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I was walking down 3rd ave at 2am a week ago. I saw a homeless man with headphones listening to music on YouTube on a link. He had a little chair and was rockin

I was walking down 3rd ave at 2am a week ago. I saw a homeless man with headphones listening to music on YouTube on a link. He had a little chair and was rocking out. It was beautiful. We might give up a lot, but maybe those with nothing to give have plenty to gain.

dblock 10y ago
I tend to agree. The preventers of making progress that waste millions of tax payer money in the name of civil liberties have many valid points, but don't offer any implementable alternatives.
krschultz 10y ago
I came here to say something similar. I've seen many people using them all hours of the day & night. People are watching music videos, charging their phone, getting directions, and surfing the internet. The people using them are often those that don't have the luxury (necessity?) of walking around with a nice smart phone and a big data plan. Do they have ads on them? Of course. So do the bus shelters which are funded using a similar public/private partnership. If you are worried about the data collection, don't use them or the wifi provided by them. But you are basically saying you trust Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile/Sprint with your data more than you trust Sidewalk Labs/Google. Is that an informed tradeoff?
- smpetrey 10y ago
  On the streets and subways? Hell yeah it would be worth it. If I had to choose who gets my data I think I take Google over an A Mobile ISP like At&t or Verizon
  - Vexs 10y ago
    This is my little deal with the devil, I know that google has loads of my data, but I know they'll do something to keep it in house, instead of selling it off to whoever. It's more profitable for google not to sell your data because they already have the largest ad provider out there.
- walterbell 10y ago
  Google's business model is based on selling user-generated data to advertisers, unlike telcos who sell network data to you. See Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff's video on Surveillance Capitalism, https://vimeo.com/110222526 https://vimeo.com/110222526 NYC has the leverage to negotiate better financial terms for capturing the value of city residents data. The money generated from harvesting city resident behavior can then be invested into city infrastructure and services for residents. Data and networks are here to stay. What is open for negotiation is the split of revenue between city residents and vendors. For example, kiosks could be funded as neutral infrastructure that could be shared by competing vendors. A city itself is "shared infrastructure".
  - blfr 10y ago
    Google's business model is based on selling user-generated data to advertisers, unlike telcos who sell network data to you. Come on. Telcos are just not competent enough to do what Google do. It's not like they're morally opposed to it or wouldn't try. Remember Verizon injecting headers into their users' http traffic to track them for advertisers? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/verizon-x-uidh https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/verizon-x-uidh
    - walterbell 10y ago
      Surveillance incompetence is a feature, not a bug, in a neutral network provider. Edit: the onus is on the city to negotiate better terms with the network provider. The city would have a better negotiating position if there were multiple vendors (including telcos) competing for the network/data business. Once better terms are in the contract, security researchers can help ensure compliance.
      - blfr 10y ago
        No, it isn't. That just means they will spill your data to some random 17yr old who figures out how to increment a parameter in the URL or something.
  - kbenson 10y ago
walterbell 10y ago
In some parts of the city, there are sidewalk tables and chairs which are set up daily. Those have apparently not been coordinated with the kiosks, where a variety of boxes, broken chairs, and random objects are being used as seating and obstructing the sidewalk. If the tablet had been placed on the flat side of the kiosk, instead of the edge, city residents' kiosk seating would not reduce sidewalk traffic flow. That would also enable two tablets, doubling the seating capacity of the kiosk.
rmxt 10y ago
Those with nothing have plenty to gain, but they should have more to gain. If private companies are profiting off of the backs of the public (both the "haves" and "have-nots"), why shouldn't/doesn't/didn't the city negotiate a profit sharing agreement so that money can go into programs that (among other things) can help the homeless more directly? Shelters to get people off the street, job training programs, libraries, resume workshops. As the article indicates, the city has a ton of leverage that it left on the table, in terms of lost opportunities for increased privacy and increased financial opportunity. If we go "hierarchy of needs" on this situation, music for a homeless person seems like it should come a little bit behind shelter and food.
- golergka 10y ago
  > private companies are profiting off of the backs of the public (both the "haves" and "have-nots") What? If anything, Google in particular created much more value for the whole humanity than they generated in profits.
FT_intern 10y ago
I don't think there's much to gain from tracking the homeless tbh. The data will be analyzed for interesting, non monetizeable insights.

dblock 10y ago

I tend to agree. The preventers of making progress that waste millions of tax payer money in the name of civil liberties have many valid points, but don't offer any implementable alternatives.

krschultz 10y ago

I came here to say something similar. I've seen many people using them all hours of the day & night. People are watching music videos, charging their phone, getting directions, and surfing the internet. The people using them are often those that don't have the luxury (necessity?) of walking around with a nice smart phone and a big data plan. Do they have ads on them? Of course. So do the bus shelters which are funded using a similar public/private partnership. If you are worried about the data collection, don't use them or the wifi provided by them. But you are basically saying you trust Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile/Sprint with your data more than you trust Sidewalk Labs/Google. Is that an informed tradeoff?

smpetrey 10y ago
On the streets and subways? Hell yeah it would be worth it. If I had to choose who gets my data I think I take Google over an A Mobile ISP like At&t or Verizon
- Vexs 10y ago
  This is my little deal with the devil, I know that google has loads of my data, but I know they'll do something to keep it in house, instead of selling it off to whoever. It's more profitable for google not to sell your data because they already have the largest ad provider out there.
walterbell 10y ago
Google's business model is based on selling user-generated data to advertisers, unlike telcos who sell network data to you. See Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff's video on Surveillance Capitalism, https://vimeo.com/110222526 https://vimeo.com/110222526 NYC has the leverage to negotiate better financial terms for capturing the value of city residents data. The money generated from harvesting city resident behavior can then be invested into city infrastructure and services for residents. Data and networks are here to stay. What is open for negotiation is the split of revenue between city residents and vendors. For example, kiosks could be funded as neutral infrastructure that could be shared by competing vendors. A city itself is "shared infrastructure".
- blfr 10y ago
  Google's business model is based on selling user-generated data to advertisers, unlike telcos who sell network data to you. Come on. Telcos are just not competent enough to do what Google do. It's not like they're morally opposed to it or wouldn't try. Remember Verizon injecting headers into their users' http traffic to track them for advertisers? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/verizon-x-uidh https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/verizon-x-uidh
  - walterbell 10y ago
    Surveillance incompetence is a feature, not a bug, in a neutral network provider. Edit: the onus is on the city to negotiate better terms with the network provider. The city would have a better negotiating position if there were multiple vendors (including telcos) competing for the network/data business. Once better terms are in the contract, security researchers can help ensure compliance.
    - blfr 10y ago
      No, it isn't. That just means they will spill your data to some random 17yr old who figures out how to increment a parameter in the URL or something.
- kbenson 10y ago

walterbell 10y ago

In some parts of the city, there are sidewalk tables and chairs which are set up daily. Those have apparently not been coordinated with the kiosks, where a variety of boxes, broken chairs, and random objects are being used as seating and obstructing the sidewalk. If the tablet had been placed on the flat side of the kiosk, instead of the edge, city residents' kiosk seating would not reduce sidewalk traffic flow. That would also enable two tablets, doubling the seating capacity of the kiosk.

rmxt 10y ago

Those with nothing have plenty to gain, but they should have more to gain. If private companies are profiting off of the backs of the public (both the "haves" and "have-nots"), why shouldn't/doesn't/didn't the city negotiate a profit sharing agreement so that money can go into programs that (among other things) can help the homeless more directly? Shelters to get people off the street, job training programs, libraries, resume workshops. As the article indicates, the city has a ton of leverage that it left on the table, in terms of lost opportunities for increased privacy and increased financial opportunity. If we go "hierarchy of needs" on this situation, music for a homeless person seems like it should come a little bit behind shelter and food.

golergka 10y ago
> private companies are profiting off of the backs of the public (both the "haves" and "have-nots") What? If anything, Google in particular created much more value for the whole humanity than they generated in profits.

FT_intern 10y ago

I don't think there's much to gain from tracking the homeless tbh. The data will be analyzed for interesting, non monetizeable insights.