Wi...Fi-nally or Not

Looks like fears of a terrorist plot carried out using a free city-wide WiFi network during the 2010 Games could lead the city to scuttle plans to launch the service that’s been in the planning stages for years.

In a recent Canwest news story, Vancouver Police detective Mark Fenton warns that city-wide mobile Internet access could allow hackers to tap into city services like hydro, traffic and transit during the Games.

“If you have an open wireless system across the city, as a bad guy I could sit on a bus with a laptop and do global crime. It would be virtually impossible to find me,” says Fenton.

The wireless plan that’s been on the books since the last election calls for much of the city’s infrastructure to share the same wireless platform. I’m no expert on the matter, but does this really make any sense? And why is it just striking the city now that this could be a problem?

It seems to me there’s an agenda at work here.

In the last election, the notion of making Vancouver a wireless oasis became a hot button issue. Vancouver needed to be on the cutting edge of wireless technology, politicians argued, like San Francisco, Philadelphia…and Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Vision Vancouver’s platform called for a wireless network in time for the Olympics.

The question of access was key. Would the service be offered by the city or would it be private? If public funds were spent on wireless, would all Vancouverites have unfettered access?

In the motion that was eventually approved for the WiFi system, city councillors agreed the system should be made available to everyone—with a particular emphasis placed on connecting non-profits and individuals who might not otherwise have ready access to the Internet.

Yet these days, activist groups, including the British Columbia Wireless Network Society, are concerned the city may be planning on building a piece of showcase technology that will be too expensive for regular users and may be dismantled after the Games.

The city has estimated it could cost up to $10 million to implement the WiFi system by the Olympics. How much of this will be public money? If the service is to be financed by the public, will everyone have access? Or will the city decide to go private after all of these promises, all the while distracting us with terror rhetoric?

Interestingly, over the last few months, the wireless issue has seemingly disappeared off city council’s radar only to reemerge this week under the guise of a perceived terrorist threat.

Groups like BCWN, the Vancouver Community Network and the Homeless Nation are keeping the issue on the agenda, on their own terms. All three groups promote and catalogue the growth of free hotspots around the city with an eye to community organizing. Homeless Nation in particular focuses on putting wireless technology in the hands of those for whom access is traditionally denied.

Check out Wigle and Wifimug (a site devoted to wireless coffee shops) for maps of free access hotspots around the city.