Re: mcn-l providing Internet access in public spaces
Interesting blog on wi-fi issues: http://wifinetnews.com/. It may be more than you want to know, but knowledgeable discussions of public/private wi-fi development plus wi-fi on airlines, in cafes, parks and libraries. Also discusses technology, ethics and security. One interesting discussion lately on a coffee house in Seattle who went to wi-fi free days (not free wi-fi, but days with no wi-fi) because of the change in the atmosphere of the coffee house. Frank E. Thomson, Curator Asheville Art Museum PO Box 1717 Asheville, NC 28802 828.253.3227 tel. 828.257.4503 fax fthom...@ashevilleart.org www.ashevilleart.org -Original Message- From: Weinstein, William [mailto:wweinst...@philamuseum.org] Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2005 11:38 AM To: mcn-l@mcn.edu Subject: mcn-l providing Internet access in public spaces We are considering creating some public hotspots (@ entrances and in cafeteria) for our visitors to use. We have some evening and other programs where that kind of access would be seen as a service. Right now we are not considering a charge but that is still undecided. We have a T-1 that we can dedicate to this project and we have spare network capacity so we can connect these areas on their own physical network. We have wireless in some back office areas and in storage so this is not a quesion on how to set up wireless access. My questions are aimed at anyone who has done this for public spaces and if they have suggestions on how that set-up needs to differ. Do we require logins or registration, what info if any do we capture? Has anyone developed end user instructions to help visitors connect? Have there been any issues with staff having to service visitors attempting to connect? Has anyone developed any disclaimer language on the use of the service? Does anyone have any recommendations of hardware and software? Thanks to all. Bill --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: fthom...@ashevilleart.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: rlancefi...@mail.wesleyan.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com
Re: mcn-l providing Internet access in public spaces
Hello, I am trying to find a link for a museum rchives association. I am based in New England. Thanks Caroline Marshall From: "Weinstein, William" Reply-To: mcn-l@mcn.edu To: mcn-l@mcn.edu Subject: mcn-l providing Internet access in public spaces Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:38:28 -0400 We are considering creating some public hotspots (@ entrances and in cafeteria) for our visitors to use. We have some evening and other programs where that kind of access would be seen as a service. Right now we are not considering a charge but that is still undecided. We have a T-1 that we can dedicate to this project and we have spare network capacity so we can connect these areas on their own physical network. We have wireless in some back office areas and in storage so this is not a quesion on how to set up wireless access. My questions are aimed at anyone who has done this for public spaces and if they have suggestions on how that set-up needs to differ. Do we require logins or registration, what info if any do we capture? Has anyone developed end user instructions to help visitors connect? Have there been any issues with staff having to service visitors attempting to connect? Has anyone developed any disclaimer language on the use of the service? Does anyone have any recommendations of hardware and software? Thanks to all. Bill --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: carolinedmarsh...@hotmail.com To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: rlancefi...@mail.wesleyan.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com
Re: mcn-l providing Internet access in public spaces
Bill, we have done this. I recommend: 1) run the public side on completely separate segment of your firewall. We also use the same segment for some in-gallery kiosks and other public stations (learning center, library catalog, etc.--some of these are wired, some wireless), and for staff access to internal resources vis VPN. A 3-for-1 deal! (I don't mean to sound sarcastic--really this was all pretty cheap, considering the return). 2) use some kind of traffic shaping/QOS on your firewall to guarantee the public segment does not eat up more of your bandwidth than your private network needs. Cisco, Netscreen, etc. can all do this. There are great, clever ways to do it so that the public side can get a lot more when the private side is quiet--that is, you're not just setting a limit, you're setting policies. 3) Use the NoCat captive portal (http://nocat.net/) between your public users and the firewall to handle auth. We don't require user accounts and login, but we require anonymous agreement to an acceptable-use policy once every four hours. Our AUP is straight from NYCWireless.net, who had it written for general use by some expensive lawyers. I can't find it now but I'll send it to you when I get a chance to get on the wireless and copy it. 4) limit tcp/udp port access very sparingly. We disallow 25 (SMTP) because the anti-spam blocklists complained, immediately, about all the viro-spam our users were broadcasting. Yuck. We also block the MS-SQL ports because the slammer/blaster worms are still out there and no end-user needs those ports anyway. Apart from that, I think it's all open. Just like their connections at home :-). 5) We wrote very limited end-user instructions available at our front desk, but you know how it goes: if they need the instructions, it's not going to work. Just set it up so it works the most common way (no MAC filtering, no encryption, broadcast SSID--as open as possible), so what they know already will work for them. Once in a great while we get somebody asking a question of our front-desk staff. You might get more users than we do but I doubt this will be a problem. 6) Information capture is possible as part of the NoCat auth. We decided not to do it, except via web logs in the most anonymous way. But I bet you'll get more users than we do, since you have a more central location, so it may be more worthwhile for you (now, if we could just sell coffee in our new entranceway ...). We could collect email addresses, and we should direct people to our email list signup, but we just wanted this to be a gift, ultimately. We might change our minds one day. 7) The only hardware we use that we didn't already have was this little solid-state computer that we run the NoCat portal on. It runs PebbleLinux (a very small distro developed for these applications: http://nycwireless.net/tiki-index.php?page=PebbleLinux) off a CF card, so it's fast, simple, and secure. Ours is just put together from parts, but you can buy them now pre-made at places like acrosser.com and metrix.net. Or you could equally well run Pebble, or whatever other distro, on some surplus PC. NoCat is written in perl so it's pretty portable. I can get you more detail off-list. Good luck! --Matt On 06/29/2005 12:38 PM, Weinstein, William wrote: >We are considering creating some public hotspots (@ entrances and in >cafeteria) for our visitors to use. We have some evening and other programs >where that kind of access would be seen as a service. Right now we are not >considering a charge but that is still undecided. We have a T-1 that we can >dedicate to this project and we have spare network capacity so we can >connect these areas on their own physical network. We have wireless in some >back office areas and in storage so this is not a quesion on how to set up >wireless access. My questions are aimed at anyone who has done this for >public spaces and if they have suggestions on how that set-up needs to >differ. Do we require logins or registration, what info if any do we >capture? Has anyone developed end user instructions to help visitors >connect? Have there been any issues with staff having to service visitors >attempting to connect? Has anyone developed any disclaimer language on the >use of the service? Does anyone have any recommendations of hardware and >software? > >Thanks to all. > >Bill > > > > > >--- >You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: >matt.morgan-...@brooklynmuseum.org >To unsubscribe send a blank email to >leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com > > --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: rlancefi...@mail.wesleyan.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com
Re: mcn-l providing Internet access in public spaces
Bill, You might want to check out the ZoneCD http://www.publicip.net/ . It's basically an implementation of the Linux Squid proxy server with typical public access point features built-in. Jim -Original Message- From: Weinstein, William [mailto:wweinst...@philamuseum.org] Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2005 11:38 AM To: mcn-l@mcn.edu Subject: mcn-l providing Internet access in public spaces We are considering creating some public hotspots (@ entrances and in cafeteria) for our visitors to use. We have some evening and other programs where that kind of access would be seen as a service. Right now we are not considering a charge but that is still undecided. We have a T-1 that we can dedicate to this project and we have spare network capacity so we can connect these areas on their own physical network. We have wireless in some back office areas and in storage so this is not a quesion on how to set up wireless access. My questions are aimed at anyone who has done this for public spaces and if they have suggestions on how that set-up needs to differ. Do we require logins or registration, what info if any do we capture? Has anyone developed end user instructions to help visitors connect? Have there been any issues with staff having to service visitors attempting to connect? Has anyone developed any disclaimer language on the use of the service? Does anyone have any recommendations of hardware and software? Thanks to all. Bill --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: jkette...@indianahistory.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: rlancefi...@mail.wesleyan.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com
Re: mcn-l providing Internet access in public spaces
There is an organization called the Mid-Atlantic Archives Conference that is quite active. I am sorry but I don't have specific contact information. You might try contacting the NY State Archives, I know that many of their staff are active in MAAC. Marcia Moss Deputy Director for External Relations -Original Message- From: Caroline Marshall [mailto:carolinedmarsh...@hotmail.com] Sent: Thu 6/30/2005 8:41 AM To: mcn-l@mcn.edu Cc: Subject: RE: mcn-l providing Internet access in public spaces Hello, I am trying to find a link for a museum rchives association. I am based in New England. Thanks Caroline Marshall >From: "Weinstein, William" >Reply-To: mcn-l@mcn.edu >To: mcn-l@mcn.edu >Subject: mcn-l providing Internet access in public spaces >Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:38:28 -0400 > >We are considering creating some public hotspots (@ entrances and in >cafeteria) for our visitors to use. We have some evening and other >programs >where that kind of access would be seen as a service. Right now we are not >considering a charge but that is still undecided. We have a T-1 that we >can >dedicate to this project and we have spare network capacity so we can >connect these areas on their own physical network. We have wireless in >some >back office areas and in storage so this is not a quesion on how to set up >wireless access. My questions are aimed at anyone who has done this for >public spaces and if they have suggestions on how that set-up needs to >differ. Do we require logins or registration, what info if any do we >capture? Has anyone developed end user instructions to help visitors >connect? Have there been any issues with staff having to service visitors >attempting to connect? Has anyone developed any disclaimer language on the >use of the service? Does anyone have any recommendations of hardware and >software? > >Thanks to all. > >Bill > > > > > >--- >You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: carolinedmarsh...@hotmail.com >To unsubscribe send a blank email to >leave-mcn_mcn-l-130353...@listserver.americaneagle.com --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: mos...@albanyinstitute.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-130353...@listserver.americaneagle.com --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: rlancefi...@mail.wesleyan.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@listserver.americaneagle.com
