Wire Service

Although I am as excited as the next Portlander about the burgeoning unwire portland project, I would like to point out that Pioneer Square has had free wireless internet access, without ads, for nearly 5 years now. This has been possible thanks to donations by Easystreet, SRG Partnerships (and before that, the Portland Business Alliance), and the Personal Telco Project. Moreover, Pioneer Square is just example of nearly 100 free wireless networks city-wide which have been installed and are maintained by generous Portland citizens.

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Caleb Phillips

Personal Telco Volunteer and Director of Education

www.personaltelco.net/

"Wireless does have the disadvantage of having other people [who could spy on or infect your computer] on the network. However, your system should be OK if your computer has standard virus and firewall protection."

This is, unfortunately, not accurate. While risks from viruses and spyware are minimal, like any network (including Personal Telco nodes) data that is unencrypted can be viewed fairly easily by anyone who is connected to the network. Where the new MetroFi network differs from other networks, is that it covers a much larger area, and anyone on it can see the traffic broadcast by anyone else.

If you are concerned about security, you should be sure that any websites where you enter a password have https:// before the address and that your e-mail account uses SSL or Secure Password Authentication.

Also, it should be noted that free wireless in Pioneer Square is very, very old news, as Personal Telco has operated a node there in partnership with Easystreet and a number of different businesses over the years, most recently SRG Partnership.

Could this map be any freakin' smaller???? It is totally useless! How about a larger version?

Thanks,

Gordon

Re. Gordon's comment, click on the map to get the larger version. Then, above the map is a button that says "all sizes". It gets very large and very detailed.

Michael,

Thanks! I can see it now in all it's glorious detail.

Gordon

Who is paying for this new wireless network? Hopefully its through donations but something tells me the taxpayer is getting it stuck to them. Having the internet is not necessary. If you can afford the laptop and wireless card you can afford to pay for the internet. If you can't afford the internet you can visit any library and use the internet.

The network is privately owned and operated by MetroFi and will be supported through ads and an ad-free subscription service. "City-backed" is a bit of a mis-nomer. It wouldbe more accurate to call it "city-boosted" as Portland has aggressively encouraged the network to be built, but has not contributed financially to creating it.

Many people would disagree that the internet is not necessary, more and more it is becoming a critical communications system for many industries and access to it provides ample opportunities. Furthermore, it is entirely false to claim that anyone able to afford a laptop can afford broadband service, which is often necessary to make meaningful use of many of the resources the internet offers.

A network is a network. Once you go past your personal firewall, if someone wants sniff packets, they could. Unless you have an SSL connection (the padlock closed in your browser) somebody could steal your info unless you run through point to point encryption which the AP for Portland isn't going to support. Most likely no one is going to do this. If you haven't had problems at Starbucks, your not gonna have anymore on PDX WiFi ( unless you you use Windows..hahahahahahaha)

Actually the best part of this is being able to use portable apps in my PDA like google maps and mostly SKYPE (yay!). Now I can cut down on cellular minutes and use Skype, plus my calls are encrypted and secure. So I can actually have 3 speeds through my PDA: 1MB through MetroFi, 180k through T-mobile EDGE, 56k through T-mobile GPRS. All good for different things.

The only thing I wonder is how long till the connection times out (TTD) on sign-in. Also wondering if they are going to monitor bandwidth for people keeping TORRENT servers running 24/7?

It would also be nice if the city put up a good portal page for TriMet info, current road closures, traffic cams, severe weather/climate alerts and special events coming up. A nice easily navigated page both in WAP and HTML with an easy to see sidebar.

wi-fi-fo-fum:

Taking precautions is of course the best means of ensuring that your data is safe; however, there are ways to build internet access networks that don't place everyone on the same visible layer (e.g. DSL, dial-up or cable internet connections which are all on a network, but don't allow every user to see the traffic others pass).

The difference between a hotspot and a city-wide service is that when you're on the hotspot, the only potential threats are the other patrons (and maybe a freeloader in a car across the street), and on a network the size of MetroFi's there could be someone far removed, with a PC connected to the network just logging everything that goes by 24/7.

There are some benefits to having everyone on the same network as well, such as the ability to share networked files and services, across town the same as you would with your housemates, but it's important for people to understand the risks and the benefits.