New York's Wi-Fi kiosks disabled after complaints of people watching | Hacker News Reader

New York's Wi-Fi kiosks disabled after complaints of people watching

theguardian.com

30 pointsDowwie20 comments

I actually read the whole article. The porn part was an afterthought at the end, but it appears the editor decided to promote that part into the title, because clicks. Music videos and extended use was the actual main culprit.

My takeaway is, why roll out wifi if you don't want people to use it?

I believe there is actually a screen on the device, so people are actually watching porn on the public kiosk, as opposed to their own device which is connected to the kiosk via wifi.

Yes, there is a screen. I can verify people chilling at the kiosk while having youtube videos playing for hours. I have not seen people watching porn though...

Yup. Reading the (short) article one sees they still have wifi for personal devices. So, now can only abuse if have a phn, tablet, or laptop (or watch, all these form factors!)

The headline is plain wrong. The wifi part will still work, only the tablet-like screen interface will be disabled.

What else will they give the public in exchange for surveilling it 24x7? These kiosks are surveillance machines.

Citation?

http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doitt/downloads/pdf/Proposed-PCS-...

The title has an unfortunate cut-off, I assumed this article was about 'people watching', not 'people watching porn'

I wonder if there's an opportunity to provide useful information to the homeless via these systems? It may end up becoming their one source of reliable communications.

You would be surprised how much effort has been put to improve the quality of life of the homeless population in NYC. For example every homeless is entitled to a shelter and they have access to food and emergency healthcare, let alone the opportunity to enjoy public spaces. This is in direct contrast of what's happening in other US cities. The total homelessness in US is dropping but there is I think around a 40% increase in the homeless population in NYC. I have been waiting some time now for an investigative journalist to come up with an article that reads something like "The great migration of the homeless".

NYC has a 40% increase in the homeless population entirely because of the dismantling of homeless support services, including rental subsidy and the closing of shelters. It's not a great migration, it is that there were a lot of people who were in subsidized rentals or adult shelters that are now back on the street.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/21/nyregion/new-y...

> You would be surprised how much effort has been put to improve the quality of life of the homeless population in NYC.

Access to the internet, and porn specifically, is definitely a quality of life improvement.

>For example every homeless is entitled to a shelter

This is an empty mandate unless there is actually money to fund >= 1 shelter bed per homeless person.

> ...every homeless is entitled to a shelter and they have access to food and emergency healthcare...

Do someone have more information about this?

http://www1.nyc.gov/site/hra/help/i-need-help.page

It's like clickbait custom-written for HN. If the title had been complete I would have thought "of course" and not clicked. As it turned out I wound up clicking and reading the article and then thinking "of course." Well-played, title trimmer.

Anybody who has spent even 5 minutes in a public library knows that this is a big problem with public computers. So why was this a surprise?

It's not a surprise. A particular case generated enough noise to generate a lot of negative feedback. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/09/after-...

Since when does city Government talk to libraries? :p

Lots of [dead] comments on this thread. Either, moderators are prudes or they haven't lived in NYC. I once, first hand, saw a homeless woman change her tampon in a crowded subway car. That happened. In real life. If you've never lived in NYC, don't judge; you don't know.

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