Boston ferries gain Wi-Fi: The MTBA has put Internet access on its 11 commuter boats that serve 4,500 daily riders. Ridership is way up this year.

Bangkok builds slow Wi-Fi network, free for first year: The details are a bit sketchy, but the government has built a 15,000-hotspot network that offer 64 Kbps connections, and will be free (with an access card) for the first year. The government is handing out 500,000 such cards at shopping malls before this week's launch.

Yes, the New York Police Department provided an escort, but during more than eight hours on Saturday, one of the great hoards of coins and currency on the planet, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, was utterly unalarmed as it was bumped through potholes, squeezed by double-parked cars and slowed by tunnel-bound traffic during the trip to its fortresslike new vault a mile to the north.

In the end, the move did not become a caper movie.

“The idea was to make this as inconspicuous as possible,” said Ute Wartenberg Kagan, executive director of the American Numismatic Society. “It had to resemble a totally ordinary office move.”

[...]

Society staff members were pledged to secrecy about the timing of the move, and “we didn’t tell our movers what the cargo was until the morning of,” said James McVeigh, operations manager of Time Moving and Storage Inc. of Manhattan, referring to the crew of 20 workers.

From my book Beyond Fear, pp. 211-12:

At 3,106 carats, a little under a pound and a half, the Cullinan Diamond was the largest uncut diamond ever discovered. It was extracted from the earth at the Premier Mine, near Pretoria, South Africa, in 1905. Appreciating the literal enormity of the find, the Transvaal government bought the diamond as a gift for King Edward VII. Transporting the stone to England was a huge security problem, of course, and there was much debate on how best to do it. Detectives were sent from London to guard it on its journey. News leaked that a certain steamer was carrying it, and the presence of the detectives confirmed this. But the diamond on that steamer was a fake. Only a few people knew of the real plan; they packed the Cullinan in a small box, stuck a three-shilling stamp on it, and sent it to England anonymously by unregistered parcel post.

This is a favorite story of mine. Not only can we analyze the complex security system intended to transport the diamond from continent to continent­the huge number of trusted people involved, making secrecy impossible; the involved series of steps with their associated seams, giving almost any organized gang numerous opportunities to pull off a theft­but we can contrast it with the sheer beautiful simplicity of the actual transportation plan. Whoever came up with it was really thinking­and thinking originally, boldly, and audaciously.

This kind of counterintuitive security is common in the world of gemstones. On 47th Street in New York, in Antwerp, in London: People walk around all the time with millions of dollars’ worth of gems in their pockets. The gemstone industry has formal guidelines: If the value of the package is under a specific amount, use the U.S. Mail. If it is over that amount but under another amount, use Federal Express. The Cullinan was again transported incognito; the British Royal Navy escorted an empty box across the North Sea to Amsterdam -- ­where the diamond would be cut­ -- while famed diamond cutter Abraham Asscher actually carried it in his pocket from London via train and night ferry to Amsterdam.

While this may sound familiar to those following municipal Wi-Fi, this deal is substantially different: it's much more like unwiring an airport than a city, and thus the expense in unwiring should be quickly outweighed by the uptake by passengers. City-wide Wi-Fi promised 1 to 4 Mbps in most cases; WiFi Rail has tested out at 10s of Mbps--their technology turns rail segments into wireless LANs with excellent reception. They terminate with fiber all over, so aggregation and backhaul isn't an issue. And unlike an airport, where travelers might turn to 3G cell data, those solutions don't work in the underground portions of BART and many other places along the rights of way due to obstructions.

And this isn't a "we have a great idea, let us build it" scenario. WiFi Rail has had test projects running for nearly a year, with a segment in San Francisco active for part of that time, and those tests determined the board's interest in proceeding. WiFi Rail told IDG News Service that 9,000 people have signed up for the current system and used 42,000 sessions.

WiFi Rail's network is currently free, and charges won't commence until the first stage is done. Lee said that fees, which will be about a dollar a day with subscriber discounts but are part of the negotiation with BART, will be charged at a 50-percent rate after the first phase is done until the whole network is complete. IDG notes that the company will be required to resell access at wholesale rates, and I expect aggregators like iPass (based in the Bay Area) and Boingo (further south in Santa Monica) will leap at reselling BART service, just as they do ferry-Fi here in the greater Puget Sound region.

The first route to be unwired will run from Balboa Park in San Francisco to two ends of a Y in Oakland, Lake Merritt and 19th St (see system map). For the 180,000 regular business commuters of the system, of which WiFi Rail wants to achieve an initial 20-percent uptake among, continuous Wi-Fi service should be a godsend against boredom and overwork. Yes, I know, for some, it will mean more expectation of work, but for others, it's a way to be mildly productive while en route, avoiding longer hours in the office or more work at home.

I need to go ride the ferries here during rush hour to talk to commuters and see what usage is likely on BART. There are tens of thousands of regular ferry commuters with an average 30-minute crossing as part of a longer (45 to 90 minute) trip each way into Seattle and other communities. It's a reasonable comparison with BART both in scale and nature of passengers.

What say you, Californian BART riders? Do you look forward to iPod touch, iPhone, BlackBerry (with Wi-Fi), and laptop connectivity? Or do you want to stay unplugged?

The agency's Seattle field office, along with the Washington Joint Analytical Center, was still seeking the men's identities and whereabouts Wednesday as ferry service was temporarily shutdown when a suspicious package was found in a ferry bathroom and taken away by authorities.

"We had various independent reports from passengers and ferry employees that these two guys were engaging in what they described as unusual activities on the ferries," Special Agent Robbie Burroughs, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Washington state, told FOXNews.com.

"They felt that these guys were showing an undue interest in the boat itself, in the layout, the workers and the terminal, and it caused them enough concern that they contacted law enforcement about it," she told FOXNews.com.

The two were photographed by a ferry employee about a month ago, and those photographs were distributed to ferry employees three weeks ago by local law enforcement.

Turns out they were tourists, not terrorists:

Turns out the men, both citizens of a European Union nation, were captivated by the car-carrying capacity of local ferries.

"Where these gentlemen live, they don't have vehicle ferries. They were fascinated that a ferry could hold that many cars and wanted to show folks back home," FBI Special Agent Robbie Burroughs said Monday.

[...]

Two weeks ago, the men appeared at a U.S. Embassy and identified themselves as the men in the photo released to the media in August, a couple of weeks after they took a ferry from Seattle to Vashon Island during a business trip, Burroughs said.

They came forward because they worried they'd be arrested if they traveled to the U.S. and so provided proof of their identities, employment and the reason for their July trip to Seattle, according to the FBI.

Portland, Ore., considers its options with MetroFi's stalled network: The city of Portland alerted MetroFi in February that it considers the company "in default of contract," according to the (Portland) Oregonian. MetroFi told the paper that his firm won't be finishing the network without "financial support form the city and left open the possibility MetroFi will shut off the entire system." CEO Chuck Haas also seems to have sworn off ad-supported Wi-Fi, something the company switched to years ago, deciding there's truly not enough revenue there to turn a profit. Local group Personal Telco may move into a more leading role, given their steady work while MetroFi fiddled with their business model.

The Oregonian's blog cites some items from the 6 Feb. 2008 letter sent by Portland to MetroFi, noting a lack of ongoing communication and maintenance, as well as a failure to provide information about its advertising partner MSN's privacy practices.

Washington State Ferry Wi-Fi adjusts pricing: Ferry-Fi operator Parsons now offers 2-hour sessions for $3.95, and pre-paid packages of up to 20 sessions for $29.95 (about $1.50 per session). Monthly service remains $30 per month, but Parsons roams with Boingo and iPass at no extra charge.