Disgruntled SF City Tech Worker Takes Over City's Computer Network

from the those-disgruntled-workers dept

Every few years or so, we see a story about some disgruntled tech worker who has planted some sort of trojan in a computer network that lets him shut down or destroy the network. The latest just happens to be an employee from the city of San Francisco, and the computer system happens to be its new multi-million dollar system. Even though the guy is now sitting in jail, he's apparently refused to hand over the administrative password needed to regain control over the system. Right now, it appears that he's been able to lock other top administrators out of the system, and officials are afraid that he's actually opened up access to someone else (though that might just be fear mongering). As for what's on the system? "Officials' e-mails, city payroll files, confidential law enforcement documents and jail inmates' bookings" among other things. Just a reminder that while insiders may not be the biggest threat to computer networks, they can still be a threat.

Filed Under: admin password, computer threats, disgruntled, hacking, insiders, san francisco

Will Smart Parking Make Circling The Block A Thing Of The Past?

from the wouldn't-that-be-nice dept

There was a fascinating article in the NY Times this past weekend about how the city of San Francisco is embracing "smart parking" technology -- basically installing special sensors on the ground in 6,000 of its 24,000 metered parking spots. The idea is that the sensors will report (from one to the next and then onto a central computing system) where there are actually spots available -- and people will be able to discover where to go via electronic street signs indicating open spots or even via their mobile phones. It should make for an interesting experiment at the least. Beyond the hassle of just finding an open spot, the article notes that in some places a significant component of street traffic can be attributed to people just trying to find a parking space. Of course, if there's still too many people looking for spots, it's unlikely that these sensors will alert people in enough time. By the time they find the open spot, they're likely to find someone else already beat them to it. Still, this does seem like a step in the right direction in terms of using information to better deal with at least some traffic congestion problems.

Filed Under: parking, san francisco, smart dust, smart parking

San Francisco's Surveillance Cameras Have Horrific Frame Rates

from the just-commit-your-crime-quickly dept

There's plenty of reasonable concern over the increasing use of surveillance cameras -- but if you're going to install them, you'd think that you'd want cameras that were actually useful. Not so in San Francisco. As Engadget points out, the cameras in San Francisco have ridiculously bad frame rates, making them more like still cameras than video cameras. In some cases, there are 10 seconds between frames, meaning that the "footage" is often not particularly useful in solving crimes. San Francisco still insists that the cameras are useful for deterrent purposes. Somehow we doubt that it's a "feature" of these cameras to protect privacy by being horrifically bad. It does make you wonder, though, who makes security cameras that only take a photo every 10 seconds -- and, even more importantly, why would anyone buy such a security camera?

Filed Under: cameras, san francisco, surveillance

Muni WiFi Takes A Beating

from the weak-signal-strength dept

Municipal WiFi's been having a rough time lately, as the ridiculous levels of hype that built up around it comes back to bite it in the backside. Things have taken a turn for the worse over the past week: EarthLink's deal with San Francisco (which garnered tons of hype) now looks like it's dead, while its deal in Houston looks like it's dying as the company pulls back from muni WiFi altogether. Meanwhile, city officials in Chicago have dropped their plans to get a vendor to build a citywide network there, after balking at demands that the city become the network's anchor tenant, and guarantee certain payments to the vendors. Elsewhere in Illinois, AT&T has decided not to move forward with plans to build a muni network in Springfield.

All in all, it's not been a good week for muni WiFi and its backers. But does all this bad news spell doom for muni WiFi as a whole? Perhaps -- but the idea of municipal wireless in general still could hold some value. Muni WiFi is bound to fail when it's being judged by unrealistic expectations -- as so many muni networks are. Vendors and politicians have whipped up a frenzy around the networks, while a willing media lapped up the stories and fed them to an easily excitable public. The fact remains that there are plenty of useful applications of municipal wireless; delivering widespread public internet access, and making money from it, may simply not be one of them. Also, as we've stated before, WiFi -- a local networking technology -- may not be the best technology to use for covering large areas. WiMAX could hold some promise in this regard, while in terms of muni broadband in general, fiber is probably even better. And, as Rick Martin points out, many smaller communities are seeing more success with their muni WiFi efforts, an indication that smaller-scale installations are much more workable than huge citywide installations in places like Chicago and San Francisco. He also passes along the quote that muni WiFi is "the monorail of the decade" -- meaning it's the boondoggle du jour for local politicians. But as Martin also notes, that while the monorail has never really lived up to its hype as the solution to cities' public transport ills, the concept and some of the technology has lived on in the form of light rail and other transport projects. In the same way, while muni WiFi might be looking pretty poorly, the idea of municipal wireless, or municipal broadband, should live on.

Filed Under: chicago, muni wifi, san francisco
Companies: at&t, earthlink