Dear silicon.com... McInternet, FON in the UK, safety first, e-fraud...

Reader Comments of the Week

What's got silicon.com readers reaching for their keyboards this week? Reader Comments of the Week showcases how our users are responding to the latest tech news and views on the site...

McWi-fi
McDonald's: 'Do you want free wi-fi with that?'

The McD's at the top of the Champs-Élysées has been doing this for years and is very useful if you are waiting for the airport bus. Whatever you think of their food it was a no-brainer for me to go there and catch up with my emails from the UK. Now I relish (no-pun intended!) the chance of doing a few drive throughs for a coffee and some connectivity.
-- Mike Poole, Edinburgh

Expensive laptops surrounded by cola wielding hyperactive kids.

Interesting combination.
-- MusicFan, UK

Editor's choice

silicon.com news editor Steve Ranger flags up his picks on the site this week...

♦ Photos: High-tech London St Pancras on track
♦ UK passports face massive price hike
♦ Location, location, location...
♦ Can retail old dog learn new tricks?
♦ Podcast: The Weekly Round-Up 05.10.07

BT FONs home
BT gets into bed with FON

At last we are getting somewhere. Makes good common sense, next best thing to a communal wi-fi.
-- Chris Goodman, Fareham

So how will the Polce now be able to discriminate between the legitimate FON users and those pesky unsecured Wi-Fi bandwidth stealers?
-- Anonymous, Plymouth

It's easy to make it clear you have shared your wifi on purpose --- just put 'PUBLIC' in the SSID. As long as your own machines are secure and you use secure sites for shopping, you should be fine. For optimum safety, run a public and private network on two different channels. 90% of the time people are only trying to hack your wifi to get on the internet, so why not give them what they want and relax?
-- John H Woods, UK

Data decryption
Police get powers to demand data decryption

This should not be overseen by anyone other than a high-court judge. Whilst there may be a few situations where encrypted data need to be accessed, it will be very rare.
-- Jeremy Wickins, Sheffield

Too simplistic --- all you need to do if you are hiding something is use a plain language document that looks authentic as a key to another level of encryption - nesting encryption isn't anything new. So when Mr Plod asks for a key you give him one and he discovers a virtual World of information that in reality is protecting the 'real' World. How is anyone to know the depth of encryption?
-- Roger Huffadine, Worcester

It seems that secret key systems are what the law is intended for. How about public-private key pair (asymetric) systems? If they're strictly for reading documents, then it should suffice to have the documents decrypted with witnesses signing to prove authenticity? Or document formats that are themselves a kind of encoding to make it hard to read them except in the program that made them. What about hash generating private keys, which would allow forgery and threaten the security infranstructure (especially trust networks)? What about systems where no single individual has keys to all the encrypted files, such as the FreeNet P2P (peer-to-peer) project?
-- Joe Whitehead, USA

Is it true or just urban myth that if a key is not forthcoming then it's the CIO not the CEO that "cops" it?
-- Anonymous, Cambs

Safety first, second and third...
Peter Cochrane's Blog: No risk, no progress

It's unfortunate but the public cannot trust industry, so governments must legislate on the populations' behalf forcing industry to comply with some minimum standards of health and safety. Unfortunately the misbehavior of the minority is causing problems for the majority because of ignorance of risk on the legislators and lobbyers behalf. For instance, education authorities prevent students carrying out some classroom experiments because they're considered too dangerous. You are indeed correct, they are tackling it in all the wrong way. They should not be preventing them from carrying out these experiments. They should be ensuring they are done safely, under adequate supervision and with the pupils, teachers and parents being informed of the risks. But when you have a large class of kids all waving test tubes of alcohol about in a room with Bunsen burners and only one teacher between them and 1st degree burns I can appreciate the schools dilemma.
-- Mark Hosey, West Central Scotland

To my way of seeing thing Health and Safety experts generally don't seem to do Risk Benefit Analysis looking at the wider picture. I suspect its done by small teams who become expert over a particular accident, incident or political hot potato and can't or won't put their little baby into context.
-- Anonymous, bristol

IE 7 vs IE 6
Microsoft unchains IE 7 for XP users

After installing ms ie7 i uninstalled it with 30mins, it is not as configurable as firefox. I like a clean look without clutter and i like all items i use on one line with links/bookmark bar beneath. You can do this with ie6 but not with ie7. So i tend to use ie6 and firefox, my preference being firefox.
-- Anonymous, West Midlands

Please note, comments may be edited for clarity - but are not corrected for grammar, spelling, punctuation or style. The views expressed are not necessarily the views of silicon.com. You can write to silicon.com by posting a Reader Comment below, or emailing editorial@silicon.com.