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Free WiFi in Australia

Pretty hard to come by, but starting to develop some networks. There’s a paucity of information in relation to this so I’m going to stick this up here and finish/move it later. I have this problem every time I go to New Zealand.

CafeScreen are a company that install advertising displays around the major CBDs. As part of their business model they provide a free WiFi access point to customers. You could probably pick up signal from outside – but it’s only fair to buy a coffee, isn’t it? Just choose your cafe carefully based on their choice of bean. I used to support some of their equipment and I think they probably have the best service in Sydney.

uConnect operate free WiFi spots usually based on Unwired mobile broadband connections, so they’re not superfast. But you can, for instance, visit a museum in Sydney for $10, get cheap all-day CBD parking for $12 and all your WiFi needs to boot.

As much as I hate to divulge it, many McDonalds in Australia are now outfitted with free WiFi. I must admit to being partial to a bacon cheeseburger but please moderate your intake – for the sake of the planet.

Of course, the days of warwalking, when unscrupulous operators would drive up to a Starbucks carpark and offload a couple of hundred thousand spams are probably behind us. But these are generally open networks. Noone can tie your usage to your person (as long as you’re careful). Sort of reminds me of the time I hijacked a mate’s domain name by sending a fax from a Kings Cross newsagency at 2 in the morning just to prove that it could be done.

Additions, anyone?

It’s war!

It would be too easy to describe this as a David vs. Goliath scenario except that it raises questions about who is the bigger brother…

Stephen Conroy has used a senate hearing to blast Google (and Facebook) over privacy issues – with a particular focus on Google’s recent collection of information relating to WiFi devices in the course of its Street View campaign.

Of course, there’s nothing new about web sites that list WiFi access points on maps – back in the day when Bigpond were sending out unsecured Motorola WiFi routers to their best cable customers, these sites were in fact quite useful if you needed to quickly borrow a little bandwidth. Naturally the software has been around for quite a while too, even if Stephen would like you to believe that Google wrote a piece of uniquely malevolent code.

Admittedly Google’s “accidental” excuse doesn’t quite stack up (wait a minute… does that not pertain to an entirely different country?). Nevertheless Conroy capitalised on the opportunity to avoid discussing the real issues by getting back at Google for their criticism over his proposed filter. And we would imagine that he was still a bit miffed about the lack of cooperation he got over the issue of Youtube filtering as well.

Google’s response?

“We were surprised to hear more discussion about Google and Facebook than about the actual proposed filter”

We’ll post the full record from the Hansard when it becomes available.

The open door policy

If you have children and are worried about their use of technology, then I believe that this is the number one rule:

     the open door policy

Naturally, in this day of mobile access it’s becoming harder to implement, but this is a bit of a fundamental. I’ve been telling parents to move PCs to open living spaces for years. And maybe it is true you’re better off with a Mac – at least in the case of an iPhone. But at the very least expect your children (of appropriate age) to show you the respect that they should be expected to be supervised when on the net in their own bedrooms. So ask them to leave their doors open, and start this at an early age.

In the old days your parents would “ground” you and prevent you from going out when you got into trouble. Maybe it’s time to do the opposite? By cutting of internet access, you actually force them to go out and get some fresh air. This can be as simple as removing the network cable or changing the WiFi password – always keep the administrative password to yourself!

I have just spent a lot of time experimenting with Parental Controls under Mac OS X. I will endeavour to post my findings as a comment here once I’ve had a chance to fully document them.

Neglecting one’s responsibilities…

Fortunately others have been taking care of them.

ABC’s Four Corners recently covered the issue and pretty much agreed with everything we have to say and stand for.

Conroy has postponed the legislation required to actually implement the filter because of the current political climate. That buys us a few more months.

Google introduced encrypted search last week.

And, typically of this government, the debate is still not open.

Just as few of their other policies seem to be carefully considered (and I’m still not voting for either major party, never have, so don’t be so deluded as to interpret that as an endorsement of Abbott).

Meanwhile our adwords campaign is achieving 80,000 exposures per month, costing nothing ($20 so far, just realised we ran out), and hopefully reinforcing the message that filtering is a poor policy model for the issues it’s intended to address.