[PLUG] MetroFi News

[Randal L. Schwartz]

>>>>> "Russell" == Russell Senior <seniorr at aracnet.com> writes:

John> The city uses MetroFi for everything, up to and including
John> parking meters. How will parking meters be able to access your
John> debit card account if the wireless service goes away?

Russell> Parking meters were part of the original pitch, but it turns out the
Russell> City never did use wifi for that.

And it was such a *stupid* idea as well.  After all, WiFi is an unlicensed
band.  Nothing would prevent me from setting up a few legal peer-to-peer wifi
hotspots on a city block, and then burn traffic on them in such a way that the
meters on the block would have absolutely no access for hours at a time.
Heck, it doesn't even require a hotspot... I could simply use the cordless
phone in that frequency range, which does a pretty good job of scrambling all
WiFi transmissions.

This really needs to get filed in the "what were they THINKING?" department.

-- 
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