of his laptop's screen.  The victim resisted and was fatally shot; the stolen computer was eventually tracked down and suspects arrested.

While my sympathies are totally with the victim and his loved ones, I feel this should serve as a cautionary tale.  If you wouldn't feel safe walking alone or stopping your car somewhere at a certain time, you probably shouldn't whip out a laptop then and there either.  I imagine this poor fellow didn't have access at home for some reason, which is why he was out and about at that hour.  Anyone else in that same situation ought to consider that cheap dialup (or free dialup from NetZero, if you're running Windows and can get by with ten hours a month) is still around and can serve as a stopgap for your at-home hours.  Don't have a landline phone at home anymore?  Check with your cellular provider to see what they offer with regard to getting either your phone or both it and your laptop online, or perhaps look into the growing number of prepaid/pay-as-you-go mobile broadband options.

Incidentally, I can't think of any 24-hour venues that are unwired and offer inside service around the clock, which may be safer from a crime-prevention standpoint.  Can anyone else?

This is bad.

Burning off a few vacation days gave me the chance this morning to catch financial guru Clark Howard's somewhat belated take on the Firesheep/sidejacking situation.  As has been his wont, unfortunately, he showed once again that, just like a lot of other people when it comes to issues involving open Wi-Fi, he doesn't grasp what the real danger is-in this case, sites that use cookies for authentication and then transport them in the clear because all their pages aren't SSL-encrypted.  He again spouted his outdated "don't bank or shop when you're connected to open Wi-Fi" nonsense, a clear indication he doesn't understand that it's sites which don't collect or transmit sensitive financial information-mostly social networking venues like Facebook-that are susceptible to this exploit.  Any site that does in this day and age is going to have all its pages fully protected-or it won't have insurance coverage.

You've got to wonder-has anyone ever taught Howard how to use a search engine?  Try looking up "Firesheep," Clark.  Pay particular attention to its author's explanations of how it works and his motivations for creating it.  I think you may find them somewhat enlightening.  

Not on Uncle Sam's dime, you don't.

Given our disdain for getting entangled in politics here, I'd been pretty much ignoring the furor over the Wikileaks disclosures...until one of my periodic searches for Wi-Fi related news came across this report from Library Journal that the Library of Congress-which I didn't realize offered what is apparently free and open wireless access to its visitors- is completely blocking access to the entire Wikileaks site on that connection as well as on its own staff computers, giving this rationale on its blog.

Hmmm...interesting. Clearly the library is on solid ground as far as its own machines and staff-who, it should be remembered, are government employees-are concerned. However, a government agency's imposition of a prior restraint against published works not by preventing their publication but by prohibiting the public from reading them is somewhat troubling.

Can we expect a push in the new Congress to expand the Children's Internet Protection Act to unambiguously cover Internet access provided to patron-owned devices in public libraries receiving relevant federal funding and modify the categories of prohibited content just to handle this sort of situation? One certainly hopes not. It's bad enough that the Rehnquist Supreme Court sanctioned this kind of Chinese-style "we can't stop them from publishing it but we can stop you from reading it" form of censorship when it upheld CIPA in the first place. Granted, CIPA at present only covers (for the most part) material that doesn't enjoy First Amendment protection (I'm still not convinced that its definition of material "harmful to minors" won't eventually prove to be unconstitutionally vague). However, if we aren't careful, we could easily find ourselves on a steep and very slippery slope.

What's that, you say? Classified material, once leaked, isn't protected by the First Amendment? Well, what do you know? That's just what Rehnquist argued as an assistant attorney general when the Pentagon Papers were published. Too bad for him that the Supreme Court-then still presided over by his predecessor as Chief Justice, Warren Burger-didn't see it that way.

Whoops-missed the bus.

Sorry I didn't catch this tidbit from the Kansas City Business Journal way back in August:  Johnson County Transit has unwired buses on some of its routes. 

Strictly speaking, of course, these rolling hotspots aren't really free and open-you have to pay the fare to board-but I'm interested in how they're working out.  Seems they'd run into something of the same problem the airlines have had with trying to sell "fly-fi" on shorter routes; the less time you have to actually use the connection before arriving at your destination, the less likely you are to use it at all-or pay for it.  While additional money isn't involved on the buses, I still wonder how many riders will bother with booting up unless they're commuting a really long distance.

Any bus surfers out there care to weigh in with your experiences?

OK, OK-we get the message.

Borders
1664 West Chipman Road, Lee's Summit

802.11g
SSID: BORDERS

Well, they could have been a bit more subtle about things instead of inexorably shoving laptoppers and other Wi-Fi using patrons towards the Seattle's Best Coffee cafe at the store's south end (despite its address, it actually fronts toward the west) with its dearth of power outlets (I only see two along the south wall, and one of those is next to a chair without a table in front of it, meaning you'll have to actually top your lap with your laptop to use it).



Anyway, it's not all that bad a place to take a respite from all the Black Friday weekend hustle and bustle, as you can see.

So, Starbucks starts giving away their Wi-Fi on July 1 and...

...well, I'll let the Associated Press tell you.

And any coffeehouse proprietors still running closed or play-for-pay networks have one simple question to answer.  Why?

Biennial Off-Topic Rant for 2010

So here we are again on the first Tuesday after a Monday in November, and here I am again at my local public library branch/polling place after having sat for heaven knows how long waiting to use the single touch-screen electronic voting machine here.  Well, at least the wait wasn't as long as it was a couple of years ago.

I suppose we're going to have to see another presidential election like 2000 before leaders in both parties get serious about nationwide electoral modernization.  If astronauts can vote from orbit, why is it absolutely necessary for anyone to have to come in to a specific location only between 6 a. m. and 7 p. m. and suffer the twin ordeals of standing in line to have your registration checked, then waiting for the machine to become available?  And if anyone has a good argument as to why Missouri can't set up early voting as has become commonplace across the line in Kansas, I'd like to hear it.

Here's an interim goal towards full online voting-you have to know that's where things are headed-we should perhaps work towards.  Let voters come in and cast their ballots from their laptops or other wireless devices.  No, I mean it-set up a hotspot at the polling place with a secure login page where the voter can self-verify his or her registration, then be presented with an online ballot similar to the one he or she gets on the current voting-machine touchscreen.  Since voters will still have to physically come to the polls the potential some may see for fraud is reduced, and the effect should be the same as unwiring a library-voters without netbooks or Wi-Fi equipped smartphones shouldn't have to wait as long for a machine because those with such wireless devices won't need one.

Sure, it'll take a bit of work, but when has that ever been an excuse for not doing something worthwhile?

Well, it's a little more spooky than that.

For your Halloween reading pleasure, here's a bit more elaboration on the actual vulnerability that Firesheep exploits. I'm afraid it's scarier than I intimated below, because it's not so much login pages that aren't encrypted (although they remain just as dangerous), but sites designed to use cookies for session authentication-something I wasn't aware Web designers were still doing-which then stupidly send those cookies back and forth in the clear-even after a secure login on a properly HTTPS-encrypted page.

It's these particular inadvertently unencrypted cookies Firesheep grabs, and as has been pointed out elsewhere, limiting your Wi-Fi use to locked-down routers will only reduce your risk, not eliminate it, since you're of course still vulnerable to such "sidejacking" beyond the router-or even still on the LAN side of it in some cases. The only true solution for sites that still insist on tossing cookies around like this would be to encrypt all their pages that do so-which is precisely what Firesheep's author wants. He merely latched onto open Wi-Fi because it's the easiest venue for demonstrating the vulnerability.

So...will these site owners invest in more SSL certificates and the infrastructure and bandwidth to support them, or better yet leave cookies and the 1990s mindset they represent behind, now that the "cookies are safe" myth has been totally busted?

Stay tuned. And in the meantime I'd limit my use of the affected sites until each of them decides on a course of action and takes it.

No, the sky is NOT falling-it's ALREADY down

How interesting it's been to sit back and watch all the hair-pulling and other nonsense that's gone on over the release of the Firesheep extension for Firefox that according to some is the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse riding in at full gallop. Relax, everyone-it's just a rather unorthodox way of reminding everyone of what ath64 and I have begged, cajoled and preached for everyone to do since day 1 1/2-don't enter or access ANY sensitive information on ANY web page you're connected to over an open Wi-Fi link (or for that matter, connected to in ANY OTHER manner) unless that page is protected by SSL encryption or you're connecting through a virtual private network.

That's the bottom line, folks. And it's gratifying to note that Firesheep's author makes it clear he created the extension not to scare people away from free and open Wi-Fi, but to persuade the owners of at-risk websites to man up (or woman up as necessary, I guess) and get their sites properly HTTPS secured-as they should have done long ago, of course.

Charge up and come early

YWCA Corner Coffee Cafe
1017 North 6th Street, KCK

802.11g
SSID:  YWCA Public

Well, what do you know?  No sooner do we discover that the Kansas City, Kansas Public Library has eased its death grip on its wireless network-now if they'll just lose a bit of their anal-retentiveness and loosen up on the filtering and port blocking-than we get a lead to another free and open hotspot in downtown KCK-and here it is.

Two big downsides-no power outlets and it closes at 4:30 p. m.  On balance, however, I'm going to declare that the upsides-it's free, open and in the area of the metro where the need for it is greatest-carry the day.  It's on the east side of Sixth just north of Minnesota Avenue, so those south and west facing windows you're looking at will only be a problem late in the afternoon, and only if you sit next to them.

Half the Internet-better than none?

Kansas City Kansas Public Library
625 Minnesota Avenue, KCK

802.11a or 802.11g
SSID: KCKPLMAIN

Okay, the anonymous tip we received was at least partly correct. You don't need a library card to get online at KCKPL anymore. (I'll let ath64 know so the guide gets updated.) That said, they do ask for an e-mail address, as if anyone out there was dumb enough to provide a real one. And in order to get outside their firewall you'll still have to do something you really shouldn't-accept a self-signed encryption certificate (all the more reason not to give them your actual e-mail address, which in many if not most cases is also your Internet account username).

And that's just the bad news-it goes downhill from here. Perhaps users will take to calling KCK "Johnson County North" given this network's heavy filtering and blocking of ports needed for Usenet and server-based e-mail. Methinks this outlet won't get much usage unless its operators loosen up a little bit. No one else here but your lonesome correspondent just after 4 p. m. on a Friday before what will be a three-day weekend for many government workers around town. Take a hint, KCKPL. Cruise over to the KCMO Plaza branch and see how much more usage a hotspot gets when it's actually useful for something.

Yes, I know I shouldn't complain, what with how long it took this place to unwire to start with and then decide to open up to everyone. Nonetheless, Wyandotte County-particularly its eastern part-is in such dire need of these services that any crippling or restriction of them strikes me as something a public provider of them ought not be doing without a strong rationale. And if KCKPL has one I can't imagine what it would be.

Speaking of rationale...why on earth is there an open 802.11a access point here? You do know that "a" is not part of the Wi-Fi standard, don't you?

Oops...in my excitement I almost forgot to tell everyone to be sure to bring a fully-charged battery or two if despite all the above they decide to come anyway. Very little laptop-friendly seating within reach of power outlets.

Five years in, a pause to reflect-and look forward

It's somewhat hard for me to believe that it was actually five years ago this evening that, while sitting in the atrium of Crown Center hunched over the Athlon 64 laptop from which I took my online moniker, I composed this post and brought this blog into being.

Such a journey it's been-one during which wireless capability has gone from being either a luxury option available only on high-end laptops or an expensive and complicated add-on to a standard feature of any portable computing device, sort of like the evolution of automobile air conditioning we baby boomers witnessed during our formative years.  Indeed we have just recently observed the rise of an important new class of portables-the netbook-obviously fueled at least in part by the wireless revolution.  Just what we would expect at a time when, according to surveys, today's generation of college freshmen-born around 1992-have never used a telephone with a cord, or known a time when the World Wide Web did not exist.

And the number and variety of locations welcoming them with free, open wireless Internet access has relentlessly grown.  Since the start of this year alone both McDonald's and Starbucks have transitioned their national networks from fee to free, following the lead of bookstore chains Borders and Barnes and Noble.  Locally, we can be thankful for the Mid-Continent Public Library having made the same change as a counterpoint to the closed networks adopted or stubbornly held onto by several area library systems. 

So just where do things stand five years in? 

Clearly the battle between Free and Open versus Everything Else still rages.  The fact that, as mentioned above, there are still local public library systems (KCK, North Kansas CIty and Cass County) running closed or cardholder-only networks is disheartening-especially in the case of NKC, whose network started life as an open one.  Public libraries, currently striving to maintain their relevance in a world where information is increasingly a mouse click away as opposed to being ensconced behind a reference desk, would seem to have no excuse for this anymore.  Jumping would-be patrons through hoops would strike me as the last thing they should be doing today.  And while big national companies have embraced 21st-century thinking by tearing down Wi-Fi paywalls to draw in much-needed customers in this recession, it's unfortunate that too many local operators have proven slow on the uptake, clinging to outdated notions of wireless access as a product or service rather than an amenity.  Apparently the lesson of the two coffeehouse operators that failed in the Power and Light District location where Latté Land is now running a free and open network-right across the street from a Starbucks doing the same-hasn't sunk in.  The tide towards free and away from fee has clearly turned, however.  Those on the wrong side have a simple choice-get with the program or be swept away.

Sadly, it must be said that local Wi-Fi has not done as much to bridge the digital divide as one might have hoped.  With only one exception I'm aware of, the Bluford and Southeast branches of the KCMO Public Library are still the only hotspots in the traditional inner city on the Missouri side.  And the situation in Wyandotte County remains worse, with the KCK Library's network closed to non-cardholders and essentially nothing else between the state line and the speedway.  It comes as no surprise therefore that recent surveys indicate the most prevalent method of Internet access in these areas is via cellular phone-the electronic equivalent of payday loan and "rent-to-own" stores and buy-here-pay-here used car lots.  Are community leaders there concerned at all about this?  If not, they should be.  Especially with the economy in the shape it's in, it should be clear that outside investment won't come to the rescue; after all, it hasn't up until now.  Those who live there-particularly the entrepreneurs and the other ambitious and forward-looking individuals among them-are going to need to solve this problem themselves, along the lines of either the large-scale community networks once envisioned during Wi-Fi's infancy, or more likely a partnership arrangement offering help to new or existing establishments in the area to unwire.  Such collective efforts often failed elsewhere because the marketplace obviated the need for them.  That has not happened and does not appear to be happening in this case, so community initiative here would truly be filling a void.

And what of the future? 

Truly mobile alternatives to fixed-site Wi-Fi grow cheaper all the time, but I think we're still a long way from anything replacing it.  Anyone who really has a great need for genuine on-the-go Internet access is already paying for it, and they'll always pay more than those of us who can get by with 24/7 wired backhaul to our home router and an occasional stop at a favorite hotspot.  The "white space" proposal the FCC recently signed off on is intriguing, but if the Big Telecom incumbents simply take over this technology-as a possible replacement for running copper over the "last mile" to subscriber locations in addition to providing mobile service, as some "4G" cellular providers are doing now-why wouldn't fixed site operators merely adopt it to provide backhaul for their existing routers?  The incumbents would have to give away access to compete, and it would, it is hoped, become clear to them that it'd be much better to keep doing what they're doing now-join the Wi-Fiers rather than try to beat them.  They're doing a land-office business selling backhaul over copper and fiber currently.  If it ain't broke, why fix it?

No, wireless Internet hotspots aren't going anywhere anytime soon.  And neither is this blog.  We'll keep our eyes on the news and our laptops at the ready to bring you the latest, whether a review of a recently unwired location or our take on current events or technological, legal or social developments that could have an impact on when, where and how you go online away from home.

Again, this last half-decade has been quite a journey.  Thanks so much for coming along.

Would you believe...

Latté Land
1201 Main, Kansas City

802.11g
SSID:  Latteland

Well, the great staredown between the owners of this coffeehouse chain and the pashas of the Power and Light District is finally over, and now the titanic tiff between the aforementioned chain and That Big National Brand With A Location Across The Street is joined.  And for the sake of the home team one can only sincerely hope that what happened when I dropped in this afternoon is not a harbinger of things to come.

After verifying the presence of an open router and noting the SSID, I ordered up. But no sooner had I taken my small mocha in hand and started for a chair close to one of the many convenient power outlets along the walls of this obviously intentionally laptop-friendly location than the lights went out and the fire alarm started blaring.  It was bad enough that it was already twenty past five and the place closes at 6.  I ended up having to finish my drink on the sidewalk after it was suggested the premises should be evacuated "just in case."  Not that the management can really be blamed for being so cautious in these litigious days, of course, and besides, the power apparently went out to the entire block, indicating an issue beyond their control.  However, it's definitely not the sort of thing I'd be comfortable with if I were in a life-or-death struggle against the biggest competitor in my field without getting a thorough explanation from the responsible party or parties and assurances that it won't happen again.

Anyway, before the "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?" moment, I did make note of the aforementioned power outlets liberally sprinkled along the walls.  Despite the corresponding seating being right up against the windows for the most part, remember that this location sits in the heart of downtown surrounded by much taller buildings, and since the windows face north and west they won't get direct sunlight except perhaps briefly late in the day. 

And apologies for not being able to borrow Macenstein's cell phone camera.  Perhaps, unlike Mac, I ought to consider actually going ahead and digging my ancient SLR lenses out and finding a digital body to pair them with.

Well looky here, will you?

Guess which public library system around town no longer appears to be ashamed of the fact that its locations are all unwired.  

Took them long enough, if you ask me.  About a year and a half, I think.

Now how much longer do you think it'll be before they provide a bit of useful information to prospective users-like the SSID, maybe?  Or the fact that access is free and open to everyone?  A short how-to-connect tutorial for new and inexperienced laptop owners might also be appreciated.  And, of course, adding the standard declaration and disclaimer that the relevant portions of the library's acceptable use policy apply to Wi-Fi users and that they're on their own as far as tech support and security are concerned would serve to keep the lawyers happy-which is why I'd look for this last change to show up well before the next website makeover.

Oops-how'd I miss THIS?

For more than a month, in fact. Anyway, there's still hope for locally-owned free and open Wi-Fi in the Power and Light District, according to the Kansas City Star's Joyce Smith.

You'll have to scroll down a bit to find the relevant portion of the story, but in a nutshell Lattéland (Smith added the accent over the "e," which is why I didn't find the story right away via a search) and Cordish were at last report trying to hash out a deal for the 12th and Main location where the local chain was originally scheduled to go in-and in which another operator-well, a pair of operators, actually-running a closed network subsequently crashed and burned.

With the Starbucks across the street now free and open, it'll be interesting to see if they really go ahead and take on the 800-pound gorilla, and who's left standing afterward.

The location was still dark as of Friday. Stay tuned.

Let freedom ring!

Starbucks Coffee
4101 Main, Kansas City

802.11g
SSID: attwifi

Believe it, everyone: Just click on the now-standard AT&T terms-of-service acceptance button and you're surfing for free at Starbucks. If you need power at this particular location, you'll have to sit towards the front-which may be a bit problematical late in the day, since those windows you see in this rather snazzily uploaded cell-phone camera picture face west.

And to think I seriously contemplated throwing several grand at a pro-quality digital Nikon to work with all those quarter-century old SLR lenses I've still got stuck away somewhere. Isn't modern technology wonderful?

Nag, nag, nag...

Finally got to stop in at the renovated Bluford branch of the KCMO Public Library, and kudos to everyone involved for a splendid redo-except, of course, for the fact that there appears to be only a single table wired for power, and it's shunted over towards the west side of the building next to a very LCD-unfriendly bay window.  In a pinch, it might accommodate four users, but it seems even the management doesn't have confidence in that, since there are only three chairs.

Come on, people! It's 2010, for crying out loud.  Laptop users really shouldn't still be an afterthought by now.  

And from the looks of things, with every one of your public-access desktops occupied, I'd say you could use all the bring-your-own-computer patrons you can get.

Wonder what took them so long?

Associated Press:  Starbucks joins the free world.

Of course, Glenn Fleishman at Wi-Fi Networking News has a little to say about it as well.

Fleishman, in fact, follows up with this intriguing post on the potential effects of all this that's also worth a read.

What I find most interesting is his observation that this leaves AT&T with only 1,000 play-for-pay locations as opposed to twenty times that many that are now free and open.  One can only wonder how long that situation will prevail.

I'm also eager to see how many local establishments running closed networks will continue to do so in the face of this move by their competition.  If neither Starbucks nor McDonald's is worried about "campers," why should they still be afraid? 

Look for reviews here soon after the paywall falls on July 1.

Fast food for thought?

My curiosity piqued by ath64's mention of bookstores as hotspots on the guide page, I decided to conduct a brief expedition to some of the bigger locally owned independent locations in search of Wi-Fi signals. Sadly, there weren't any-and perhaps more sadly, even if there had been they would likely not have been of much use to a customer.

I couldn't help contrasting the claustrophobic atmosphere of the locals-narrow passageways amidst too many books crammed into too little floor space-with the much more relaxed and inviting look of the big chains. One wonders if this is because Kansas City is too small a market to support an independent bookstore that could afford premises large enough to give the big boys a run for their money with regard to amenities like Wi-Fi and convenient places to sit and use it. Can anyone imagine an establishment like Politics and Prose in Washington D. C.-a listed hotspot on wififreespot and a place regular viewers of C-SPAN's Book TV are familiar with as the location of frequent broadcasts of author appearances-flourishing here? As reluctant as I am to admit it, I can't.

No, I think we're consigned to the second tier when it comes to bookstores-the nationals and their big boxes if we want all the bells and whistles, and the few surviving locals out of either loyalty or special needs such as works by regional authors or the like. And if the pundits who argue that we are in the end times of the era of the printed word are right, things are already as good as they'll ever be, and will only get worse from here. Too bad.

Well, if McDonald's isn't going to do it...

Burger King
4351 Blue Parkway, Kansas City

802.11g
SSID:  BKHotSpot 

Perhaps, as Macenstein intimated in a recent post, it was premature to suggest that the decision of the Empire of the Golden Arches to give away its Wi-Fi would be a boon to underserved areas, given that (as I'm embarrassed to admit I'd forgotten) there really aren't many Mickey D locations left in those parts of town where the need is greatest.  

Therefore it's gratifying to note that this newest Burger King location, in the Shops on Blue Parkway center between Cleveland and Elmwood, is not only unwired but seems to have been designed at least in part with laptoppers in mind.  There are at least three pairs of power outlets along each of the east and west walls, so finding a seat next to one shouldn't be a problem unless the place is really crowded.  The only potential issue would be the windows, especially early and late when the sun is low.  At other times, you may simply need to let your eyes adapt for a bit.

Oh, by the way...

...I haven't seen anyone surfing on an iPad while out and about yet.  Has anyone else?

Nose...spite...face...

The depressingly long list of locations that for whatever reasons are purveying Wi-Fi via closed networks continues to grow, as a brief visit to a recently opened River Market coffeehouse yesterday served to demonstrate.  Maybe-just maybe-I ought to keep my mouth shut, but having had to dig out my old backup laptop to perform the Patch Tuesday ritual reminded me of an issue that I'm not sure many of the proprietors of these establishments have stopped to consider.

The Wi-Fi card in my old rig is a 2002-vintage model that can only support WEP encryption, not the much more secure WPA or WPA2 protocols that are currently state-of-the-art-which means that when the second Tuesday of each month rolls around I'm faced with the choice of whether to head into the den to harness the old gal directly to the router via an Ethernet cable, or hitch her to my slightly newer USB finder/adapter, which can do WPA, albeit only with difficulty and not all that reliably.

Which raises the question:  How many potential customers who might still patronize a business despite its Wi-Fi being play-for-pay are being deterred by their older equipment not being compatible with the WPA encryption virtually all of these establishments are employing? 

In other words, by closing their networks in the mistaken belief that doing so will increase per-customer revenue, how much money are they actually leaving on the table instead?

The devil (almost) made me do it.

I don't think I'll tell you exactly which hotspot I stopped by on the way home last night so as not to give the more nefariously minded among you any ideas. Anyway, just before closing up shop and heading for the parking lot I paused as I was about to turn off my MacBook Pro's radio and gave in to a long-held curiosity as to whether I could really connect to a Wi-Fi-enabled Hewlett Packard printer if its owner had inadvertently left its default peer-to-peer network named "hpsetup" running.

In a word, yes.

OS X quickly identified the printer-an OfficeJet model; I don't remember exactly which one-and installed the driver for it. Now if I'd wanted to be mean and nasty, I could have found an embarrassing image or some such and...oh, I just couldn't! Guess I really don't have that sort of thing in me when it comes right down to it.

So why mention this at all, you ask? Simple-as a warning to anyone reading this who owns a wireless-capable printer or multifunction device that you need to make sure its Wi-Fi is either disabled or secured lest someone not as resistant to temptation as yours truly happen to come within range. Flip Wilson may be gone, but Geraldine lives.

And if you're not old enough to remember Flip Wilson...well, that's why they invented Google, isn't it?

Oops, he did it again.

Back in September I took financial guru and radio/TV host Clark Howard to task for spreading the half-truth that activities which pose an identity-theft risk such as online banking and shopping are intrinsically more dangerous when done over an open Wi-Fi link.  Well...it's apparent he heard about that, because today when a caller asked him outright about the issue, he demurred a bit before breaking down and suggesting (drum roll followed by a rimshot, please) that she purchase a pay-as-you-go cellular aircard for her upcoming trip!

And now, once again, a brief pause for the facts.

Yes, it's true that someone sitting with a Wi-Fi capable device and the appropriate software within range of an open router can capture the data passing between your device and that router-just as it's true that someone tapping any network cable or monitoring any server between you and any remote host you're connected to can do the same thing.  It's this last point that continues to escape the Wi-Fi naysayers.  Locking down the access point will only protect you from someone sitting within sight of you (remember, they have to be within range of the access point same as you).  It will, in other words protect you only between your device and the router; it will do absolutely nothing for you beyond that-which is where, of course, a sinister interception is most likely to happen.

The only thing that can protect you there is third-party encryption that starts at the remote site and ends at your device and will, therefore, render any intercepted traffic unreadable, regardless of where the interception occurs.  Either a website protected by Secure Sockets Layer encryption (and in the case of banking online it needs to be the whole website, not just the login page) or a properly configured virtual private network will accomplish this.  What Howard and Co. need to be telling their listeners is that they need to ensure they're on an SSL-protected page with current, valid certificates (in other words, a good lock icon showing in their browser and no error messages) or have their VPN up and running BEFORE they send or receive anything sensitive-and they need to do it no matter how they're connected (yes, Clark, your caller will need to do it even if she buys that overpriced aircard and access). 

And since I'd lay odds that no bank or retailer in America that offers online access still does so without SSL or with only partial protection instead of encrypting every page on their site that shows or receives sensitive information, we can probably lay this fear to rest once and for all.

And speaking of the free world...

Stopped in at the Waldo Community branch of the KCMO Public Library this afternoon for the first time in quite a while, and what to my wondering eyes should appear just ahead as I passed the checkout desk but a nice long table with seating for perhaps five or six on either side and-you guessed it-two eight-outlet power strips running down the middle?  Bravo, KCPL, bravo!  I'm here with a couple of other laptoppers right now, so word has apparently gotten around. 

Now if they'd just fix that little issue with port 7000...but perhaps I ask too much.

Drip...drip...drip...

Call it Starbucks Cappucino Torture, I guess.

The latest on their "buy something else and we'll throw a little in" Wi-Fi offer, courtesy of Glenn Fleishman over at Wi-Fi Networking News:  Spend at least $5 and register your card, then you can get two hours' free access per day in perpetuity.

Why, Starbucks, why?  Why this agonizingly slow, kicking-and-screaming drag towards the free world?  What's the point of stretching it out like this?  What do you hope to gain?

I'd like you to give me one reason-just one-why anyone would drive past a McDonalds and its free and open access to come into one of your locations and jump through all your hoops for just two hours a day.

Because frankly, I can't think of one.

"I am the ghost of Christmas past..."

McDonald's
3255 Main, Kansas City

802.11g
SSID: attwifi

As Santa and ath64 promised before the holidays, all you have to do at an unwired McDonald's anymore is click through two pages-the second with a checkbox indicating you agree to Ma Bell's acceptable use policy (and if you think Verizon's AUP is long-winded, ath64, you ought to get a load of this one) and you're off and running. Like just about all the free-and-open Mickey D locations that preceded the Great Emancipation, this one doesn't have any power outlets available, making it a battery-only proposition. Well, they don't call it fast food for nothing.

And after having taken a gander at McDonald's restaurant finder, it seems to me that we might have to rethink how much of an effect their joining the free world will have on narrowing the local digital divide. Even with their new locations, there's still a great dearth of known sites in the areas served by the Bluford and Southeast branch libraries. In fact, unless anyone else knows otherwise, those libraries are still the only hotspots around.

Nonetheless, the more free and open sites there are-regardless of where they are-the more pressure there is on those still clinging to play-for-pay-and that's not a bad thing.

It's free, open and in KCK...for now, at least.

Drink A Latte
3900 Rainbow Boulevard, KCK

802.11g
SSID: Drink A Latte

Get there and enjoy it while you can, because not only does it close early for a coffeehouse (5 p. m.), but it may be closing for good in the next few months, since it lies in the path of the massive development project planned for the KU Medical Center area that's just been approved.

That proximity to the med school, by the way, may have something to do with this location's other big downside-almost no convenient parking. Had one of the two spaces reserved for its patrons in the lot of the tiny strip mall it's a part of not been available, I'd have faced a bit of a problem, to say the least.

That aside, the router is a bit glitchy, as the barista on duty volunteered when my first connection attempt failed, but there are a couple of seats next to power outlets along the walls. I don't think the east-facing windows would be a big problem except very early in the morning, and they're tinted dark enough not to raise an issue after that.

Well, here's hoping they find nice nearby accommodations if they do get shunted aside by progress. Wyandotte County needs all the hotspots like this it can get.

Talking the talk is only half the battle.

Memo to the owners of the new establishment where The Coffee Girls used to be:

It's nice that the buzz generated by your launch indicates that you supposedly offer free Wi-Fi. What's not so nice is someone stopping by and not being able to verify that. I mean, who can tell which if any of the dozen or more access points visible from your sidewalk is yours?

O, how long and loudly must the gospel of Help The Customer By Naming Your Access Point To Identify It As Yours be preached? How long?

By the way...you might want to take a look at some of those SSIDs yourself. One of them seen there this afternoon would definitely not be something I'd want to be mistaken for anything associated with my business.

As Tony Soprano would say...

Had an errand to run out west yesterday afternoon and on the way I thought I'd drop in at the newest public library location over in Wyandotte County just to check things out.  After all, since it's a community library that's only affiliated with the KCK library system as opposed to being a directly administered branch, there was always a chance that its Wi-Fi, as opposed to KCK's, would be truly free and open, right?

Well..fuhgeddaboutit. 

Not only is it restricted to cardholders just like KCK's branches, but the login page still isn't properly secured to protect users' authentication credentials.  It would be bad enough that KCKPL still falsely advertises this network as open on its website even without putting the identities of its patrons at risk of theft.  Then again, I was the only potential user present during my brief visit.  Nor do I recall seeing any other laptops out the last few times I popped into the main KCK library to see if there'd been any change.  I guess some people just don't know how to take a hint.

Sadly, that's a malady that seems to be infecting the private sector as well.  You can also take Tony's advice above with regard to the new coffeehouse with the catchy name and "Wi-Fi" emblazoned on its windows over on the Missouri side in the Armour and Broadway area, unless you want to hassle with obtaining credentials and hooking into a WPA-protected network.  There didn't appear to be anyone there who did when I made a brief finder-scan-and-look-in-the-front-window stop on my way home.

And people wonder why lawyer jokes are still so popular.

I guess we all knew it was only a matter of time before the esteemed members of the bar jumped feet-first into the matter of "electrosensitivity"-the purported malady that some people suffer when they're in the vicinity of certain radio waves-which since the days of Maxwell, Edison and Marconi has been pretty much all the time, but let's not go there. (Actually, if you consider cosmic radiation, homo sapiens has been bathed in electromagnetism since before developing the ability to walk upright, but let's not go there, either.) One of them, a certain Arthur Firstenberg of Santa Fe, NM, who seems to have made a career out of being a victim, has now sued a neighbor for injuries allegedly inflicted by her Wi-Fi network, among other things, as reported by James Hart on his excellent "Crime Scene KC" blog hosted on the Kansas City Star's website, and by the Huffington Post via Yahoo.

While we have in the past here laughed at the idea that anyone could really be "allergic" to Wi-Fi, this particular turn of events at least has the potential of becoming dangerous. Just think about it for a moment. What if Firstenberg lucks out and draws a judge who doesn't throw him out of court on his ear, and then incredibly manages to prevail at trial? What business owner would risk continuing to offer free Wi-Fi-or, for that matter, the play-for-pay kind-during the years it could take for that verdict to wind its way through appeals? While I've never been much of a conspiracy theorist, I don't think it's totally implausible that Big Telecom might not be too unhappy at such a result-at least at first. Then again, one of the "other things" Firstenberg is going after his neighbor for is her use of an iPhone. Perhaps Ma Bell and her handmaidens ought to give this a second look.

And I can see the cable-TV ads now, can't you? "If you have lived or worked in the vicinity of a Wi-Fi network and have suffered an illness or injury, you may be entitled to compensation..."

Oops...sorry, I almost forgot. Preface that last with "I am a non-attorney spokesperson."