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Tapping the Alpha Geek Noosphere with EtherPeg

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the amuse-themselves-to-death dept.

tadghin writes "Rob Flickenger has an amazing take on what's happening in the wireless noosphere at the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference. Rob used EtherPeg, a great Mac OS X hack that lets you see the GIFs and JPEGs flying around on the local network, to key off on an amazing visual commentary on what people were doing during Steven Johnson's keynote."

4 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Pardon my cynicism by Innominate+Recreant · · Score: 5, Insightful
    You'd think that Slashdot, with its pro-privacy stance, would realize that something like this IS an invasion of privacy.
    An invasion of privacy on unencrypted data on a public network? And you're surprised? If you think that packets everywhere aren't being logged, sniffed, freeze-dried and reconstituted then you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the internet actually works.

    If someone hacks my *private* network or illegally obtains my private encryption keys, then *that's* an invasion of my privacy.

    Sending or receiving unencrypted packets is like sending a postcard: it's not sealed, and it's not illegal for the letter carrier to read it. Sending an encrypted packet is like sending a letter. It's illegal for the letter carrier to open it.

    1. Re:Pardon my cynicism by Omnifarious · · Score: 4, Insightful

      An invasion of privacy on unencrypted data on a public network? And you're surprised? If you think that packets everywhere aren't being logged, sniffed, freeze-dried and reconstituted then you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the internet actually works.

      If someone hacks my *private* network or illegally obtains my private encryption keys, then *that's* an invasion of my privacy.

      Ahh, so a rule that isn't enforced by an architectural constraint isn't a rule at all. That means that when my fist connects with your face, it must be perfectly OK because there was nothing preventing me from doing so. That's really how your argument reads.

      Now, on the Internet, it's very hard to enforce certain kinds of laws unless you build in architectural constraints. We can have a debate as to whether or not the law should exist, given the costs of enforcing it within a certain set of architectural constraints. But, you can't argue that a law doesn't exist, or shouldn't be followed because there is no architectural constraint (actual code preventing you from doing it).

      That kind of thinking will lead to laws declaring certain architectures legal, or illegal, so it will be impossible not to follow the law because the architecture makes it impossible. The CBDTPA act and the DMCA are perfect examples. You're kind of thinking implicitly endorses the method by which they attempt to enforce the law.

      --
      Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
    2. Re:Pardon my cynicism by duffbeer703 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So when the FBI uses carnivore to monitor email, that is not an invasion of privacy?

      If someone rifles through your garbage looking for information, that's not an invasion of privacy either, right?

      --
      Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
  2. Just because it's unencrypted doesn't mean ... by jackDuhRipper · · Score: 4, Insightful

    it's not private.

    The EtherPeg stuff is all in good fun, especially where the people knew they were being sniffed, BUT ...

    Would you also say that it's OK for me to walk around with my 900MHz radio receiver and listen to peoples cordless phonecalls? They're not encrypted; are they private in your estimation?

    Can I intercept cell calls?

    How about screen RF from folks' ATM transactions (the bank kind)?

    None of these are encrypted, but all of them are private by most reasonable standards.