[P1] anyone know any good call by call dialup ISPs in California?

[Richard McKay]

Thanks to everyone for the information on getting connected in CA and hot
spots...I will probably use a combination of whatever is available in the
hotel and try my luck with finding public access or PAYG Hot Spots
downtown...

One point that I personally found interesting is the direction that this
thread has taken so far...certainly there are issues in just searching for
and using wifi hot spots without knowing who owns them or if they are meant
to be available to the public, but until now I haven't seen anyone post that
there are indeed free and legal hot spots available in many locations around
the world...and are usually subsidized by a sponsor or government agency. In
fact the details of how you can connect are usually posted on a wall or
available from an information counter and the services are free of
charge...Other hot spot networks are only available if you pay for them and
receive the connection details from the provider (for example some coffee
shops or airports use this setup) and only certain percentages of the hot
spots are private networks that one finds because they are knowingly or
unknowingly unprotected and not intended to be used by anyone other than the
owner (this is where the whole legal debate comes in that seems to have
dominated the thread, IMHO)  In all cases however one has to consider what
personal data protection exists. Not simply because you don't want to get
caught (if you are using a private network without permission) but also
because you are transmitting and receiving information over a network...this
could be as simple as not wanting third parties to be able to read your
messages or as bad as interception of credit card details and passwords...

I think that legal public access hot spots are a great step forward for
people such as ourselves who are mobile and want to stay connected wherever
we are...one of the reasons for getting these wonderful iBooks, No?

My .02

Cheers,

Richard
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