At the shopping centre near my workplace and also outside one of my favourite restaurants, The Palace Chinese Restaurant, there are these Hi-Speed Internet Kiosks. If memory serves me correctly, it costs $2 for 21 minutes and you get the use of a USB port, black and white printer and of course Internet access for e-mail, instant messaging and general browsing.
Now, I could be spoilt by the fact that I have Internet access on my iPhone as well as a 3G mobile Internet dongle for my netbook but I cannot see the point of these kiosks. Back in the late nineties or early noughties, I could make a concession that these kiosks or Internet cafes could be viable but given that a large number of people have Internet access at home, perhaps at work and maybe even on their phone, I could not see how they can turn a profit. Furthermore, places like McDonald’s offers free wireless Internet which certainly diminishes any sort of attractiveness of using a kiosk.
Putting aside the fact that these are public computers (and I don’t know how these computers are kept clean from a hygiene perspective) I’d also hold some concern over their security. According to the kiosk features page:
As all new information is removed at the end of each session, users can feel comfortable that their login details will not be saved to the PC, even if they accidentally choose such an option when signing in.
Especially with financial-centric attacks becoming more prevalent such as ATM skimming devices, I certainly wouldn’t use a public computer out in the open for Internet banking let alone e-mail or general browsing. There are no guarantees with regard to tampering (keystroke loggers, hidden cameras, etc) or how often the software is patched on the machines.
Perhaps there are people out there that might find such a service useful but I would probably argue that they could use something similar in their local library for free if they didn’t have a computer and/or Internet access available at home.
Would you use one of these kiosks?
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