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Airports generally have two types of internet access
available:
1. Internet Kiosk: Drop in some coins and you get to use
the terminal for a period of time.
2. Wifi zone with detailed credit-card sign-up forms
I propose a simple hybrid. The coin/cash collector on those
internet kiosks can
sometimes print a receipt. I propose
each receipt has a unique wireless password so you can you
your OWN phone/tablet/laptop for the duration of the
purchased access -- without anything more complex than
using the password.
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Annotation:
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This should be easily done. My county library has a machine that prints out a temporary username and password for wireless access after the librarian sees a current library card. Making that coin-op should be trivial. And very handy. [+] |
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You leave the wifi open and use a form of magic software that asks for a passowrd - just like in hotels. |
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The system I'm working through at the moment just creates temporary user accounts on a *nix system. They create a batch of a couple hundred accounts (about a month's worth), then hand out user IDs/passwords; each account expires at midnight of the day it's first accessed. |
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My library lets users access wifi with individual
passwords though some piece of cisco hardware on
the wall. I imagine there are roughly 25 users at any
given time. Not sure how scaleable it is though. |
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This is a GREAT idea. I know nothing about
computers, but I'm pretty damn sure that issuing
serial passwords is a simple if-then function. Gimme
to it the next time I travel. |
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BTW, bun. Did I mention that this was a great idea? I
travel with $40 in quarters; I my not need them on
any given trip, but they're like cigarettes in prison if
I do. |
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At the cost of a few paying customers who might cheat, use 1 password and change it daily. |
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[Ling] For that idea, you should apply for a social
psychology grant to study cooperation and rule-
abiding in different settings. Are, for example,
perfect strangers in an an airport less likely to share
the password than people who see each other every
day in Starbucks? Are Osties more, or less likely to
share the password than their (former) West German
counterparts? etc. |
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Password sharing: Individual user passwords at e.g.
T-Mobile hotspots are used to pair MAC addresses
to user accounts; from then on, it just works off
the computer's MAC address. (This is different
from the Wifi network security that people
typically use at home.) You can change your MAC
address, but it's a hassle. So, this is doable. |
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As a hotspot provider, why bother with the extra
effort of dealing with coins if you can just do
everything online via credit-card signup? |
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That existing terminal providers have not widely
added wireless stations to their terminals is less
easy to explain. |
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