Not At ALL Surprised - NYC and Free Internet

Well – NYC is disabling web access on the “free” internet kiosks provided (at great expense) to allow people to look at maps, make calls, and browse online.

The tablets will still offer free phone calls, maps, and access to emergency services. New Yorkers can also continue to connect their own devices to LinkNYC Wi-Fi hotspots. But browsing on the publicly accessible tablets is being restricted after some disturbing reports.

“A Murray Hill resident was horrified when she witnessed a vagrant masturbating” at one of the kiosks “while walking her dog Sunday morning,” the New York Post reported Sunday. The Post report said that “horny homeless men have been plaguing the [LinkNYC stations] since they debuted in January.”

Maybe it’s just because I’ve worked at providing kiosks and access on a much smaller scale at various sites, but I’m trying to figure out how someone got a project this big through the government of NYC and no- one thought “hey, we might need porn filtering?”Seriously – I’ve seen bored High School kids hire botnets to take down their school internet connection, and had to put content filtering in place at another client that provided a couple “internet kiosks” because visiting customers were surfing NSFW sites – with kids hanging around a fairly public space.

Libraries also have to deal with this kind of crap.

Seriously, it’s not an unknown problem or a new issue… what kind of idio….

Nevermind, I forgot who is running the place there these days.