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Busted For Using Library Wi-Fi Outside The Library
sevej writes "Keith Shaw, in his weekly column "Wireless Computing Devices" (Network World Fusion), reported on a recent entry in AKMA's Random Thoughts where AKMA was using a public WiFi network outside of a library. A policeman approached him and asked that he only access the Internet from within the Library and hinted that Federal Laws against "signal theft" were applicable. Oh, and btw, we're not talking about a person that looked like your stereotypical 'hacker'; AKMA is an ordained priest."
I wonder how the police officee knew the priest was using wi-fi? A wi-fi sniffer or something like this?
Of what... the church of Emacs?
:-)
Sorry... had to
The signal itself was not stolen, it was the receiver's bandwidth.
Now, had they secured their Airport, they would not had it vampirized.
And I am not sure the inside/outside concept applies to a radio signal...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
I would have asked the officer for his FCC badge.
Don't Vote for Norm Dicks! http://www.nodicks2008.com Another nutless dirtbag that voted for the FISA bill!
He should have replied that since it was a public access point that he was in his rights to use it in a public area (namely outside the library)
"A policeman approached him and asked that he only access the Internet from within the Library"
What if the guy wasn't using the Internet but was editing his site and was looking at the preview? (this was not the case but what if)
Have you metaroderated recently?
He didn't. He assumed and even when he knew AKMA wasn't using wifi, he still told him to leave.
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
The big thing here is that he wasn't "busted" he was simply "asked" not to. If he were actually busted we'd get a chance for this to come across a judge and have a ruling.
Don't Tread on Me
From the article: I responded, "But this is a radio signal thing -- it's not like a cable connection, it's like someone has a porch light on and I'm sitting on the bench, reading a book by their light. I'm not stealing their light."
These are nowhere analogous,you are stealing bandwidth when u use WiFi this way,but its not the same with light which anyway is gonna illuminate the bench without an added effort to the wattage.
fifteen jugglers, five believers
Oh, and btw, we're not talking about a person that looked like your stereotypical 'hacker'; AKMA is an ordained priest.
What are you advocating here exactly? That police officers are more justified to harrass some because of their look? Or that the law is less applicable to some people because of their job? With ignorant, prejudicial comments like this who needs rights eh? Let's just roundup all those who look like they may cause trouble and be done with it...
Looks, job, race, gender, etc should have nothing to do with the law and law enforcement. Laws and rights apply to everyone equally.
I held up my TiBook, pointing to the zero lines in the Airport icon, and showed the officer that my card was off.
"Why don't you just close that up, sir, or use your computer elsewhere?'
Quite apart from the signal stealing part, isn't the fact that the cop asks him to move on a bit worrying? He's demonstrably not breaking the law and is sitting on public land. Are they just going to ban using laptops with wifi cards near any wireless point?
It's a public, wireless network. It's nothing to do with being protected - what's to stop you connecting inside, then walking outside to enjoy the sunshine? The point was that you're only allowed to use the public, wireless network within a defined area - like suggesting you can't listen to an AM radio signal from another country because they haven't paid licencing fees in your area.
IIRC there have been many lawsuits upheld on the basis of if the signal enters your property it's public domain. Otherwise people could say that company was liable to pay them to access their airspace and such. That's why decoders were technically legal for so long.
Now the DMCA makes it illegal to decode those signals.
Now I dont understand why some landowner who owns huge tracts have not sued the satilite broadcasters for using their airspace as a transmission medium again and ask for royalties and why cities have not charged tarriffs since they're essentially getting a free ride over the airwaves. If it was fiber optics buried in the ground they'd pay.
Film at 11.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Actually, that's a good point. We're thinking "jerk policeman picking on innocent geek", but it might have undercurrents of "jerk policemen who hates priests picking on innocent geek who is a priest". We probably need to get over the idea that certain occupations are automatically respected (priests, doctors, COBOL programmers, etc).
In fact in this case I'm disinclined to think it was a factor; Occam's razor and all that. But it's a viewpoint to consider. Doesn't make the cop any less of a jerk, of course.
I have discovered a truly remarkable
Now that's just great, now we're slashdotting a priest....
He's still got glasses and wears all black. Sounds like probable cause to me.
I'm joking, in case you can't tell.
This message was brought to you by the death of 30 brain cells.
I don't think it was a factor either, it just bothers me that people are jumping up and down and screaming about civil liberties, and adding the fact that he was a priest to it as disclaimer; the law applies to everyone, (possible not the COBOL programmers..) and even if he was Mother bl**dy Teresa, I'd expect Police to question if an illegal activity was taking place.
Seriously...where was this at? I read his site and didn't see where he's from.
I smell something very fishy here BTW. He showed the cop the second time that he wasn't connecting to anywhere and yet the cop told him to move along. Move along? He was on a bench on public land just looking at his computer! The cop had no right to tell him to move along!
Two sides to every story I suppose, but would be interesting to call the police station and get their take on it...if only I knew where this was all taking place.
Also, where is this story reported from? The submitter of the story said "Keith Shaw, in his weekly column" yet the link just goes to an index where I can't find anything on AKMA...nor does it even show up on a search of the site!
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Or watching the Olympic coverage on the internet because NBC paid millions and don't want people to watch it without ads?
503 Sig Unavailable
The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
I was at a party last week and a guy is talking to my friend
guy : "... we noticed someone was sucking our bandwidth via the wifi, cut him off, looked outside and saw a red BWM with a laptop on the passenger seat drive away"
friend : "hehe that's him," points at me.
busted !
ah, the perils of wardriving.
I thought wardriving was going to be an interesting hobby, got all the kit - wifi-card, laptop, inverter, usb gps.
I drove 2 miles from my house to my friends and on the way discovered 30 access points along the main road !
Turns out urban wardriving is just too easy here in the UK.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Here is the law .Refer (a)(2)(C)
fifteen jugglers, five believers
I'm really getting tired of these "it's like stealing..." analogies. Between the MPAA and The Airwave NAZIs, I'm beginning to wonder if people REALLY understand technology at all...
The Airwave Nazis will say something similar to the cop in blog posting listed in the article above. Something along the lines of "It's like stealing somebodies cable or walking up and plugging in your hairdryer to the electrical outlet on the outside of their home"
NO, it's NOT.
The priest in the article likened it to reading off their porchlight,which is a pretty good analogy. I prefer to say that it is more along the lines of tossing your empty bottle into someones trashcan they have set to the curb without a lid (it may not be "polite" and *some* people might not appreciate it too much....but you're not "stealing" their trash service by doing so). If someone gets so upset at the idea that someone passing by might throw their empty coke bottle into their beloved garbage can, they can simply put a lid on it (which would discourage most would be bottle-throwers) or, in the analogy, the WiFi AP owner could simply turn on WEP (which would discourage most would be bandwidth users).
Regardless of the analogy, it simply is not "stealing", no matter what some judge decided.
Theft of service, my ass.
Come on guys, lets try to have titles that are at least close to being accurate. He wasn't busted, he was asked politely by an officer (who didn't even stay to make sure he remained offline) to only access the signal inside the library. Minor difference between the two.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
It doesn't sound to me like the policeman was being a jerk. From the description on the site, he was polite, if rather clueless about technology.
"The library was closed at the time, or else I'd have gone ahead in to finish my surfing."
Just a thought: if the library puts up a sign (inside ofcourse) that you can use the internet. Does it mean you can keep on using it, outside the building, after that library closes?
Please remember the percentage of bad cops is proportionate to the percentage of bad citizens- perhaps a little higher. With little pay and very little respect from the general public, the only incentive beyond pure altruism I can see for becoming a cop is the power trip.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
You can't steal what's being given away for free.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
Stupid cop gets the law wrong, picks on priest, gets his own Slashdot story to himself. Obviously there is no law pertaining to laptop use in public, the priest was moved on anyway. The cop got it wrong, and instead of realising and apologising, he did what every authority figure does and simply insist he is right, period, and wait for the other person to back down.
It probably happens all around the world every second, its the nature of law enforcement.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
The policeman's conduct was perfect, he followed orders. The real point here is a federal law that stops you from using WiFi outside, or the fact that it's interpreted that way.
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
Since when is it in the job description of the Police Department to help carry out statistical surveys for the local library? If the librarians want more statistics, they can simply log more traffic.
BTW, how do you propose keeping all users indoors may help with their statistics? Is it so the librarians can look them over and make notes like "suspicious-looking priest in black with glasses and TiBook" in their little statistical notebooks?
Encrypting wouldn't help much as they would have to give out the key anyway it being a public access point
Yeees. Go on. Keep thinking, you're on to something here. What if it ceases to be a public access point when you turn encryption on? Since the library already had an encrypted AP too, it seems to me this one was intentionally left public and open. Hell, he even had a library card so if they had encrypted the signal and made the AP available for known users only, he would most likely have had access to the key. It would be interesting to see the incident report.
BTW, he's not alone being questioned by police about his horrible crimes and terrorist activities.
Money for nothing, pix for free
Later the same day the policeman was excommunicated for praying outside his local church.
Other than physical notice like signs or TOS agreements, is there a current way to advertise "this is a public WiFi network" over the network itself? Obviously if the library wanted they could post a sign outside that said the network was public access. But what if you want to run a public spot from your house? or apartment? A sign isn't going to be seen by everyone.
If there is no current convention, maybe it could be done by, say, sending a periodic broadcast packet on a specific port with a text message. "This network is public access" or something. Maybe there needs to be an RFC?
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
I read a story about a similar issue (just several decades ago), where someone used someone elses electric power (i.e. ran two wires from his power line). The argument back then was that nothing was stolen because all the electrons taken away were promptly returned.
As a result the law was updated so that this particular behavior became illegal (something most of us would agree with). In this case the definition of theft had to be updated. The law did not mandate that all power line are to be buried under 10 feet thick concrete (to make them secure).
Now we have many folks hooking up wLAN access points who don't know how to properly configure them, essentally leaving them open. I've read numerous stories about war driving/flying/biking/sailig/whatever here on slashdot.
So most commons (who don't know how to encrypt wLAN but want an access point) will be very happy about this new definition of theft. This may lead to some funny results (as TFA helps to point out) but most of us will understand what the point of this law is and find it agreeable.
Result: expect this law to remain and to be extended to most places. In some cases courts will have to decide whether a particular case is theft or not.
No one else seems to have pointed out the obvious problem here. He was briefed on this by the Secret Service. I always thought that the Secret Service has jurisdiction over Presidential protection and counterfeiting (and other currency-related crimes) ONLY. So what is the Secret Service doing given local cops advice about WiFi theft?
Apparently I was wrong. Looking at the Secret Service website, apparently a newer expansion of their mission covers "computer and electronic communications fraud." This would seem to make sense to me only insofar as it is an extension of their powers to investigate crimes relating to the banking and currency systems. It looks as though the Secret Service has extended their authority through aggressive interpretation of their mandate. Doesn't that bother anyone else?
Then you might have "fallen" up a flight of stairs while "resisting arrest." Don't tip off a cop that you're going to report something--figure out what you can and report it when you're safely aware, so long as it's worth harassment from his colleagues whenever you happen to again cross that jurisdiction, or continually if, heaven forbid, you live in it.
Remember, we now live in a country where failure to produce "your papers" for the police is an arrestable offense, affirmed by our corrupt Supreme Court. It doesn't pay to be excessively vocal about invoking rights that, when it comes down to it, we no longer have for all practical purposes, unless you have a martyr complex. And as we see demonstrated every day here, holding one's breath waiting for the outraged public to agitate for your release would be fatal save for the autonomous nervous system.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
My question is, was this person still on library property? I don't know about this particular library, but many of the ones I visit have an outside area to sit and read the books you just checked out. So, if he was still on the library's property, isn't he still "in the library"?
And another thought (random as it may be) doesn't he, as a taxpaying citizen (yes church folk still have taxes) have a right to use a public access wiFi connection? After all, it's offered as a free service to the public, not just some of the public.
Now if he was doing something malicious (hacking their server, sending spam), perhaps the police have a point, but for general use, I don't see how simply accessing a public connection is a problem.
Given that there was apparently no gateway that provided such notice, I find it difficult to believe that a crime could have been established. The librarian or his/her representative was simply being a dolt, and abusing the armed force of the state to enforce what I'd lay five bucks had at least before that point been an unwritten rule, had it existed at all.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
How can the ensure this if you roam around outside?
Same way they do it if you're sitting with your laptop in a quiet corner with your back to the wall. They can't look over your shoulder to see what you're up to, so they'd have to use technical means.
"Main screen turn on!"
"How are you gentlemen? All your b--" EXCUSE ME SIR, YOU CANNOT USE THE WI-FI SIGNAL OUTSIDE THE LIBRARY
My only regret... is that I have... bonitis..
My brother in law is a civil engineer. His pet peeve is that somebody will get hurt when a porch railing collapse, and the local authorities will amend the building code to require that porch railings be built stronger. Except that the problem was that the railing didn't meet code to begin with. Then carpenters will scratch their heads and ask him whether a railing they just built is strong enough.
His solution is the "butt test". Take the biggest guy you have on site. Stand next to him a couple feet away from the rail, and fall backwards so your butts land on the rail at the same time. If this doesn't make you nervous, then the railing is strong enough.
This situation is pretty much analagous to a lot of cyberlaws. They're supposed to "clarify" things but all they do is create a bunch of new restrictions everyone has to learn to steer their way around. It all gets muddled up in the average person (or cop's head) to the point where they are n't sure what is legal or not. It probably never makes sense to propose a law to "clarify" anything, at least until the courts have had a crack at the situation. Prosecutors are pretty creative at finding ways to do this, and if the courts get it wrong, then it's time for a new law. Programs can be created to educate police and prosecutors on strategies for using existing laws. But that would (a) take longer, (b) appear to be more expensive and (c) doesn't sound as good. It sounds better to say "I wrote a law to stop kiddie porn over the Internet", than "I sponsored a program to teach law enforcement how to use the law against people trafficking in kiddie porn on the Internet." Create an educational program points out the (true) fact that you can't do anything directly about kiddie porn, you're one step removed from the actual action.
I should point out reason (d), though: new laws are a chance to change the way the law works to favor one party or another.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If this is true, then why did a POLICE OFFICER show up on the scene to ask the person to follow library guidelines? If it is a matter of a general rule, not even a local law, then the police have no jurisdiction. It could be MUCH easier to just have a sign outside saying "Library rules require that wireless access to our LAN must be done solely from within the library" or something to that affect, or else have a library personell request it (if they have this kind of an incident, a security guard for the library would be within his bounds to do what this officer did). But to have the police come to enforce a rule like this is not only ludacris, but it is borderline harassment.
If you can't say something nice, make sure you have something heavy to throw.
Cellphones work on the assumption that the radio frequencies used are to have the same operative security from snooping as wireline communications. This is one of the reasons that radio scanners have the cellphone frequencies blocked out. Computer networking relies on wireline transport. Wi-Fi transport is relatively new. Even though the signal passes through the walls and outside, if the operational policy of the library (run by the city or county), who runs and maintains the AP, states that you have to be within the physical building to use the services, they are within their right to ask the local gendarme to ask the errant user to quit. Since they would have the ability to control who plugs in a ethernet cable into a public router, the same idea here should apply here to the wireless side. AFAIK, the FCC has not transported the cellular telephone privacy idea to Wi-Fi. It would be interesting to see if some deep-pockets spread some dead-president lubricant on the FCC to enact the philosophy or worse yet, having Wi-Fi ports be licensed with the usual outrageous wallet tapping. If those thieves do that, then I drop my Part 15 operation and switch over to Part 97 operation using VPN.
Ah, but the key thing to remember here is that it was not an agent of the library. It was not even in response to an agent of the library.
A uniformed policeman who had been told by the secret service that "theft of signal" was a new form of crime. Said officer informed this individual that he was committing a crime and needed to move on.
The article doesn't even say if the library thinks their open wi-fi should be accessible to people sitting on that particular park bench.
This is not a case of violating the rules of the access point. This is a case of someone deciding that the entire category of hooking up to a wi-fi point is a crime and informing the person they were in violation. To the point that using a computer in a vicinity of a wi-fi without actually using the wi-fi is cause to be moved along.
Any arguments about the library being able to enforce their own rules are mostly irrelevant since we have no idea what the libraries rules/stance on this actually are. [OK, in some of the follow up posts they posted rules about when they'd have the access point open ].
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I am not a Lawyer, but I am a US Citizen with the inherent responsibilities that entails. (I posted a comment to the following effect in reply to Akma's thread)
Akma passed up a slow ball thrown by God in the game of Good vs. Evil on this one. As my good friend Henry Davis Thereau would have been quick to point out, a bit of Civil Disobedience was called for and quite appropriate here. This is exactly the kind of situation that could have resulted in a nationally publicised arrest that resuts in exposure of the Law's absurdity and education of the masses that might
I have noticed a large number of people arguing about Akma's analogy regarding the porch light and claiming that a person standing in the light doesn't take up any bandwidth. Really? Perhaps these people have never noticed a shadow? Even in the case of a light directly overhead, if one looks within themselves for the answer so to speak, they will realize that they are eating up light bandwidth in the geophysical location they occupy. Bits and people move at different rates to be sure, but wherever the [person as bit] goes, there they are, eating up light bandwidth!
If noone else needs to stand where I am when I'm there, does it effect anyone that I am eating up that bandwidth. Things get complicated and philisophical from here, but it should be reasonaby clear that his analogy holds quite well to those who couldn't see it before at this point.
Of course, being a preist accused of possibly downloading child porn, perhaps he had good reason to throw his civil rights out the window and bow and pray to the powers that be (just a rhetorical comment to make my point Akma, and I realize that you are not Catholic.) The point is this
This would have made such a great case on so many levels, I can only hope he has what it takes to go back there, throw open his laptop, and wait for a cop to try it again so that he can tell the him or her to go fsck himself
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
if this was in the USA, actually thanks to HBO in 1981 it is NOT illegal the officer was completely wrong. the law is very clear on this. It is not illegal to take any signal out of the air. it is however illegal to decrypt a signal. That is why HBO ended up having to scramble their signals. They were sueing provate satellite dish owners and manufacturers for copyright infringement. The US supreme court held that if it was not encrypted, it was indeed public domain.
Secondly, the FCC has detemined certain channels to be public use. the 2.4 gig range used by WI/Fi is among those.
New and improved Guilt. Now its alcohol soluble!
So from the article I assertain that:
a) our friend the priest was accessing a PUBLIC WIFI AP
b) it was from a Library offering PUBLIC NET access
c) it is illegal (according to Boss Hog) to access a PUBLIC ACCESS spot (even though the range allows you to) from outside that building.
You know it makes me wonder, how many of these laws are real. The articles author could have hopped into the library to look it up. It would not at all surprise me to see that no law exists concerning Public WIFI AP's.
Ok true people have dl'd kiddie pr0n on other peoples bandwidth but still. The ones doing that aren't going to stop because now it's a Federal Law.
I would have searched for that law. Printed it out and had I found nothing even remotely close. I would have told Boss Hog he was harrasing me and to shuffle his way down to Dunkin Donuts.
I am not one who hates Police and thinks they are all "The Man".
They are there for our protection, and I applaud them for the job they do.Yet I also wonder how many of them, create these imaginary laws and tell people well it's a such and such law you cant do this. People may argue, but like the blog stated "you can explain it to the Cheif if ya like", so he has threatened to arrest this Priest on possibly an imaginary charge. My bet would be that if the Priest did not cease and he went before the Magistrate it would have been something completely different than accessing a public wifi spot outside a library.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Apple don't own the "AirPort" trademark in Japan; it's owned by another company, IO-DATA. Apple's wireless hardware is therefore marketed as the "AirMac" range.
In fact, the very laptop on which I am typing this is an iBook with a Japanese-issue Air(Mac|Port) card. The US model gets 11 channels, the EU 13, and the Japanese version can utilise all 14. Not too bad!
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
Actually, that's called harassment. If it's illegal, then do something about it, but if it's not then the officer is not justified in harassing the man for doing what he was doing. Oh, and it doesn't matter if the guy was a priest or anything else, the law isn't supposed to be on a sliding scale.
If the officer had some reason to suspect that he was checking out the kids, he should have gone after him for that, rather than just harassing him for something unrelated. Quit making excuses for the cop.
I never saw anything in the original article about this last week where the intended usage of this service was really covered. The library provided an open access point for it's patrons to use and I don't remember there being any indication of them forbidding anyone to use that access point outside the building. So unless you would like to find out what the intentions are I suggest opinions not be thrown out here as fact.
Basically it is an article about a cop on a power trip. Granted, we have only seen one side of the argument and there may have been some reason for the officers actions, but be careful of assuming that the guy was doing something wrong just because the officer gave him a hard time.
'And all the monkeys aren't in the zoo Every day you meet quite a few...'
Unlicensed spectrum? Umm, IIRC, they have to live with ANY interference from you, and you from them. ( extreme paraphrase of FCC rules part 15 ).
So, you can transmit on the freq. all you damn well want, if your xmiter is fcc approved for that freq, and they are SOL. Just like if you get a wifi and your neighbors cordless phone hoses your wifi signal, or their wifi and yours are fscking each other.
While THEFT of network bandwidth MIGHT be enforcable, (maybe), the possession, operation and use of the transceiver is 100% within the law, because it is covered by part 15 of the FCC rules, who has 100% jurisdiction over the airwaves in the USA, under Federal Pre-emption.
Just like the FAA has 100% pre-emtion over the use of airspace. ( Fiefdom of Boulder Co. tried to make a freind of mine stop towing banners over the CU games, ( well before 9 11 01 ) and threatend to arrest him... even did... he had to take it through state courts, all the way to US court before FAA _could_ get involved, and then they told Boulder that they could NOT regulate the airspace above the city in any form or fashion. Boulder tried to claim that his "advertising" broke thier advertising and licensing laws, and he claimed that the FAA had jurisdiction over the airspace ( which they did )
and therefore their advertising laws only applied to that which they had jurisdiction over. ( the ground ). They tried to claim safety issues... Again, aircraft safety is under FAA... etc. etc.
In the end, Boulder LOST. But it cost him a buttload of money to defend himself and his business. He recovered it in another lawsuit wherein he nailed them for giving him so much shit they had no business in. (Boulder was _aware_ that they ha no jurisdiction because the FAA TOLD THEM SO. but they pressed the issue in the lower courts, trying to force him to stop by bleeding him dry money wise. )
SOmething similar will maybe oneday happen with wifi. It is a conflict of the method of access which is unlicensed and the laws goverening the unauthorized use of someones networks.
Its going to get interesting...
And accessing an open AP is also following protocol. You may wish it wasn't so, but it is.
How can you say that being in close proximity of the library is being a patron?
Because it's protocol. Anyone using the library's services is, by definition, a patron. He had a library card, he sat on their bench, leaned against the library wall and accessed their open public AP (not their closed, encrypted one, mind you). He's a patron. Read their web, they specify how to use the library's resources, request books and search their databases from your home, hundreds or thousands of miles away. Being a patron of a library is demonstrably not a geographic function.
Library staff may limit use of computer equipment which has been purchased from grant funds, according to the terms or intent of the grant agreement.
Users will not make any attempt to gain unauthorized access to restricted files or networks, or to damage or modify computer equipment or software.
The library staff did not limit use of the computer equipment, it was an open AP, hence by definition unlimited. A cop came along and cited a non-existant federal law and rousted him from a public area.
The priest did not make any attempts to gain unauthorized access to any restricted file or network. It was unrestricted. None of these rules apply and I suspect you just added them to look like you read their website. Maybe you did read it, but you obviously didn't understand a word.
How can you even say that has anything to do with it?
It doesn't. And neither did your analogy. "You can not compare apples and bandwidth." I'm quite sure I wrote that in the post you replied to. Mine was just another example of the futility to try and construct analogies between tangibles and intangibles.
I'm sure that the library doesn't have a sign saying: "please connect to the Internet, other people inside aren't doing the same"
BTW, the library was closed so it's not as if he was consuming anyone else's bandwidth - he had the pipe to himself.
At least he should have went inside and asked a librarian
At least you should have read the article. THE LIBRARY WAS CLOSED.
We need to stop the idea that any "hotspot" without a WEP key or WPA is free for anyone to use.
No we don't. We need to make sure all AP operators know to secure them if they don't want them used. Otherwise there will be tons of laws and people will go to jail and their lives will be ruined, because they followed the prevailing protocol - an open AP is a free AP. We can't reverse that protocol more than we can reverse the protocol that says that you can sit on a public bench outside the library or the protocol that says that you shouldn't take apples from outside the grocery story.
But we can educate the owners of access points on the protocol.
Money for nothing, pix for free
Why should he be held to rules that apply only _inside_ the library?
Remember. He was outside the library.
Why should the AUP only apply inside the library? I agree that this whole story is ridiculous, but I'd say the rules for an access point are the rules for an access point. Unless you want your tax dollars paying for libraries to install EM shielding in all their walls, I'd recommend you think about this one for a second.
Just because I leave my door open doesn't mean you can walk into my house whenever you want. Yes, it may be stupid on my part, and yes, it changes it from break and enter to trespass, but it's still not acceptable. Similarily, just because my WiFi connection is open, doesn't mean you're allowed to do whatever you want with it.
I'd imagine he was probably obeying the terms of the AUP regardless, but if he'd never gone in and read it, that's kind of weak on his part. If someone's offering a free service, at least be respectful of their terms, so you don't ruin it for everyone.
And? wheres your problem with that?
A closed bank doesnt mean that I cant withdraw cash, it only means I have to use the automated service, AKA ATM.
Closed library also means that I can only use automated service offered there.
bickerdyke
That's pretty damn insensitive and bigoted of you.
In fact, the cop did make some kind of comment to the priest about kiddie porn, which was entirely unappropriate.
How would you like it if people assumed you were a member of the KKK simply because you are white? Or a violent gang member because you are black? Or an illegal alien because you are latino? Or that you eat dogs and cats because you are Vietnamese? Or that you live in a single room apartment with 20 people because you are Chinese?
It's bigotry, profiling, and absolutely unacceptable, no matter who it is directed at.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
At risk of sounding like 'me too ', I agree totally.
The public library is funded with tax dollars, and therefore open to use by the public. Key word there is PUBLIC...
Secondly, since the wifi wasnt encrypted or anything to cause restriction, its the same as being IN the library, so the cop has no legal leg to stand on..
I'm not so sure there is any legal ground to stand on if you access ANY unencrypted wifi point. You have to assume it was intended for public use if its not restricted in some way.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If your signal escapes your hours and invades my space, and isn't reasonably protected, then yes i have a right to do what i please... Its your loss
Much as i can receive any commercial broadcast signal that hits my yard...
True i cant decrypt any signals as that is illegal due to the DMCA, however that falls into 'reasonable protection'.. Which is your responsibility, not mine.
Or how about if you stuck your hose toward my house and turned on the faucet, i could collect whatever water i get on my side of the fence and use for my garden or pool..
We arent taking about me going on your property to see if your door is unlocked, its YOUR signal that is on MY property....
If you are going to use analogies, at least try to compare apples to apples...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
1) he was accessing a public hotspot not a private one as such the rules are different in that he is a member of said library and as such has rights to use its facilities.
2) At the time that he was using it no rules were in place against the use of wireless connections outside the library. If you read his coverage, the library stated their opposition to using wireless signals outside the library only after this incident.
I do know how wifi works, but if there is no effort taken to restrict access, then it can be considered public access and should be treated as such..
Plus its in my yard, so i didnt break any trespass laws..
Oh, and the 14th does not count.. it wasnt part of the original 10..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
As the I.T. director for a public library, let me give my $.02
We use a timed based ACL to restrict connections while we're closed, but I couldn't care less what you do while we're open. We force a page on the first HTTP request, which gives you the ACU and notes that you're agreeing to it by proceeding. Included in that ACU is adhearing to the law (fed. , state, and local). That ACU doesn't mention where you can use the signal, but if it's a nice day...
People surf for porn all the time inside the building. Heck, I'd prefer if they'd take it outside. Granted, we've never had to deal with illegal child porn, but if we did, we'd at least have a MAC address and hostname to watch for if they returned.
I'm recently retired as an IT director for a public library. Two years ago I put WiFi in place at nine branches and INTENTIONALLY placed hubs near windows facing parking lots to allow WiFi access outside the buildings and outside normal open hours. We don't guarantee outide (or inside) 100% coverage. (Dooesn't work? Move to another chair!), but the idea is to provide free public access.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
People in this thread are either idiots or know nothing about libraries. Libraries want you to use their services, for free.
If they could leave libraries unlocked 24 hours a day, they would. If they could do away with the overhead of checking out books, they would. But they can't, they'd loose too many books.
Libraries want you to use their stuff. If my library was providing an open-AP from outside the library, I'd certainly presume I could access it at any time, at least if I wasn't being abusive of their bandwidth by denying it to others. (Which I, by defination, couldn't be, if I was the only user.) And assuming they weren't being charged per-byte, but, if they were, they really shouldn't be letting it operate unsupervised.
And the porn argument is a red herring. The only reason libraries even vaguely care about porn (note most filtering is imposed by higher up government), is that patrons complain. They could give a flying fuck if you download porn in the parking lot, while they're closed, where people can't see you. They don't have some moral objection to porn.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
A reading of their Internet Policy states The mission of the Salt Lake City Public Library is to provide free access to information, materials and services to all members of the community to stimulate ideas, advance knowledge and enhance the quality of life. To support this mission, the Library provides gateway access to the Internet and other electronic resources.The Library considers electronic technology to be a powerful tool and an effective means to extend open access to information and ideas for patrons. But there's nothing about a patron having to be physically inside. The only written prohibition is Use of library equipment or network access for illegal purposes is expressly prohibited. Access to obscene materials by minors is restricted in order to comply with Rule 223-2.. Please take a copy of this document the next time you sit near the library...