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Because Only Terrorists Use 802.11
skinnyd writes "Consultants working for the Department of Homeland Security have announced that the Feds view open WiFi as a means of abetting terrorists, and say that they will compel the open wireless operators will have to close off their nets. 'Homeland Security is putting people in place who will be in a position to say, "If you're going to get broken into ... we're going to start regulating."'
So it's a crime to run an insecure network?
In some industries, it is; run a google search on HIPAA.
The government wants harder to break 802.11b. The entire complaint is that 802.11b security is a joke and it's too easy to crack.
So "Big Brother" in this case is saying, "Make your data harder to snoop".
They seem to be saying that leaving unsecured WiFi is a way to allow hackers into your network.
For example. Imagine you had a bunch of windows machines on your home LAN, and they all connected to the net through a Linux or BSD firewall using NAT or something. You put up a Wifi net so you can user your laptop, and now everything's vulnerable.
The situation is even worse at a large company that might have sensitive documents, or tons of unpached computers waiting to be hacked and turned into DDOS zombies.
I don't think he's attacking open Wi-Fi connections that let anyone get online anonymously, at least not directly, just pointing out that Wi-fi can punch holes in security systems, and allow hackers to get in and fuck with your stuff.
At least, I certainly hope he's not saying the government is going to make open wi-fi illegal.
Open wifi is a tool that can be used for good or ill. Better laws would mandate that servers be patched and such.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
It was originally a joke by Yakov Smirnoff. Then it turned into a meme on Fark, got added to their filters, and moved to Slashdot. Basically, the idea is to take a sentence, switch it around, and add "In Soviet Russia" (e.g., "You watch television." becomes "In Soviet Russia, television watches YOU!").
Obviously......
The Fed's consider domestic terrorists to be a greater threat than the one posed by the foreign terrorists?
Not a day goes by, without my server being an attacked by Nimda, or some hack attempt from a foreign land.
Nothing in their grand plan secures those foreign ISP's or those already hacked domestic PC's.
Or the million or so, H1-B's tech workers they left running amuck in the USA.
Makes you wonder, just who is running the Fed's funny farm?
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It is Civil Disobedience even if the establishment is unwilling or unable to punish you for it; or simply hasn't gotten around to it yet. The idea of Civil Disobedience is to put yourself at risk for being penalized for breaking the law which you see as unjust, and to be prepared to accept the consequences, that you may, by your arrest, expose the law as unjust and undesirable to the masses. Those participating in sit-ins during the civil rights movement were not always arrested, yet one would have a hard time convincing others that they did not participate in civil disobedience. I certainly do not compare my simple actions to their courageous actions; I only mean to more aptly define the parameters of Civil Disobedience.
In a just world, the place for an unjust person is in the prisons. But that assumes a perfect world in which we instantly know and can perfectly judge who is and is not unjust. In either Thoreau's example or mine (as they are merely inverses of one another), unrealisticly uniform standards of justice and unattainable knowledge are both required. Is it just for a poor man to steal a sheep from a wealthy man to feed his starving family after all other methods of feeding them have failed?
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."