Last week the New York Times published a great article about the free wireless broadband access the City of New York is providing in beautiful Bryant Park, which is one of the most vibrant public spaces this young suburbanite has been to. The article: Walker in the Wireless City (free registration may be required?)

I wonder if once the free-and-open wireless network trend really starts hitting the uptake portion of the S-curve, we'll begin to see backlash due to:

1. Weak wireless security
   
2. Abuse by bandwidth leeches (aka the "free ridership problem")
   
3. Weak traceability of malicious users, spammers, hackers, etc.
   

I hope any such backlash can be avoided, because ubiquitous wireless bandwidth is a really cool thing and will begin to enable much more "social" technologies than we can currently even imagine. A recent article in the Economist drives home the point that many smart people (cf. Bruce Schneier[1], my favorite security consultant) have been trying to make for years, that macro-level computer security is not fundamentally a technological issue, it's a social one. For example, check out this quote:

Surely if that's the case, it hardly matters in practical terms how weak WEP[2] is? (see this and this for details)

[1] Also be sure and signup for Counterpane's monthly newsletter if you're interested, it's a fantastic summary of the major news in the security community. Schneier's post-9/11 commentary has been especially insightful as well.
[2] Wired Equivalent Privacy algorithm, part of the 802.11 wireless networking standard.