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The Telecom Digest for Nov 19, 2014
Volume 33 : Issue 212 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
In NYC, once a payphone, soon a superfast Wi-Fi hub (Neal McLain)
Re: "Chipped" car keys, (was: Lost Key? Copies From the Cloud)(Garrett Wollman)
Privacy Concerns for ClassDojo and Other Tracking Apps for Schoolchildren (Monty Solomon)

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.  - Thomas Jefferson

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Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 14:11:28 -0800 (PST) From: Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: In NYC, once a payphone, soon a superfast Wi-Fi hub Message-ID: <5822b55d-dec0-43d4-a541-a9c27ebd15b1@googlegroups.com> By Ben Fox Rubin, Cnet, November 17, 2014 As part of the $200 million project, the first new hubs are expected to come online in late 2015. New York City plans to turn its lowly public payphone network into what it claims will be the biggest and fastest free municipal Wi-Fi network in the world. City leaders revealed the $200 million plan, called LinkNYC, on Monday at City Hall. The project will replace the Big Apple's thousands of payphone installations with thin, sleek, 9.5-foot hubs providing unlimited Internet access at super-high speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second. http://www.cnet.com/news/nyc-plans-to-reboot-payphones-into-superfast-wi-fi-hubs/?tag=nl.e404&s_cid=e404&ttag=e404&ftag=CAD1acfa04 -or- http://tinyurl.com/q77zg4c Neal McLain
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 20:47:09 +0000 (UTC) From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: "Chipped" car keys, (was: Lost Key? Copies From the Cloud) Message-ID: <m4dmsd$jml$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu> In article <m4cv3r$29d$1@reader1.panix.com>, danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com> wrote: >In <c8a7c6bd-4257-45d0-874e-81e35dec848a@googlegroups.com> Neal McLain ><nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com> writes: >>I assume the key has some sort of RFID transponder embedded in the handle. > >Indeed, that's often the case with modern car keys. But it turns out >there's a cheaper alternative to get dupes. The "modern" style of these has a small electronic module that contains the RFID device and remote lock transmitter. If you take your key apart to change the battery, you'll have to pull the module out to get to the battery (which is just a standard CR2xxx). My new car, which has keyless ignition, allows the physical key to be separated from the transmitter, rather than having a separate valet key -- the transmitter is the only part required to operate the vehicle, with the physical key only being used to lock and unlock the trunk and glove compartment. I haven't yet seen whether there's an issue in areas with high incident RF, but I've had rental cars before with keyless ignition and haven't noted any particular problems. >Our own car uses a similar key. The local dealer used to charge $45 >for a dupe, which was annoying, but not too horrendous. An independent >key shop had a sign that they could now do "smart car keys" so I asked >them, but they wanted... $125 or so. Well, it shouldn't actually be possible to duplicate the electronic portions of the key -- if the car companies have implemented it right, which I doubt they have. The way it's supposed to work is that the dealer (or locksmith) gets a brand new key, cuts it for the physical bits, and then runs a special rekeying procedure on the car itself to tell it to recognize the new key (and which driver number it corresponds to, for cars that have driver-specific settings). This procedure generally requires at least one of the factory-supplied keys to be in working order so that the new key can be authorized, but of course that's not always possible so there must be some sort of backdoor built in for factory-authorized service technicians. Presumably they can always reflash whichever control computer is responsible for managing this function. There have from time to time been citizen initiatives in various states, generally described as "right to repair", that would force car makers to give the necessary reprogramming information and blank keys (and/or cryptographic material, if they've done a competent job) to independent service shops -- which the makers don't want to do for fear of misuse. -GAWollman
Garrett A. Wollman
wollman@bimajority.org
Opinions not shared by
my employers.
What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
repeated, than the story of a large research program
that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 08:15:55 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Privacy Concerns for ClassDojo and Other Tracking Apps for Schoolchildren Message-ID: <4A7C4A7E-C6D1-4C9C-8125-43DADFEA70F1@roscom.com> Privacy Concerns for ClassDojo and Other Tracking Apps for Schoolchildren Many teachers say the ClassDojo app helps them record classroom conduct, but critics are wary of such apps' ramifications for data privacy and fairness. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/technology/privacy-concerns-for-classdojo-and-other-tracking-apps-for-schoolchildren.html

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