Inverting Images for Uninvited Users

Yesterday's story about a creative approach to dealing with uninvited (and unwanted) users on a private wireless network -- by intercepting and modifying the images received downstream -- provoked some thoughtful comments on open wireless networks, and a storm of analogies about networks and property generally. Read on for some of the most interesting comments in the Backslash summary of the conversation.

Several readers offered comments on the methods of network interference suggested in the examples linked from the story, or offered other creative ways to impede network freeloaders. First, reader blantonl offers some insight into implementing the same image-flipping technique:

For those that are struggling to understand how the author of this article is accomplishing his approach, here is some further information.

The author obviously has a Linux server in his house, that is running DHCPD

To selectively send some clients to some locations, and others to the normal internet, he assigns an IP address on a different network to clients that don't have MAC Addresses that he knows about.

Forwarding on to sites of his choice is done by using IPTables, which is a utility that allows you to configure the packet filtering components of the Linux TCP/IP Stack. In this instance, the Linux box is just functioning as a firewall, and he is selectively sending requests from certain IP addresses to different hosts of his choosing.

Finally, the Up-side-down and blurry-image conversions is accomplished by sending page requests from those before-mentioned IP addresses to a proxy server, which in this case is Squid — and then allowing the proxy server to run a script which calls an ImageMagick command called mogrify which allows you to resize an image, blur, crop, despeckle, dither, draw on, flip, join, re-sample, and much more.

(Writing "I'm paranoid - I work in information security," reader hab136 points out some potential vulnerabilities in the system as described.)

As to the actual methods of annoyance, jpellino writes

Upside down is cute, but blurry is just too fantastic. You know they were on the horn to the vendor after punching every monitor control and several loud screaming matches and an expensive service call for a monitor that then worked just fine on the bench... As a webmaster I can now say April 1 just got very far away...

Reader Sloppy also admires the "blurry-net" approach ("That's subtle and I love it"), but suggests that image manipulation is only for starters

The next step is to spy on them and see what websites they visit, and then insert some fake content one day. For example, if they use it to read CNN, insert a casual story about a nuclear weapon getting used in the Middle-East or South Asia, or a story about the president of USA selecting a new vice-president due to the assassination last week ("What?! I didn't hear about that!"), or the CDC in Atlanta is investigating the recent rash of improbable claims about the dead returning to life to feast on the flesh of the living, etc. If they visit Slashdot, then the jig is probably up, but maybe it would be great to have a story where a security study found Windows98 to kick OpenBSD's ass and then a bunch of comments where everyone agrees that the findings pretty much match their own experience, along with complains about "how is this news for nerds?!"

And perhaps the ultimate in annoyance-as-warning, reader Midnight Thunder writes

I suppose you could also add a frame to every page and then sell advertising space. Since you probably know a bit about your neighbour it is much easier make targeted advertising. Of course you could always make the top frame read:

"This is borrowed bandwidth. Have you thought about getting your own connection."

Oh and make sure it is flashing. Actually you could make it so that the whole content flash.

Not all uninvited users are actually unwanted users, though, at least for some readers. Reader Elektroschock writes

Sorry, I am a supporter of open networks. I think the freifunk olsr-protocol approach of open wireless networks is best. We don't need internet providers and we don't need internet providers which leak our communication data to the governments and endanger the freedom of the net. The net should be a net and wireless technology is great for the creation of a real P2P internet.

I cannot support any action against people who use your network. It is against my understanding of hacker ethics. When you don't like it then close your network. But no childish games please.

I may even say that I find it unethical to exclude your neighbours from using your network but I respect your opinions. When your network is open it means: Be free to use it. Not: You can use it but I will fuck up or intercept your communication.

Similarly, trewornan writes

I chose to leave my wireless network open so that if someone nearby needed a connection it would be available for them. If someone was to impose an unreasonable load on the network I might do something about it but so far (12 months) I've had about half a dozen people connect and download relatively small amounts of data - my guess is they were checking email. Why would I object to that? No . . . why would *you* object to that? The way I see it it's a chance to do something nice for other people, why not get yourself some good karma.

Even without that sort of altruism, many readers feel that, as geekoid puts it,

[By]leaving it open he is inviting other people to connect.

Some computer says to the router "Hey, can I come in?" and the router says "Sure." Now, the moment you put something up, like needing a password, then you are no longer inviting people in.

• Computer says "Hey, can I come in" router says "Sure, if you know the password."
• Or you can encrypt it; Computer says "Hey, can I come in?" the router says "KE*jd7638JDEJE*834899(&^&#nd&#&bd*e#"

Not so fast, goes an argument exemplified in another comment from R2.0:

Yes, the computer is "asking" the router "permission," and the router is "granting permission" — the only problem is, the words we use to describe these actions may appear to be descriptive of thinking and volition, but they really mean neither. Computers and routers simply CANNOT give "permission" in any legal or moral sense.

To use the yard analogy that seems to be popular for these threads, lets supposed your neighbor's massively retarded child asks your massively retarded child for permission for his Daddy to use your yard, and your child agrees. Neighbor then comes over and stages a cookout on your lawn, or for that matter just walks across it.

When you confront him, he says "But my kid asked your kid, and he said yes." This is binding? Common sense and the law would say no, yet you would allow devices with an order of magnitude less analytical power than a retarded child to give and receive similar permissions.

Repeat after me folks: devices cannot give and receive permission for human actions without those permissions expressly being granted via some other means.

A traffic light doesn't give you permission to cross the street; the government (that you studied to get your license) gives you permission to cross the intersection when a light is green, and denies it when red.

Your ID badge doesn't ask permission to enter your building, and the security system doesn't grant permission; YOU ask for permission by presenting the badge, and your employer grants it by programming said system to accept your request.

Closer to the typical small-time network admin, perhaps, bennomatic writes

If I leave my bike outside unlocked for 10 minutes, am I giving explicit permission to anyone who sees it that they can take it? No. Am I allowing it to happen through negligence? Sure, but call it what it is; it's still stealing, or at least trespassing.

Even something as amorphous as bandwidth is a limited resource. To paraphrase the head of the commerce committee, an open wireless connection is not a dump truck you can just load up with as much as you like; it's a tube!

Various forms of the same disagreement surfaced in various corners of the discussion: squiggleslash, for instance, writes

[I]t makes sense that no implied permission is given by simply having your router be unsecured, given "unsecured" is the default configuration of most off-the-shelf routers.)

It really isn't an issue in practice. If you want to use someone else's network, all you have to do is ask them. With 802.11, you're close enough to be able to do so. There's no reason not to ask, other than knowing that "No" is likely to be the answer. And I think that's why people tell themselves the myth that somehow they have implied permission simply because the "door" was left unlocked.

The figurative "visibility" of an open wireless network also isn't enough to convince reader R2.0 that it's fair game for passers by. He writes:

So the router is "visible," with an option to make it invisible. Big deal. My garden is visible from the street, but I can put a tarp around it to obscure its existence. What you are saying is that, unless I put a tarp up around my garden, everyone has a right to use it.

Wireless networks may make themselves conspicuous, but that does not confer an invitation to use them. The connection between "visible" and "inviting" is not legally or morally valid. (I am excepting the concept of "attractive nuisance," but I don't think open routers will come under that area of liability)

Reader 4e617474 fired the next volley in this battle of analogies:

No, actually we're saying that if your garden pelts us with carrots and peas as we walk past on the public street, we're at liberty to catch them and consume them. Only if you place anti-vegetable-flight netting around your garden (or stop planting vegetables that lend themselves to comparison to an unsecured WAP) does it become incumbent upon us to behave as good citizens.

Hey! Analogies are fun! Somebody compare Internet privacy law to hunting and fishing licenses!

Readers like ShawnDoc make a case persuasive for discouraging bandwidth borrowing on the basis of enlightened self-interest.

If someone uses your connection for illegal activity (downloading Meet the Fockers, kiddie porn) it will be your IP address that the RIAA/MPAA/FBI will trace. Good luck convincing them it wasn't you. You might be able to do it, but it will take up time and money (lawyers) to clear your name. And in the case of kiddie porn or other criminal act, expect every computer, PDA, and cell phone in your home to be confiscated to be analyzed for incriminating data. The second problem is you are allowing strangers access to not only your Internet connection, but also your LAN. I have multiple computers and put files in shared folders so I can access them from different machines. I don't want some strange to have access to those files, or worse, have their computer be infected with a worm/virus that propagates across the network.

Thanks to all the readers whose comments informed this conversation, and in particular to those whose comments are quoted above.

Comments

Retarded child analogy flawed

[QuantumFTL]

To use the yard analogy that seems to be popular for these threads, lets supposed your neighbor's massively retarded child asks your massively retarded child for permission for his Daddy to use your yard, and your child agrees. Neighbor then comes over and stages a cookout on your lawn, or for that matter just walks across it.

This is a very interesting anology, as computer systems are very "dumb," but unlike developmentally challenged individuals, computers are also very easy to control (i.e. they do precisely what you tell them to and nothing else, if you count the code as instructions). It is a simple matter to encrypt a wifi point (and a well reccomended practice), whereas a retarded child is probably difficult to train to restrict lawn access, and that is not generally a well-reccomended practice.

To be honest, I don't think any analogy quite sums up the situation. If you're on someone's wifi, and you're not causing harm, and they left it open, what is the problem?

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[Roody Blashes]

...whereas a retarded child is probably difficult to train to restrict lawn access, and that is not generally a well-reccomended practice.

I don't know. Give a retarded kid a shotgun and put him on your front yard and I'll probably stay off of it....

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

So can I trade in a retarded kid for a router?

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a better analogy. Someone sticks a hose on my (outdoor) faucet and uses it to wash thier car. I sue them in a court of law. "The faucet was not locked" does not hold up as a valid defence.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[smbarbour]

I've got an analogy to try:

You own a housing complex (internet connection) and decide to hire a doorman (buy and connect a wireless router).

By default, the behavior for the doorman is to open the door for everyone who wants to enter the building (open Wi-Fi connection)

You can instruct the doorman to only open the door for tenants of the building or for anyone on a specific list of names (access control list)

To further add to the analogy:
The housing complex used to be a hotel and still has all of the original signage, thus passers-by would not be aware that it is no longer available for the public. It was the "Linksys Hotel".

For the record: I have a Netgear wireless router. When I set it up, the wireless was disabled by default. In other words, I was forced to configure it rather than just plugging it in.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[Dzonatas]

The analogies area flawed upon the presumption that an IP address is like the National ID, and that it can be used to track a single individual down for any wrong doing. We know that IP address can be dynamically assigned and have any sort of user behind the wheel. Open wireless networks are great for P2P, as the trend with unique security codes for every AP has created a star-net topology instead of an internet topology. A point missed in the analogies above are that the data itself can be encrypted by the server and not by the router, which leaves the router open for connection but the data secure (i.e. SSL). Instead of flippin' images, the same technique could be used to route through SSL. That only solves part of the problem. The RIAA may still track your IP of your router. The only real way to solve that is to make it mandatory for all webservers to serve only encrypted data. That way anybody in the middle can claim "I don't know what that chunk of data is, but I know where it goes" by default (also, a case exists to drop unencrypted packets). I'm sure you don't want your child to wander over and find your book "Nuclear Bombs for Dummies" easy to read. (Oh yeah! We seem to passively forget about the "worst-case" analogy to describe the best internet topology, that is if we or the hub gets bombed we still want to be able to communicate.)

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[Score Whore]

Here's a whole pile of analogies for you:

You don't wear a full body rubber cover, so it's OK for me to urinate on your face.

You aren't wearing a bullet proof vest, so it's OK for me to shoot you.

Iraq didn't field a powerful enough army, so it's OK for the US to kick ass and ignore names.

That thing wasn't bolted, glued or locked down, so it's OK for me to take it.

You aren't resistant to HIV, so it's OK for me to infect you with it.

The idea that anything not expressely denied is allowed is just stupid. It may be OK for your parents and yourself, but for the real world you ask before you do something that can have an impact on someone else.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[bahwi]

Because you could be causing harm. It's easy to snoop once you're on the network. Of course, if it's unprotected, you either don't care or don't know.

To get away from the lawn idea, let's talk about cars. If I leave my car unlocked, not a good practice but something easy to do and to not think about, does that mean anyone can come in and sit? It'd be quite disheartening. Most people think their car is secure and often has data about them (papers, receipts, etc). But you could forget to lock it, for any number of reasons. That doesn't mean that the world has access. The same goes for your briefcase, is it locked? No? I'm gonna rifle through it for awhile then.

Of course, wifi does broadcast, but that's a bad analogy. It doesn't get in the way of other people, unlike physical property(car blocking the lane, etc..). In fact, no one is complaining about cell signals, which are broadcast like wifi. Does this mean that, because it is jutting out and striking me, so to speak, that I should be privy to your conversation(after all, your voice on this side isn't encrypted at all).

But it's a hard debate, and I don't think anything will sum up the debate very well. But I do believe you should stay on your own property, be the door locked or unlocked, the door closed or open, unless someone explicity says it's ok.

But of course, it's becoming redundant. Starbucks has Wifi for a nominal fee, kinkos is the same network, cell phones are getting net service via bluetooth, so even out where there's no wifi, let alone an unprotected one, you can still get internet if you have the right phone and the know-how.

Mind you, I probably wouldn't mind hopping onto someone's network to check my email or anything, but I'm not going to try and defend it as "they invited me in!"

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[mrbooze]

If you're on someone's wifi, and you're not causing harm, and they left it open, what is the problem?

No problem. Likewise, if I choose to lock my wifi to keep unauthorized users off of my personal network, what's the problem with that?

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[rmerrill11]

"In fact, no one is complaining about cell signals, which are broadcast like wifi. Does this mean that, because it is jutting out and striking me, so to speak, that I should be privy to your conversation(after all, your voice on this side isn't encrypted at all)."

Yes it does mean that I have the right to listen in on your phone calls.

The Supreme Court of the US decided that you have an expectation of privacy when using a land-line phone, and a court order is required to allow people to violate that right of privacy.

But they ruled that you have no expectation of privacy when using a cordless phone (and by implication a cell-phone). As it is a transmitter, using the public airwaves. (IANAL - so may be missing some important legal points about this.)

So, my understanding of the law of the land in the US is that if you are broadcasting a signal onto my property, I am within my rights to listen in / use it.

(NOTE: This "law" thing might have been changed by whim of the President, but you are not on a need-to-know list for that information.)

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[Baorc]

If you're on someone's wifi, and you're not causing harm, and they left it open, what is the problem?
The problem is your right to privacy, well in this case their right to privacy.
There is no reason why you need to justify hiding your network and not wanting anyone else hopping on. It is yours and your right to solely want only the people you authorize access to it.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[Ellis D. Tripp]

But in this case, the neighbor's faucet/WAP is spraying water/an RF datastream over the property line. Is it wrong to rig up a big funnel/catch basin and use the water that your neighbor was spraying uninvited onto your property?

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[Jherek Carnelian]

The analogy is very poor for another reason --

The wifi router's job in life is to route - which means either pass packets or drop packets. That's all it does. A retarded kid is not dedicated to the job of guardian of the lawn. He is not designed, not even intelligently designed, to route people to his lawn or anywhere else.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[Harinezumi]

All the things you have mentioned are expressly denied, at least in the US criminal code or international law. Our entire legal system is founded on the concept that everything that's not forbidden is allowed.

To continue with the bad analogies, having an unsecured wireless port isn't just the equivalent of leaving your door unlocked. It's the equivalent of leaving it wide open with a sign saying "come on it, take what you want" posted over it.

If you don't want other people using your wireless network, secure your goddamn router. It's trivially easy, and the responsibility for it rests on you and you alone.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[QRDeNameland]

But that analogy fails due to the fact in order to hook to your faucet I must cross your property, which if you're going to sue for using the faucet, it can be assumed that you did not give your permission.

Let's say you are watering your garden, and your driveway has concrete gutters where excess water channels into the street. Someone is walking down the public sidewalk and is thirsty, and dips his drinking cup into the water stream emanating from your property (but no longer on it) and drinks it, without ever entering on to your property. Has this person stolen your water?

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[91degrees]

This is the problem with slashdot. People get an analogy and seem to think that because there are similarities, the treatment should be exactly the same.

The retarded child analogy was perfectly valid. It's simply a reducto ad absurdum of the premise that anything equipment that a person is responsible for can grant permission on behalf of that person. This does not prove that people do not have permission. It simply invalidates the existing argument that we can assume - in all cases - that permission has been given. Other analogies do not make the retarded child example any more or less valid. The original premise has still been disproved by a counter example. You can't counter a counter example by a counter-counter example. Logic doesn;t work like that.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[Payday_Jones]

Horrid analogy due to the fact that the person would 1st need to trespass to conduct this act. If you are going with this analogy, it would have to be more along the lines of "I left my faucet open, the running water went in to the street and the person next door scooped up the water that reached his house and used that water to wash his car." You then sue your neighbor for the cost of water he used.... Then the fact that the water was running on his property DOES hold up in court.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[Gerzel]

>>So can I trade in a retarded kid for a router?

No. The going rate is at least three retarded kids per router. You might be able to get a dumb hub, or 20ft of cat5 cable per kid depending on just how retarded they are.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[smbarbour]

If you own a building and hang a sign outside saying "Open to the public" with the doors unlocked, do you need to post someone outside to explicitly tell people they can come in?

If you authorize access to the public either willingly or by ignorance, then you have allowed it to happen. Ignorance is not a defence.

The world is not here to hold your hand. In the real world, it is considered proper etiquette to ask first before doing something. We don't ask people sentenced to death, "Is it okay to kill you now?" Nor do we ask regular prisoners, "Is it okay to lock you up now?"

To use your first analogy, if someone urinates on your face and you consciously decide to do nothing about it, you have expressed your consent.

Just as the idea that anything not expressly denied is allowed is stupid, the idea that anything not expressly allowed is denied is stupid as well.

It is unfortunate that most Wi-Fi devices come configured without security enabled. I don't mean to insinuate that everyone who buys wireless equipment should know how to properly configure it, but they should at least know to contact someone who can, or at least read the manual.

A wireless router isn't going to just suddenly pop up on your network (although if it does, you have other problems to worry about). The act of placing it on your network and leaving it configured for open access is implied consent.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[Firehed]

Again, no problem. The thing we're question is what's implied by an unlocked/unencrypted WiFi connection. Unlike locking your doors, protecting your WiFi by means of password-protection, MAC filtering or whatever else you'd like to use is NOT common knowledge, especially among Joe Sixpacks. I'm sure as hell no mechanic, but I know to lock my car doors to minimize the risk of it or its contents being stolen. While I'm a hardcore geek and my father's technically inclined, my mother or brother certainly wouldn't know any better than to just plug their new wireless access point in and use it.

I'm all for open WiFi connections, or accessable to some degree, but at this point I still consider an open access point being used without permisssion to be some sort of digital tresspassing. I use WEP on my router (I know, it should be WPA, but we have some old wireless gear that doesn't support it), but I only do that so some intelligent person doesn't start heisting my packets and snag my bank account information. But if you want to use my network to check your email, the password is 'houseofstern1'. I suppose I'd translate this bit into using seat belts while driving, but leaving the car doors unlocked with a 'breathe in me' sign when parked (unlike having your car stolen, people using your bandwidth isn't quite a material loss, and I doubt we're going to run out of air any time soon). Of course, then we're also getting into piracy versus shoplifting, since downloading content isn't stopping others from buying it, where lifting the CD is.

Until WiFi security is common knowledge (or routers come with it pre-enabled with a note in the box with the password, and not some default 'linksyswireless' for a password), we have to really assume that an unsecured connection is akin to a closed but unlocked door - you're not invited to come in, even if there's no security. Or that's my take on it for now. Wireless security right now is like having optional door locks.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, my understanding of the law of the land in the US is that if you are broadcasting a signal onto my property, I am within my rights to listen in / use it."

So where is the permission to send something back to interact with the broadcasted signal?

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[ChadAmberg]

Fine. Feel free to receive any RF that leaves my propertah... but don't send any that crosses my property line!

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[KitFox]

Let's say you are watering your garden, and your driveway has concrete gutters where excess water channels into the street. Someone is walking down the public sidewalk and is thirsty, and dips his drinking cup into the water stream emanating from your property (but no longer on it) and drinks it, without ever entering on to your property. Has this person stolen your water?

Your analogy doesn't work unless you are -ONLY- listening to the radio broadcasts and never actually sending anything back. The "water" you speak about in this case is the outbound radio signal from the AP. So, in your dipping the cup analogy, sure, you can listen in on the radio broadcasts... However that also means that the water itself is actually being used as nothing but a signalling device (Since you are making "Water from the sprinklers = Radio Waves" analogy), and so "Drinking the water" would be nothing more than the equivilant of the antenna on any RF revceiver creating a signal on its output.

So "Drinking the water" is nothing but having an antenna that isn't connected to anything, and is purely legal, but also menas that you haven't gotten as far as actually having an internet connection for yourself.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[B3ryllium]

Exactly! The packets will be the trespassers, particularly the HTTP-GET ones ... :)

Ah well, it's an insipid analogy anyways.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[lazarusdishwasher]

but for the real world you ask before you do something that can have an impact on someone else.

I have a cb radio in my car and I have several frs walkies which, like my wifi routers opperate on an assigned frequency allocated by the FCC to be used by the public with no license. If I wish to use one of my frs equipment with my friends or talk to truckers with my cb do I have to first travel in a 2-5 mile radius(depending on the maximum the FCC allows) and ask everybody if it is ok to use my equipment because they might hear my conversation.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[KitFox]

But in this case, the neighbor's faucet/WAP is spraying water/an RF datastream over the property line. Is it wrong to rig up a big funnel/catch basin and use the water that your neighbor was spraying uninvited onto your property?

That analogy covers nothing but "receiving the radio waves" and "using the incoming radio waves" (potentially decoding the information kept in them and sniffing). It does not cover "Sending radio waves back" or "Making use of the other parts of the system that those radio waves allow an interlink with".

Remember: The "water" is nothing but a carrier. Whether it is special based on the colors of the droplets, or whatever, it just carries data. The water in and of itself is of no use to you. Only when you catch the water and decode the colors of the drops do you get data that is of use to you. But then you've got to make your OWN sprinkler to send water BACK to the special funnel on the other side, and request that the control system send out specific droplet colors for you.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[lazarusdishwasher]

I think that comes along by being part of the unliscensed radio spectrum, as long as you follow FCC regulations you are allowed to operate a radio transmitter. I think if you want to go along the unlawful use of a computer or network you have to have some sort of barrier to prove you are trying to keep the unwanted person out.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[usrusr]

> If you don't want other people using your wireless network,
> secure your goddamn router. It's trivially easy, and the
> responsibility for it rests on you and you alone.

with wireless routers there happens to be security and "security". Setting up WPA encryption is certainly not inviting, but it does not provide much technical security eiter.

Making too much of a difference between that kind of "security" and openness is quite close to DMCAthink along the lines of "if there is some deliberate defectiveness on the CD that prevents copying on 10% of all computers then it is highly illegal to copy on the other 90%".

maybe it would be a good idea to have some kind of opt-in openness flag (with a definable bandwidth allowance?), with that in place you could even think of having protocols that would allow you to easily open your router to visitors without sacrificing encryption of your personal LAN connections.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[idontgno]

The Supreme Court of the US decided that you have an expectation of privacy when using a land-line phone, and a court order is required to allow people to violate that right of privacy.

But they ruled that you have no expectation of privacy when using a cordless phone (and by implication a cell-phone). As it is a transmitter, using the public airwaves.

Really? Do you have a citation?

IANAL also, but I can read. 18 USC, Section 2511, states:

(1) Except as otherwise specifically provided in this chapter any
person who -
(a) intentionally intercepts, endeavors to intercept, or
procures any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept,
any wire, oral, or electronic communication;
...
shall be punished as provided in subsection (4) or shall be subject
to suit as provided in subsection (5).

Now, the only recent Supreme Court action regarding this part of federal law is Bartnicki et al. v. Vopper. My reading of this case affirms that intentional unauthorized interception of communications (in this case, cell phone) is unlawful. The case simply permitted the deliberate disclosure of information garnered through unlawful interception, when the person doing the interception was anonymous and not provably connected to the person doing the disclosure. That ruling weakened sections (c) and (d) of the code in question:

(c) intentionally discloses, or endeavors to disclose, to any
other person the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic
communication, knowing or having reason to know that the
information was obtained through the interception of a wire,
oral, or electronic communication in violation of this
subsection;
(d) intentionally uses, or endeavors to use, the contents of
any wire, oral, or electronic communication, knowing or having
reason to know that the information was obtained through the
interception of a wire, oral, or electronic communication in
violation of this subsection; or

So, that's what my "no legal library, no research assistants, no paralegals" research turned up. Do you have something more specific, relevant, and contrary?

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[countach]

Instead of talking about the morality of using wireless bandwidth, let's talk about how darned funny some of these hacks are. Upside down net was funny. Blurry net is hilarious. But fake news just takes the cake. There's no end to how many funny ideas this could spawn. Any more fun ideas?

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[QRDeNameland]

My point was not to provide the perfect analogy to the wireless access issue, but rather to show the deficiency of the "hooking a hose to someone else's faucet" analogy.

I don't know if there is a really good analogy for this, but I do know this: if someone doesn't want anyone else using your wireless access, then secure the damn thing already.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[gcalvin]

Suppose you put a mat that says WELCOME in front of your front door. Does that really mean that anybody who wants is allowed to come in?

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[MerrickStar]

Then perhaps the original analogy should have just included a dog? One that let your neighbor (it would seem) either use your property, or growl if he came anywhere near the area?

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[Morvandium]

Screw the analogies, the ethics and law debates!

The stupid and weak deserve to be preyed upon.

Fluffy kittens, meet the hyenas.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[Score Whore]

If you own a building and hang a sign outside saying "Open to the public" with the doors unlocked, do you need to post someone outside to explicitly tell people they can come in?

Except in situations where your wireless SID is "Welcome2Use" or "FreeWIFI" or some other such thing, the mere presence of an unsecured AP isn't the same as a sign saying "Open to the public". An unsecured AP with a default SID ("LINKSYS", "ACTIONTEC", "BELKIN", etc) is just unconfigured, it's not advertising free internet access for anyone who comes along.

Negotiating a connection, giving out an IP address via DHCP, and routing traffic are the basic requirements of the device. They are not an invitation to public usage. In fact, your basic AP sitting there sends out an SSID broadcast. The client initiates the connection. It requests an IP address and routing information. If you wanted to use your door analogy, what is happening is more akin to a building with a door. The door is sending out it's SSID broadcast by generally looking like a door, having a knob, hinges, is generally three feet wide by six and a half feet high. You walking up to it and trying the knob is like trying to associate with the AP. The door being unlocked would be not using WEP or something better and accepting DHCP requests. Opening up, as doors are designed to do would be the equivalent of getting an IP address back on your DHCP request. But even so, it would not be appropriate for you to just make yourself and home and go on walkabout inside the building any more than it is appropriate to use someones network connection just because their WAP was configured in a permissive mode.

To use your first analogy, if someone urinates on your face and you consciously decide to do nothing about it, you have expressed your consent.

A) Your restatement of my analogy is completely different than what I originally put out there. B) Not responding to an event is not consent to the events happening, it's just not doing anything about it. For example perhaps the person doing the urinating is twice your size and has bits of the last nerd he ate still stuck in his teeth.

Just as the idea that anything not expressly denied is allowed is stupid, the idea that anything not expressly allowed is denied is stupid as well.

When it comes to someone else's private property, and this is private property we're talking about, the idea that lack of explicit permission is denied is absolutely proper and correct.

Consider this, to get away from the violent metaphors, I'm at the bus station planning my trip the next day and I have a piece of paper but I seem to have lost my pen. I notice someone sitting on a bench with a backpack next to them. I suspect that there might be a pen in there and there are no locks on the zippers. So I grab it, open it up, rifle through it, find a pen, take my notes, put the pen back in the pack, zip it up and set it back to the supposed owner. Is that proper? No, it's not.

The act of placing it on your network and leaving it configured for open access is implied consent.

No it isn't. Someone's private property not being secured is not implied consent. You're just wrong there's no question about it.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[KitFox]

I don't know if there is a really good analogy for this, but I do know this: if someone doesn't want anyone else using your wireless access, then secure the damn thing already.

I think one of the main considerations overall was "Is it legally right to use an unintentionally unsecured network?" and "Is it MORALLY right for the same?"

Morals are personal things. That's why everybody has different opinions on this matter. Diferences in morals are the reason that one lost wallet with $5 in it will be returned to the owner with $5 intact, and another similar wallet with $5 in it will be returned with the money missing "Because I should get paid for being so nice and going out of my way to return it."

As to legally, in the US, it is not legally right to use an unintentionally unsecured wireless network, and if you get called on it, it will be your burden to prove to Joe Schmoe Trucker in the jury that your reasonably-diligent effort to ascertain that you had permission did a good job of uncovering implied or explicit permission that Joe Schmoe Trucker would agree is permission.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[jrockway]

Cell phones are a special case. You're not allowed to buy equipment that can tune in the cell-phone frequencies (conveniently making software radios technically illegal).

The simple reason for this is that the big corporations paid a lot of money for the cell-phone spectrum, whereas you're paying nothing to use the 49MHz or 2.4GHz spectrum for your cordless phone.

I know it sounds like a conspiracy ;), but all this business about "buying laws" is rooted in fact.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[antifoidulus]

but I only do that so some intelligent person doesn't start heisting my packets and snag my bank account information.

If you are depending on wireless security to keep your bank account information secret then you need a new bank. Packets traveling on the internet aren't all that hard to sniff. Most secure places ASSUME that the medium can be compromised and act accordingly. All good banks use end-to-end security meaning that even if someone can sniff your packets, unless they have some good inside info on cryptanalysis that your bank doesn't have and a few supercomputers sitting around, they won't be getting your information.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[Firehed]

Just because I've got a secure -encrypted- connection to the server doesn't mean that the connection from my PC to my router is also encrypted. It can have gigabit encryption going from my net connection to their server, but that's absolutely worthless if unencrypted credit card numbers and bank account info is flying around my house, which would be the case if I'm using an unsecured wireless connection. Or I've completely failed to understand what you meant or how wireless connections work.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[antifoidulus]

Um, you obviously don't understand how encryption works. It is "encrypted" the second it leaves your computer, it doesn't matter whether or not the connection to your router is secure. Look up public key algorithms for more information. Basically, you give the bank a "public key" and they encrypt a shared key with that information, at which point you initiate a shared key session. An attacker can see this encrypted information, but without the "private key" which stays on your computer, they can't do much with it.
My explanation is a bit simplistic, but you should get the point.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[arose]

It can be a bit tricky to tell an unintentionally unsecured wireless access point from an intentionaly open wireless access point.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[arose]

The effects of open doors can be understood by using common sense. Likewise the fact that the laptop and the router that you didn't bought as a package work without any further setup stongly implies that any other laptop will work as well, if one is even somewhat concerned about this a look into the router manual/call to family geek/google search should be the natural course of action. If somone else set up the router it is their duty to inform people about potential problems.

Re:Retarded child analogy flawed

[Eideteker]

Rather than yard, it's more like your kid says it's okay for them to come over to your house. You'd better keep your house (and your WiFi) locked if your child is that retarded.

Enough with the analogies!

[RevWhite]

There simply isn't an adequate analogy for this situation, as nothing else is like an unsecured access point. Please stop comparing them as such.

Re:Enough with the analogies!

[Anonymous Coward]

> There simply isn't an adequate analogy for this situation, as nothing else is like an unsecured access point. Please stop comparing them as such.

Your post reminds me of going to the dealership to make a trade-in for a newer car. When I test drive a new car, I find that isn't quite like my old car. In fact, in-so-much that the new car isn't identical to the old one, it would be fair to say it is "nothing ... like" the old one.

Re:Enough with the analogies!

[PCM2]

Your analogy misses the point entirely.

The situation the GP was describing is a more like trying to sell yak's milk in a Bavarian beer garden. You can bring as many Nepalese sherpas as you want, each with their own entry visas, and the yak might clear customs, but unless the milk is pasteurized you're still going to run into problems. And who's to say the Germans have a taste for yak's milk anyway? It's shortsighted thinking like this that leads to posts like yours.

Re:Enough with the analogies!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! No more analogies--it's like being nibbled to death by cats!

Re:Enough with the analogies!

[01101101]

There simply isn't an adequate analogy for this situation, as nothing else is like an unsecured access point. Please stop comparing them as such.

So it's like apples and oranges then?

Re:Enough with the analogies!

[Daniel_Staal]

An analogy, in this case, is precident. It is how we are intending to think about the issue. The question is this: Is an unsecured wireless access point assumed to be open to the public or not? An analogy is reasoning for a particular argument: it is or it isn't because we are treating it as if it were a newer version of $foo.

Personally, I think an unsecured access point should be considered public. There is no seperate flag for 'you are allowed to access this' besides the fact that when you try you can. It is trivial to at least make it obvious I don't want you to access this connection, using passwords and/or encryption. (Even if you can break it, you know I didn't want you in at that point.) Therefore, since some people do want to run publicly accessable access points, using the fact that connection is possible as implying that connection is permitted makes logical sense.

Re:Enough with the analogies!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your analogy misses the point entirely.

The situation the GP was describing is a more like having a wireless access point setup in your house. You can have as many wireless network cards each with their own MAC address, but unless you capture packets you are still going to run into problems. And who's to say your nice looking neighbor does not take private photos of herself toe-mail her boyfriend. It's shortssighted thinking like yours that leads to not capturing packets.

Re:Enough with the analogies!

[modecx]

There simply isn't an adequate analogy for this situation, as nothing else is like an unsecured access point. Please stop comparing them as such.

So, there's these two princesses back in opposite castles and both are really hot and everyone wants to hit it like there was no tomorrow. One's a complete nymphomaniac and a slut besides that; in other words, she she's ready to screw leprotic beggers at the drop of a hat, and to top it off her castle has a neon sign 500 feet in the air that says "Princess love you long time".

The other princess has a chastity belt and and a sign on her skirt that says "Keepeth out or we'll catapulteth your balls into the next county", and the castle has a bunch of armored cavalry frothing at the mouth to protect her magesty's state of integrity.

What was I getting around to? Ahh, fuck it.

Re:Enough with the analogies!

[Matt Perry]

There simply isn't an adequate analogy for this situation, as nothing else is like an unsecured access point. Please stop comparing them as such.

OK, I'll try.

Where I live homes aren't more than about 15-20 feet from the street. A neighbor has a bright outdoor light on their house and they often leave it on late at night or all night long. One evening while walking down the street I notice that the light is so bright that I can sit on the curb of the street and read a book by the light. So I do. Is it unethical for me to be using their light to read my book?

Both a wireless access point and the bright house light are radiating energy, just at different wavelengths (one visible light, the other radio waves). I'm not on their property. They are paying for generating the light but as the light spills onto the street they can't do much to reclaim that escaping energy, no more than someone could do to limit where the wireless AP's signal goes. Meaning, they can turn down the intensity of the light just as they could lower their wireless AP's signal until the signal isn't available outside of the house.

Re:Enough with the analogies!

[megaditto]

Uh, no. It's more like the Internet being a collection of tubes, and those tubes are filled with water. And when someone taps into your unsecured tube, you replace potable water inside with raw sewage.

Re:Enough with the analogies!

[gardyloo]

Apparently, all the end-users (ack!) have to do is reverse the sewage and run it through a sharpening filter. Then it's as good as the original poop.

      This analogy stuff is fun!

Re:Enough with the analogies!

[KitFox]

One evening while walking down the street I notice that the light is so bright that I can sit on the curb of the street and read a book by the light. So I do. Is it unethical for me to be using their light to read my book?

No problem! But still a flawed analogy. The radio waves (your neighbor's light) by themselves provide nothing. The data encoded on the manipulation of the radio waves, and your sending radio waves back, thus causing other things in the house to react, are what provides you with the internet service.

So, to make your analogy better, the neighbor's front porch light would need to be a special signalling device that flashes on and off or changes color to talk to the car (AP Outbound signal). The car would then blink it's headlights, and the front porch light sees this blinking and gets information from it (Wireless card to AP). The car then sends a message "Send out a can of gasoline.", and a can of gas is sent to the car, because the front porch light is connected to a house system that understands how to do this.

So, you getting the internet connection on the WiFi is the equivilant of parking YOUR car within view of the front porch light, then causing YOUR car to signal for the house to send out a can of gasoline, and getting the gasoline. Not just "reading a book using their light", because A: Reading the book using their light does not involve decoding the information contained in that light. B: Does not involve sending any information BACK to the light. C: Does not involve getting something back from the house that would normally not have been given to you unless you screwed around with flashing lights.

However... To REALLY make this analogy not involve cars or gasoline...

The light is constantly signalling information of a guy reading a book. There is only one guy, in the house, and he has access to any book in existence. There is a person in the car in the driveway who has the car's headlights flash, and the porch light receives these flashes, and tells the guy in the house "Please start reading 'Flashing Lights for Dummies'." So the guy in the house does this, and what he is reading is sent over the flashing porch light to the car.

Now you bring your car up, and decide "Well, the guy in the house isn't reading any book right now, so I will flash my headlights at the porch light and get him to read 'Hacking Doom for Smart People' to me."

So the question is not of whether you can read your own book under their light, but whether you should have the right to get the guy in their house to read information of your chosing to you via the flashing porch light.

Re:Enough with the analogies!

[kemo_by_the_kilo]

Actually the best analogie is:

its like a man on a soapbox with a megaphone, he is yelling somesort of information like "the world is going to terminate, DHCPDISCOVER my dhcp server and you wont goto /dev/null"
.... no wait heres a better one.....

lets say your neighbor is having a party.... its 2:00 am and your up...*ahem*.. coding.....

you can hear their music through your walls right?.... (so its not like the RIAA is coming over to sue you for sharing music.)

but, that music is the signal that there is a house party, and if you werent invited (and you are cool) you would crash said party would you not?

it doesnt make it right, but if something is free someone will take it.

now the law states that, unless wep or some other encryption is in use it is an open broadcast and anyone with the equipment can join/listen.

but if the encryption is in place then you cannot legally break in.

Analogies Broken

[Anonymous Coward]

All of the locked door, stolen bike, and lawn analogies miss one important fact. 802.11 uses the radio spectrum. In the US we ALL own the radio spectrum, but "trust" the FCC to manage it.
The FCC says you can transmit on that band within X power. They also say if a a signal enters your reciever you can read it.
Together they imply you can join an unsecured network, because that person is allowing their equipment to broadcast, and recieve on open frequencies.

Re:Analogies Broken

[johnny cashed]

Yes, but citizens cannot buy a radio scanner that covers the band which cell phones use.


Also, you may be allowed to receive the broadcast, but in this case it isn't broadcasting, it is communication involving transceivers (transmitter and receiver pairs). I don't think it is fair to say that this implies that you can joint an unsecured network, though my personal belief is that it should be ok. If the provider of the unsecured network does not like it, they should secure it. I think that you should have free reign to receive radio signals regardless of their origin if you have a receiver. If you cannot make sense of the signals, that is your problem.

Re:Analogies Broken

[aussersterne]

This is exactly the point that so many "property analogies" miss. If it is in the air I breathe when I am not on your property, then it is mine, period, until the day on which airspace itself becomes private property. Until then, whether you encrypt your signal or not, YOU are FORCING it upon ME even when I am standing across the street. You lose all property rights to it the moment it leaves your property.

For those who use the bike analogy (if I leave my bike in a public place unlocked, does that make it yours?) well, no. But if you toss your bike into my yard, as far as I'm concerned it does. And if you toss your bike into my yard without my permission and six weeks later you come around to collect it after I've already bought a lock and have been riding it to work, I'm going to fight you all the way to say that your tossing the bike into my yard and then forgetting about it for weeks was your express method for disposing of it (i.e. giving it to me without compensation).

If you're going to claim that a signal is your property, you'd better to something to ensure that you're not forcing it upon everyone else OFF of your property. Or to create my own analogy, can I record a record, play it out my window in the direction of your house, and then sue you for piracy since you listened to it without ever buying a copy?

Re:Analogies Broken

[twiggy]

That implication may or may not be valid in a stricly legal sense due to the way the law was written.

However, from an ethical sense, it still cannot be argued that using the internet connection of some guy who bought a router at best buy and has no idea about security is "ethical" to do. Most people don't know jack about security, and if the router works right out of the box, why are they going to bother poking around the settings? They're not.

You can say that it's sad and wrong and stupid for people to do that, but their ignorance does not give you license to steal their internet connection.

Re:Analogies Broken

[Richard_at_work]

I let you into my house, you dont automatically have permission to use my telephone to call your aunt in China. You can connect to my wifi but nothing short of written or spoken permission from myself gives you leave to use my internet connection.

Re:Analogies Broken

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. An 802.11 card is indeed broadcasting. It's the link layer protocol on top that filters out the packets not destined for the card. The radio itself makes no such distinction. On many cards you can stop that filtering, which is known as "promiscuous mode" and is how etheral and packet sniffers work.

Re:Analogies Broken

[Anonymous Coward]

The FCC says you are free to any data that you recieve but any data that you transmit to purposfully interfere with another device is illegal. Let me make it clear: Using someone elses wireless network is ILLEGAL. It is just as illegal as if you had hacked a cell phone to use someone elses phone service (which is also possible).

Re:Analogies Broken

[dm0527]

You're preaching to a deaf audience that isn't capable of reading lips.

Most people in this particular arena will argue up one end and down the other that they can use someone else's connection if it's available. Nevermind the fact that he purchased the equipment to set it up (and was incapable of purchasing equipment that limited the broadcast to just his yard), is paying the bill to the ISP for the connectivity and probably doesn't understand technology enough to even know that he is letting anyone use his connection.

In fact, screw him because he's such a dumbass. We should probably all download kiddie porn through his router and get his dumb ass sent to jail for being stupid enough to bring this situation on himself!

There, now I'm cool to all the /. crowd, right?

Re:Analogies Broken

[johnny cashed]

Yes, but if it is strictly a broadcast, you cannot go anywhere on the internet(you can log what you pick up). Sure you can receive the link layer protocol, but this won't get you anywhere by itself. The FCC treats broadcasting as a one way information flow. This is what I meant in my post. To get anywhere, you need two way communications. You have to be able to submit your URL requests.

Re:Analogies Broken

[Mr. Shiny And New]

Sure, access to the WLAN is in the air you breathe, but access to the internet is not. You are definitely causing potential harm in the form of increased ISP charges by using someone's IP. Many ISPs have bandwidth caps and if you go over your transfer limit you pay fees. Also your actions might not be legal and thus you are exposing the owner of the internet connection to legal risk.

You can connect to an unsecured WLAN all you want, but to use that connection to go onto the internet is clearly entering into a different domain of "property". Maybe I threw my bike onto your lawn, or maybe it fell off my driveway onto your lawn, but that doesn't give you the right to go into my house to get oil for its chain, even if my garage door is open and the oil is sitting right there. (Yes this analogy is just as bad as yours and all the others :) )

Re:Analogies Broken

[crawling_chaos]

Remember that wireless networking is two way, so you are also broadcasting onto my property when you associate and I can choose to mess with the signal. Therefore re-directing every one of your requests to blurry pictures of the Care Bears or deleting random characters from the stream is fully within my rights.

Re:Analogies Broken

[eluusive]

What are you talking about? I have one in my pocket.

Re:Analogies Broken

[Anonymous Coward]

> I let you into my house, you dont automatically have permission to use my telephone to call your aunt in China. You can connect to my wifi but nothing short of written or spoken permission from myself gives you leave to use my internet connection.

My stupid analogy to counter your stupid analogy:

If you don't want him to use your internet connection, then don't give him a default gateway pointing to your internet connection. It's like letthing him into your house and showing him where the phone is, then getting mad when he uses it. Now if you don't give him a default gateway pointing to your internet connection, and he finds it and uses it anyway, that is much more like your phone analogy.

Re:Analogies Broken

[KitFox]

Analogies of all sorts, and yes, it does come down to radio waves. I only know about the US, so let's see...

Firstly, somebody said "Their radio waves are infringing on my property, so I have the right to use them."
This is very similar to the "garden pelting passersby with peas and carrots, so they are allowed to eat them."

Fine. You may eat (LISTEN) to the radio waves. You may NOT send stuff back to the garden to grow, nor may you send radio waves back to the receiver. And of course, actually getting arbitrary data back from the network, or connecting to the network, requires that you send stuff back... at which point YOUR radio waves are invading THEIR property.

But then it gets more complicated...

Okay, yes, as the parent says, you may broadcast on the same frequency, and if the receiver listens, that's its own damn problem.
True. Very true.

HOWEVER...

The FCC rules only cover permission to broadcast, and permission to listen to the radio waves. They do NOT cover the permission needed to use the radio waves as a transmission medium by which access to the computer systems on the other side of the radio waves is gained.

The whole thing comes down not to the radio waves, but to the access to the network and computer systems. And that access is the illegal part.

So if you were "talking" on the radio waves, but in NO way accessing anything BEYOND the radio waves themselves (No data went past the receiver on the other end... not even to the chips involved in processing network traffic), then it's fine.

End result?

You can sniff as much as you want, just don't sneeze.

Re:Analogies Broken

[CyberKnet]

Sure. You're free to receive the signal and manipulate that data any way you want. No argument.

And sure, you're free to send any signal out to anywhere, or the original router wouldn't have been free to send out its signal.

The problem comes when you're starting to access said device and use up resources on it. You're manipulating private property (Even if via free to transmit and receive airwaves). And accessing and manipulating private property is not OK. The device has a limited resource by way of processing power and available internet bandwidth, and it is not OK for you to consume those without permission. Period.

No analogies are needed, it's just plain wrong.

Re:Analogies Broken

[johnny cashed]

I'll assume you have a radio scanner in your pocket. By FCC decree in 1994 ordinary joes (I'll call them citizens) cannot purchase a new manufactured scanner which will receive radio signals in the band used by analog cell phones. This was supposed to prevent eavesdropping by those who own said receivers on callers using cell phones who have an expectation of privacy equivalent to that of a wired land line. This set a bad precident in my opinion. I don't care about receiving cell phone calls on a scanner, but I believe that if you are sending radio signals that come across my person (or property) I should be able to receive them, provided I have the proper equipment. If you don't want me to listen to your signals, you can either: not transmit or encrypt your signal such that it makes no sense to me.

As far as I know, older scanners where grandfathered in, so if you have a scanner from before the FCC regulation went into effect, you can receive said bands. I suppose it is still legal to construct your own receiver which will receive this band. However, unless you are law enforcement or government you cannot buy a radio receiver to listen on this band. However, you can easily get a scanner that covers this band (just look on Ebay), so in a practical sense, the FCC regulation is a load of BS. You can also get one from Canada.

Re:Analogies Broken

[Anonymous Coward]

Move to an area right next to a small town airport and bitch and moan about flights going over your house. If you complain loud enough (ie. with a lawyer) the only options the airport has is to a.) redirect traffic or b.) purchase your airspace. Its not cheap, I made a pretty penny when the city came wanting my airspace. Since they are small corporate jets that come in maybe once a week, I was willing to sell. Remember in the US anything over 2000 feet is the government's but anything below is private and you own it.

Re:Analogies Broken

[KevinIsOwn]

If someone is incuring such fees, they should utilize some form of encryption. Even those that are breakable, like WEP, still give the message that one is trespassing should one access the network. And it doesn't look like anyone has really justified breaking into an encrypted network.

Re:Analogies Broken

[Anonymous Coward]

For those who use the bike analogy (if I leave my bike in a public place unlocked, does that make it yours?) well, no. But if you toss your bike into my yard, as far as I'm concerned it does.

Do you have title to it? No. It's not yours. You can call the police, and have them impound the unwanted item, if you so desire. But you don't get title to someone else's property by virtue of it being on your land.

I'm going to fight you all the way to say that your tossing the bike into my yard and then forgetting about it for weeks was your express method for disposing of it

So, you're going to tell someone else what their intentions were? I don't think you get to do that. I think they do.

Or to create my own analogy, can I record a record, play it out my window in the direction of your house, and then sue you for piracy since you listened to it without ever buying a copy?

Well, there is no definition of "piracy" that applies in this situation. The traditional definition (attacking ships on the high seas) doesn't apply. Copyright infringement doesn't apply, since no copy is being made by any party. There is no trademarks at issue to infringe, and no trade dress issues either. There is no patented process being applied in any disputed way. There is no industrial design being manufactured. An authorized party is producing an authorized copy of an authorized work; at worst, the listener might be able to get a noise bylaw enforced.

So, no you can't sue, because no laws are being broken.

Re:Analogies Broken

[Shimmer]

You may eat (LISTEN) to the radio waves. You may NOT send stuff back to the garden to grow, nor may you send radio waves back to the receiver.

That's just dumb. You're allowed to throw peas at me, but I can't throw the same kind of peas back at you?

Re:Analogies Broken

[Moofie]

"No analogies are needed, it's just plain wrong."

Proof by assertion spotted on the Internet! Film at 11!

Re:Analogies Broken

[Mr. Shiny And New]

What you're saying is now equivalent to "if someone is coming onto your property to use your electricity, you should put up a fence" or "if someone comes into your house to make long-distance calls, you should lock your door". Yes, you should secure your property to prevent people from tresspassing. However, that doesn't change the fact that such tresspass is still unethical. Our society generally has a notion of individual's property rights, and I don't think it's wrong to extend "property" rights to things like your internet connection. Just as you can't steal my car from my driveway, you can't use my bandwidth and degrade my internet performance and/or cause me to incur fees.

Re:Analogies Broken

[vertinox]

I let you into my house, you dont automatically have permission to use my telephone to call your aunt in China. You can connect to my wifi but nothing short of written or spoken permission from myself gives you leave to use my internet connection.

FFS man. What part of anologies don't work for this doesn't make sense? Wireless connection implies that there will be an internet connection. It's like saying the person was at your door asking if they could come in to make a phone call. Why else would you connect to a wireless network?

Secondly, if you are saying this is your property... The get your damn property off mine because people sitting in my yard meaning to connect to my open network keep connecting to yours by accident because it just happened to be at the top of the list. Seriously... It takes 3 mouse clicks in your router setup to turn off your SSID broadcast.

Not. That. Hard.

Re:Analogies Broken

[BeBoxer]

nothing short of written or spoken permission from myself gives you leave to use my internet connection.

Where do web servers (or any TCP socket based service) fit into this? My computer sends your computer a request for a connection, which your computer accpets. And I then proceed to "use" your internet connection to send data. Am I required to get "written or spoken" permission for this act? BitTorrent is probably a better example. Lots of people who run BT clients do _not_ fully understand the service they are offering, just as lots of folks who run wireless do not understand the service they are "offering" via their open wireless.

It seems like an almost perfect analogy to me.
1) Clueless user buys AP / runs BT but has no real idea of how the technology works or how to configure it.
2) Their AP / BT client begins advertising the service via broadcast beacons or telling the tracker.
3) Clients interested in the service begin connecting based upon the open invitation made by the AP/client
4) Clueless user sees their bandwidth getting used for the benefit, not of them, but of the client who connected.

But I'm to understand that the client in the wireless case are committing some sort of crime unless they get "written or spoken" permission. Do you expect BT users to do the same? If not, why not?

Re:Analogies Broken

[KitFox]

That's just dumb. You're allowed to throw peas at me, but I can't throw the same kind of peas back at you?

Ahhh, Tit for Tat...

Given that the "peas" are radio waves... Simply put, to make the "pea" analogy work,you'd have to have "Ghost peas" that don't actually hit anybody, aren't even SEEN unless you are specifically looking for them, and are available to be eaten or ignored as you see fit. This is why the OP of this thread pointed out that the analogies are broken.

But again, the important thing is that Yes, you can throw peas around, as long as you don't try to get your peas to grow in the garden. Ie, Yes, you can transmit radio waves, as long as thos radio waves don't act as a medium by which you illegally access a computer network.

Listening to radio waves: Legal
Transmitting radio waves: Legal
Using the combination of listening and transmitting radio waves as a carrier by which to access the computerized system: Not legal.

Re:Analogies Broken

[vertinox]

Yes, but citizens cannot buy a radio scanner that covers the band which cell phones use.

Um... Let me guess?

Because the FCC said so?

Why doesn't this make sense to people.

FCC says these certain frequencies are private and certain frequencies are public. If you want a private frequency, then go talk to the FCC and buy one.

You sir, are running your routers on public domain. By law (which the grand parent has stated) anyone is allowed to receive these transmissions and send information back to the receiver. If you do not want people to be able to use these networks beyond these points then you spend the 90 seconds needed to turn on some minimal security measures.

Re:Analogies Broken

[vertinox]

Most people don't know jack about security, and if the router works right out of the box, why are they going to bother poking around the settings? They're not.

Speaking of which, if Joe Six Pack sees two "linksys" in his available networks, how does he know which one is his?

Re:Analogies Broken

[Richard_at_work]

When I invite you into my home after you knock on my door, my phone has no restrictions which stop you from making a call - are you therefor justified in making a call to any number you wish while Im out of the room? How about raiding my fridge?

Re:Analogies Broken

[Richard_at_work]

Wireless does not imply an internet connection - Ive set up a couple of wireless networks for friends where they either have dialup or no connection at all, is their existence tehrefor pointless according to your standards?

Connecting and being issued the gateway address is akin to being invited in and shown the location of the phone - until I give you permission to make the call, you are sod out of luck.

And radio broadcasts are accepted by teh FAA regulations as not necessarily limited in area of usage.

Re:Analogies Broken

[idontgno]

Speaking of which, if Joe Six Pack sees two "linksys" in his available networks, how does he know which one is his?

Does it matter? Odds, are, neither are using WPA or WEP. I'd guess if Ol' Joe is smart enough to wipe the drool from his chin, he'll pick the WAN with the strongest signal strength. Otherwise, the one his mouse pointer is closest to. And it'll work, because both Joe and his neighbor Bob are both clueless troglodytes.

Re:Analogies Broken

[johnny cashed]

It doesn't make sense because before the 1994 FCC regulation, one could receive anything that came through the air, if you had equipment capable of it. Military bands, Air traffic control bands, whatever you were able to receive. To me this makes sense. Those who want privacy, should encrypt their radio traffic. The military understands this, because other countries are not subject to FCC rules. What should have happened in 1994, is that the FCC mandate the cell carriers to encrypt their traffic, not ban receivers capable of receiving them. The reason is simple. It is easy to locate a transmitter, but how does one locate a receiver? This is why, on principle, traffic radar detectors are legal under FCC regulations (there may be state and local laws that outlaw them). This is why I believe the 1994 FCC regulation is a bad precident. You cannot expect privacy if you are sending a radio signal (ok, maybe with line of sight microwave communication). You may have privacy if you encrypt it, but one can still locate the actual signal. On a side note, it is illegal for amateur radio operators (ham radio) to encrypt their traffic.

I have no trouble understanding regulation on transmitting. I don't understand regulations on receiving.

I do run an open access point. If I didn't want to, I would secure it.

Re:Analogies Broken

[KitFox]

Why else would you connect to a wireless network?

That's part of the issue... Unless you are invited to do so, connecting to a wireless network in the US is illegal. You can listen to parts all you want, but the moment you tell the other systems, "Oh, and I want to talk too!", you're in potential trouble.

If you connect to any unsecured wireless network, you should not necessarily expect an internet connection. Head to the some states, and the roadside rest stops have "free wireless!"... however you can't get onto the internet, only to the state road information. Try to go to google? Get state road information. Heck, go to a T-Mobile Hot Spot, and you won't get an internet connection normally unless you have paid for service. Open wireless != Internet connection. Open wireless exclusively means "You can connect to the wireless segment of this AP's network view." (Note: "Can" != "Legally Permitted". "Can" == "Possible to do")

Re:Analogies Broken

[BeBoxer]

When I invite you into my home after you knock on my door, my phone has no restrictions which stop you from making a call - are you therefor justified in making a call to any number you wish while Im out of the room? How about raiding my fridge?

No, of course not. But that's not the issue. If you invite me into your home, I think I am justified in entering your home. I may even consider it OK to stand there and consume valuable space. Maybe even breath the air. Because those things are all entailed in being invited into your home. But what act on the wireless side corresponds to "raiding my fridge" in your analogy? Using your Internet access? If that's so, I'm sorry, you're being an idiot. Claiming that inviting someone to use your wireles (via an open AP), and then providing a DHCP address upon request, somehow does not imply permission to actually, you know, use the network is the dumbest thing I've heard in a while.

And you never answered my question, which I think is a much closer and apt analogy. But you won't because you don't like the answer.

Re:Analogies Broken

[Baricom]

I haven't made up my mind about this issue one way or the other, but I would like to hear your opinion on something. I went to read my state's computer crimes law. All of the crimes covered by the law are limited to access "without authorization." Without authorization is essentially defined as lack of permission from the owner.

Here's my question: what constitutes permission? Consider web sites. Most do not explicitly grant permission on all their pages, and many don't have terms of service. Google doesn't even have a direct link to their terms of service from search result pages.

If a web site does grant permission, how can you know that until you've actually connected to the server and fetched the data? I'm not a lawyer, but it seems that I would be guilty of a computer crime every time I visit a site without the owner granting me permission beforehand.

Alternatively, the mere act of a public server responding to a connection request could constitute permission. If this is the case, why isn't an open access point also implicitly granting permission?

Re:Analogies Broken

[KitFox]

You sir, are running your routers on public domain. By law (which the grand parent has stated) anyone is allowed to receive these transmissions and send information back to the receiver. If you do not want people to be able to use these networks beyond these points then you spend the 90 seconds needed to turn on some minimal security measures.

Hmm... By Law, the radio waves are public domain; you can and may listen to them. By law, you can and may transmit radio waves of the same frequency. And by law, you may not access a computer network without permission. Just becasue there is a means by which this network 'can' (possible to do) be accessed in a public area does not make it legal to do so. Regardless of how "easy" it is to get this access, the access itself is still illegal.

Just like an unlocked and wide-open house door makes it 'easy' to break into a house, it does not make it 'legal' to break into a house.

Re:Analogies Broken

[myowntrueself]

How about raiding my fridge?

Phew... well whenever people let me into their house I've always *assumed* that they want me to raid their fridge...

Its better than letting me get hungry

Re:Analogies Broken

[JesseMcDonald]

I let you into my house, you don[']t automatically have permission to use my telephone to call your aunt in China. You can connect to my [WiFi] but nothing short of written or spoken permission from myself gives you leave to use my [I]nternet connection.

The thing is, they aren't using your Internet connection -- your router is, on their behalf, in accordance with its advertised default functionality or your intentional programming. If you don't want your router to proxy Internet access for them, then program it not to. All WiFi routers support this. 802.11x is on unregulated spectrum; provided they stay within the frequency and power requirements (there are no protocol requirements), they (should) have just as much right to use it as anyone else. It's your responsibility to decide how you want your router to respond to any external tranceivers and to program it accordingly.

Standard disclaimer: IANAL and this is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, find a lawyer.

Re:Analogies Broken

[RobertLTux]

a good host will offer you food

a really bad host will let you "raid the fridge" of toxic food like serve you say a certain goat image instead of what you asked for

Re:Analogies Broken

[kchrist]

But is it "stealing"?

All this talk of whether or not it's ethical to use an open wireless network and no one is addressing what it's being used for. Sure, the anti-open wifi crowd has scare stories about people sharing movies or kiddie porn, but what about non-continuous, low-impact use like checking e-mail?

While I don't agree that using open wireless networks is unethical or, heaven forbid, "stealing", I would never use one for something that would affect the network owner, whether it's illegal or just bandwidth-intensive. BUT, if I move into a new apartment and don't have internet connectivity yet, is it unethical for me to pop on to a neighbor's open network for a minute to check my e-mail?

Re:Analogies Broken

[RobertLTux]

i hate to do this but according to http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/get-cfr.cg i?TITLE=47&PART=15&SECTION=121&TYPE=TEXT
it is illegal to own ,manufacture or modify any scanner to receive cellular and cordless phone frequencies
Your "grandfathers" scanner is a technical violation but ...

just a hint for the trolls this would be a text version of Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations Part 15 Subpart 121 entitled "Scanning receivers and frequency converters used with scanning receivers."

The folks on EBay are asking for MIBs to show up

Re:Analogies Broken

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly!

And even if the WLAN is unsecured, and a gateway device is doing the authentication, under the terms described by the parent post, simply interacting with the AP *to find out* if access is granted, you'd already be committing a crime.

The only real solution involves some sort of penalty, or disincentive to using a free* connection. I don't see wireless cards loaded up with micropayments around the corner. So it would appear that mucking with the content is not so bad an approach. For more mature individuals, I think the top frame "borrowed connection" idea is good ... and even better with a paypal link!

* wear and tear on the AP
* overuse on a metered ISP
* electricity use by AP, etc...

Re:Analogies Broken

[Guy Harris]

BUT, if I move into a new apartment and don't have internet connectivity yet, is it unethical for me to pop on to a neighbor's open network for a minute to check my e-mail?

As far as I'm concerned, unless you've asked the neighbors whether you may do so and they've said "yes", I'd say the answer is "yes, it's unethical". At minimum, I'd consider it impolite.

Re:Analogies Broken

[Guy Harris]

They also say if a a signal enters your reciever you can read it. Together they imply you can join an unsecured network, because that person is allowing their equipment to broadcast, and recieve on open frequencies.

They also imply that anybody else who wants to listen to what you're sending on that network can do so - and they don't imply that the person who manages that network is obliged to turn your radio transmission into an IP datagram and forward it onto their network without molestation. (Heh. I'd like to see the Web accesses of the types vigorously defending joining "wide open" networks redirected to a site showing them the real meaning of "wide open", if you know what I mean and I think you do....)

Re:Analogies Broken

[KitFox]

As a general rule, for "implied" permission, the user is stuck trying to prove that the owner of the network/machine -intentionally- allows for public access. For example, if you slap up a sign saying "Free WiFi! Connect to the network SSID JoesShack for access!", that is implied permission.

In the case of web pages, there are other links pointing to the web pages in question, and generally advertising out there to indicate "Go here!"... otherwise, trust me, people won't. In the case of wireless networks, having an "indicator of it specifically intentionally being an open network" will suffice, such as a sign, or other such item that the user has "reasonable belief" was instated by the owner of the network (Warchalk markers can't be used as defense. ;) )

Main thing though is that BOTH the web server and the WiFi require permission... With the web server, the links and intentional public presence indicate implied permission, and will go in your favor in weighing who wins. However, with WiFi, the only indication you have is the discovery of the SSID broadcast. And since the broadcast is a mormal function of the network, and not "Express advertising" beyond that, unless the broadcast SSID is something like "FREE WIFI FOR YOU", the courts generally won't consider it "implicit permission".

Web sites that are well-linked from outside sources and that are obviously meant to be public access are a big difference from "SSID 'linksys' on Ch 6" when trying to prove that it was intended to be public and you did not know you did not have implied permission. A court will generally look at a web site or other public service as the equivilant of a public retail establishment. They have the right to DENY permission to folks, however except when expressly prohibited (Closed signs, locked doors, etc), the general public has a "reasonable belief" that they are allowed to be there. While wireless networks, unless expressly pointed to as or indicating that they are "public" (No, broadcasting an SSID on an unsecured network does not cover that) are generally considered to be private in court precidence.

Then comes the situation of "Public server"... The web site makes itself very obviously a public server. There are links pointing to it, advertising about it, etc. But trust me on this: If you decide to randomly go poking around scanning obscure subnets, and happen to find a web server that puts you on a system at a large police station for looking up police files... Even if it's not secured... You -WILL- get your {censored} handed to you for repeated access (Likely not for "*Look*... Oops! *RUNAWAY*!" (Though they may, you never know).

I guess the main thing to remember is that they are going to put you in front of a Jury of "your peers"... This does not mean technogeeks.. This means "Normal everyday people". And your responsibility is to convinve them that you had a reasonable reason to believe that you were allowed to access the thing.

vs Google: "Well, Millions of people go there, all my friends are there, and they have services that they specifically indicate are public. Google is a well-established system, and they KNOW for a fact that i was connecting, and millions of other people connect with their knowledge and no prohibition, so I had a reasonable belief that I was allowed to access it."

vs Bob Smith: "Well, I scanned for networks on my PC and say 'linksys' on channel 6, so I connected to it, and Bob didn't say not to until he found out. No, Bob is not a technologically inclined person, so he probably didn't know that I was connecting."

Best way to figure it out is VERY simple:

Before you connect somewhere, think to yourself, "If I asked the owner of this resource, 'May I connect to this resource and use it in the manner you intend it to be used?', would they say yes?"...

"Google, may I connect to your website and use it to search?"

"Starbucks, may I connect to your free wifi that you have for me to surf the internet and use it to surf the internet?"

"Bob, may I connect to your wireless network and use your internet connection so I don't have to get my own?"

Easy to think about at least.

Re:Analogies Broken

[Mr. Shiny And New]

Exactly: Communicating with the router may fall within the "rights" granted by the FCC for public airwaves, but using the associated LAN or internet connection is still using private resources, and private resources are not "free for the taking unless explicitly stated otherwise."

Re:Analogies Broken

[aussersterne]

NO, you have it backward and that is exactly the point. The Internet is NOT on the wireless provider's property, they are FORCING it onto your property, and you there is nothing that you can do to prevent it. You receive it regardless. You receive the radiation with your head and your tissue and your false teeth whether you want to or not. It is not on THEIR property, they have FORCED IT INTO YOURS.

They cannot then get angry about the interaction that ONE of YOUR pieces of property has with this signal that they force on you (i.e. your PC) any more than they can get angry about the interaction that this signal has with your peaches, your cat, or your glass dinnerware.

THEY HAVE FIRED THE SIGNAL AT YOU, not vice-versa.

Re:Analogies Broken

[aussersterne]

The most apropos analogy is that it is like shooting a bullet into someone and then getting upset because they have "stolen" your bullet!

Re:Analogies Broken

[GiMP]

The whole point of SSID broadcast is to advertise the network as being available to the end user. If you do not want your network accessed, disable the SSID broadcast. I believe if the SSID is broadcast and the network is not encrypted, then it is fair game.

Re:Analogies Broken

[jc42]

Claiming that inviting someone to use your wireles (via an open AP), and then providing a DHCP address upon request, somehow does not imply permission to actually, you know, use the network is the dumbest thing I've heard in a while.

Well, now; I don't think the legal system would necessarily agree with this. There are legal words for this sort of behavior. A very general term is "fraud". A more specific term is "entrapment". Making an offer and then prosecuting someone for accepting generally falls under such terms.

Thus, if I set up what looks like a store of some sort, with what looks like a sales display in the window, and price tags on the goods, and an open door, I can't charge you with trespass when you enter. Claiming that it's not a store, but a private residence will get you nowhere in court. You have fraudulently enticed people to enter what looks to a "reasonable man" as a commercial store. You are the criminal, not the supposed trespasser.

Similarly, putting something on a web site and then charging someone with copyright violation (or "theft" or "piracy" as we often read here) is something that the courts will eventually just treat as fraud and entrapment on your part, once lawyers and judges get over the idea that the term "computer" overrides legal precedent.

And setting up an open wireless access point with an internet connection will eventually be treated by the courts the same way. Otherwise I can set up all sorts of entrapments and enrich myself at the expense of anyone who sees the "open door" and walks through it. It'd be a pretty dumb judge that didn't imagine himself as my future victim unless he applies traditional case law and decides in favor of the defendant (and probably fines the plaintiff) in such cases.

In any case, consider the variant of the Golden Rule: What sort of society would you like to live in? I'd like to be able to use wireless anywhere that it's available. If we use the legal system to harass people to create or use open wireless access, we're working against that ideal. We want to encourage this sort of thing, not discourage it. To do so, we must not only encourage the nice people who set up open access points; we must also discourage the jerks that set up open access in order to harass people who use it.

Re:Analogies Broken

[jc42]

It doesn't make sense because before the 1994 FCC regulation, one could receive anything that came through the air, if you had equipment capable of it.

One of the fun aspects in this case is that you and I do have equipment that can receive cell-phone and wi-fi signals - our bodies. Now, granted, the reception is rather weak, and contrary to the ongoing scaremongering, really doesn't amount to more that raising our body temperature a few millidegrees.

But I've found it fairly easy to demo that such "reception" is happening. I find a spot where my cell phone reports an intermediate-level signal, hold the phone close to my body, and turn around slowly. Usually, there is a visible drop in signal strength at one point, which is where the human body is between the phone and the nearby relay. By turning back and forth, you can demo that this is repeatable.

One of the problem with wi-fi (and cordless phones) is that there's spectrum overlap. But the fun part is asking the question: How do I prevent my own (not my phone's; my body's) reception of any of these signals? Do I switch to wearing a hazmat suit (with a tinfoil layer) at all times?

This is somewhat absurd, of course. But it does illustrate one of the basic problems with laws that outlaw receiving signals broadcast (or narrowcast) by someone else's equipment. How can I even know I'm doing it? And if I want to obey the law, how can I block the signals before they reach my body or my electronic toys?

Another fun part is to consider the old comments about people who receive things like radio stations (or cell-phone conversations) in their dentures or other medical prostheses. Are they violating the law? Can they be prosecuted? If so, how can they prevent this and guarantee that they won't violate the law?

Fact is that our bodies are being penetrated by low-power radio signals most of the time. And in many parts of the world, this is another entry in the growing list of explanations why it's not actually possible to be a law-abiding citizen. No matter what you do, you are almost always in violation of one or more laws.

Re:Analogies Broken

[Mr. Shiny And New]

How is the "internet" being "forced" into your property? Sure, your notebook connects to the WLAN, but you are the one that opens an internet connection. Your private IP address is not part of the internet.

Now, if you want to talk about liability, I will allow that if your your access point is near to someone else's access point, and access theirs by accident, instead of your own, because of the way your notebook automatically decides to connect to the strongest AP, then you might be forgiven for using someone else's resource. But if you are deliberately using someone else's AP, without express permission, to access the internet, then you are knowningly using someone else's private resource. It's plain and simple, the "internet" isn't free and if you are accessing the internet you must know that SOMEONE is paying for that access, and if you know it's not you, then you must know that it's someone else.

Now, if you were using the WLAN to communicate with another wireless device on the WLAN, and you're not using the internet, then you are just using the WLAN that is broadcast into your own airspace. But the "internet" doesn't broadcast, and claiming that because someone's WLAN is unsecured gives you the right to access the internet is wrong. It's like saying that because there is no fence on someone's yard you can go into their house because their front door is unlocked.

Re:Analogies Broken

[Sketch]

Somehow I doubt that defense would hold up in court, if it were the RIAA suing you for filesharing. "But I didn't give them written permission to download those MP3s from me!"

Nasty Stuff You Can Do

[LaNMaN2000]

There is a lot of nasty stuff that you can do if you are routing the traffic through a squid proxy like the author of the original article did. Imagine replacing all images with Goatse.cx or redirecting all web traffic to a page announcing "You are a bandwidth thief!".

The more serious and disturbing outcome of this story is in that it presents a case for how wardrivers can have their passwords and personal information stolen through a clever phishing attack using a proxy. You can argue they deserve it for piggybacking on others' bandwidth but the potential for exploitation here is huge (imagine if somebody put an open access point near Central Park).

Re:Nasty Stuff You Can Do

[Lehk228]

doing sensitive transactions or logins over random wireless points = teh stupid.

Re:Nasty Stuff You Can Do

[networkBoy]

Ahem:
teh stupid == teh average wardriving script kiddie

One in the same and I now have an excellent idea for use in my apt complex :-)
Thanks
-nB

Re:Nasty Stuff You Can Do

[dogger]

As if it matters if you are using a secure connection! In fact if you are using something like this: www.the-cloak.com, which provides a fully encrypted proxy to your browser you are completely ok using open access points.

Re:Nasty Stuff You Can Do

[compm375]

Why should someone going around connecting to random wireless connections expect them to get to "the internet"?

Re:Backslash is retard.

[QuantumFTL]

Slashdot is not about stories, Digg and other linkfarms are about stories. Slashdot is about comments, Slashdot is about community. Considering the sorry state of the moderation system, it's hard to read many of the good comments without also coming upon highly-rated but rather banal comments (including a few I have authored). People who are too busy to browse through hundreds of comments will enjoy the backslash approach, and I, for one, think it can help extend debate on issues that are important (at least for nerds).

Yesterday's story?

[mobby_6kl]

I spent the whole yesterday refreshing the slashdot frontpage, and somehow managed to miss the story!

Anyway, this technique reminded me (yes I know they're very different) of airpwn, a piece of code which sniffs out the images and replaces them with the ones you specify, the authors had some fun at defcon 12

Elektroschock: your bandwidth comes from where?

[jea6]

We don't need internet providers and we don't need internet providers which leak our communication data to the governments and endanger the freedom of the net. The net should be a net and wireless technology is great for the creation of a real P2P internet.

OK, so how exactly are you connecting to Slashdot without using an ISP? Are you standing at a terminal in the cage at SAVVIS where Slashdot's servers are located?

Re:Elektroschock: your bandwidth comes from where?

[linvir]

What he means by "we don't need internet providers" is that we don't need ISPs. Obviously, we need internet providers in the sense that we need other people in the network to help transport the data.

The thing is, in that P2P fantasy world where everyone shares their connection and gives back to the community and there are no evil corporations charging us monthly fees, major latency would be the norm and the internet would become much more regionalised than it is now. Online gaming, for example, would all but die, surviving only in tightnit local groups.

Re:Elektroschock: your bandwidth comes from where?

[drinkypoo]

The thing is, in that P2P fantasy world where everyone shares their connection and gives back to the community and there are no evil corporations charging us monthly fees, major latency would be the norm and the internet would become much more regionalised than it is now. Online gaming, for example, would all but die, surviving only in tightnit local groups.

I feel there's room for a hybrid approach. You could buy metered long-haul low-latency traffic, and manually route that direction for machines you need to contact promptly.

Re:Elektroschock: your bandwidth comes from where?

[LiquidCoooled]

Thats where you are wrong, the infrastructure for major international corporations would still need to exist (like google etc are just going to roll over and give up).
There will still be high bandwidth international pipes around just like we currently do.
The only difference is that businesses with a vested interest in your custom will be the ones supplying the core bandwidth.

Once the mesh takes off, home users shouldn't need a specific ISP anymore.

Re:Elektroschock: your bandwidth comes from where?

[geekoid]

not really.
What id every wirless router talks to all the others in a type of wifi mesh.

including web sites. Totaly un controllable, completly anonymous, no ISP charges.

Put ione in every home and automobil and you could cover 90% of the US.

Re:Elektroschock: your bandwidth comes from where?

[Eccles]

Online gaming, for example, would all but die, surviving only in tight[k]nit local groups.

So I really could go out and smack that griefer? Sounds like a good thing, actually.

Re:Elektroschock: your bandwidth comes from where?

[mcrbids]

The thing is, in that P2P fantasy world where everyone shares their connection and gives back to the community and there are no evil corporations charging us monthly fees, major latency would be the norm and the internet would become much more regionalised than it is now. Online gaming, for example, would all but die, surviving only in tightnit local groups.

The march of technology makes the cost of providing N bandwidth drop every year, following a near exponential curve. Following this trend, it's easy to see how the cost of providing bandwidth drops to the point where individuals can afford to provide quality connections that now cost thousands.

Perhaps you don't remember the day when a 128k connection cost $1,000 per month or more? Now, such bandwidth is available for under $20/month in many contexts.

That P4 under your desk probably has more comptational power than existed worldwide in 1980. Certainly true for 1970. Yet, you can replace the Mobo and chip for less than a day's wages.

Why is it unrealistic to think that long-range, cheap, P2P broadband isn't possible, yet alone likely, in just a few more decades?

Re:Elektroschock: your bandwidth comes from where?

[linvir]

Actually, I really think you might be onto something there.

But for the sake of accuracy: we were actually dealing in the present tense, so technically your point is irrelevant.

An interesting thought though. One that gave me some hope for the future of the internet, in fact.

Slashdot Analogies

[linvir]

There's something about Slashdot that encourages these terrible analogies, and it's just awful to watch. Sometimes, I see a story, and I can tell beforehand that there's going to be a bunch of these crappy analogies being thrown around, argued over and refined. It's usually around then that I turn my computer off and go outside, so in a sense, they literally send me running.

Re:Slashdot Analogies

[springbox]

You're right, and it annoys me too. It seemed as if no one really considered to look at how the technology was intended to work as in: APs broadcast SSIDs to advertise their presence, and unless communication is encrypted, anyone can request to join the network. Of course, the reality of the situation is not being conveyed correctly to most consumers. I haven't bought an AP which has said in a really obvious place something like "the default configuration of this device allows anyone to use your Internet connection. If you do not want to share your connection with others then follow these steps.."

Most of the previous discussion seemed to focus on arguing about different aspects of various inappropriate analogies. I read through a few of these and the whole issue became more confusing as the discussion progressed than it really should have been. And no, not everything has to fit with the current exisiting ideas of what's right and wrong in regards to physical property.

What should be considered "public" and "private" with these devices is profoundly straightforward. Manufacturers should have made it clearer to the end user what they were getting themselves into.

Re:Slashdot Analogies

[Braino420]

Totally. It's alot like going outside on a cloudy day: you just know it's going to rain or maybe snow. Then when it comes, it's just better to be inside.

Re:Slashdot Analogies

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be like leaving a bookstore because you can imagine the contents of the first book you saw based on its title.

Re:Slashdot Analogies

[gatzke]

I agree, /. analogies are terrible. It is almost like some invisible force like a magnet is forcing everyone on /. to make stupid analogies, like some giant magnet would force your car hood to stay welded shut, keeping everyone inside clicking refresh...

Re:Slashdot Analogies

[geekoid]

Slashdot has terrible analogoies because it is used by people.

Re:Slashdot Analogies

[QuantumFTL]

There's something about Slashdot that encourages these terrible analogies.

This is called "People who don't know what they are talking about trying to explain things to people who understand even less." It's a blind leading the blind situation. Too bad so many good comments get hidden in that garbage.

Re:Slashdot Analogies

[Lord Ender]

Complaning about analogies on slashdot is like picking up chicks at the special olympics...

Re:Slashdot Analogies

[linvir]

Yeah, but mostly they are used in discussions (aka flamewars). In those cases, it's probably just a standard tactic: try to use reasoning to tie your point to a more difficult to refute point in order to strengthen your position. Unfortunately, most people get greedy and try to tie their points to indisputable facts and truths instead, and I think this is where the real stinkers come from, because it usually takes a lot of stretching [goatse.cx] to pull something like that off.

Re:Slashdot Analogies

[Monkeys!!!]

So it's like being able to see Uncle Bruce raise up one leg at the dinner table and getting out of there before the coming storm?

permission

[Anonymous Coward]

So when my PPPoE connection goes U with my ISP (I have ADSL) I am asking permission to connect, but, I have no permission to use the connection, since computers and routers cannot give permission, right?

When I check my mail, I ask permission via POP3 but, I don't have permission, since a computer cannot give permission...

Your argument doesn't seem to work.

Quote:
Yes, the computer is "asking" the router "permission," and the router is "granting permission" -- the only problem is, the words we use to describe these actions may appear to be descriptive of thinking and volition, but they really mean neither. Computers and routers simply CANNOT give "permission" in any legal or moral sense.

Re:permission

[linvir]

You aren't paying attention. You have permission to connect to your ISP and POP servers, because you are in a contract with the owners of both. You have no contract or even an informal agreement with the owner of an unknown unsecured wireless access point.

Re:permission

[twiggy]

His argument works fine, because you pay for your ADSL connection and you have HUMAN permission to connect.

Bits and bytes do not denote human intent, they only dictate technological switches on and off.

Re:permission

[geekoid]

You don't need a contract for 'permission' to join an open netowrk. Permission is implied.
The moment it requires authentication od some sort, permission is no longer implied.

Howm many contracts have you signed so you can bo to the store? or the mall?

If you signed a contract to get into a store, They will have a barrier. i.e. somebody checking ID/Cards. Otherwise people are free to come in as long as the doors are not locked becasue permission is implied.

Same with your home.

Re:permission

[linvir]

Yet more shitty analogies.

Yours are flawed because the knowledge of how to lock and secure premises is common. Everyone knows how to lock their home, and most people have the sense to do so. This means that when someone leaves their door open, it's a sign that something is different. And in the case of shops, they have signs denoting that they are shops, and it's a very old and established convention that one is free to enter and exit an open shop.

Here's a hint for you: if you catch yourself typing out an analogy, chances are already know you're wrong. Hit CTRL+W and get on with your life.

Re:permission

[geekoid]

Next time you reply, please try to have a point.

HINT: your point won't be anygood anyways. Hit a brickwall and die.

Re:permission

[b0s0z0ku]

You aren't paying attention. You have permission to connect to your ISP and POP servers, because you are in a contract with the owners of both. You have no contract or even an informal agreement with the owner of an unknown unsecured wireless access point.

What about an access point with the SSID set to 'Use-Me', 'Public', or 'Nice-Guys'? Some people might actually want to share their wireless access, and to fuck with what the ISPs want or don't want!

-b.

Backslash: Backslash

[Anonymous Coward]

Yesterdays story about backslash brought many interesting and insight comments from Slashdot readers.

For example, an Anonymous Coward said:
What is this backslash garabage? It's just a rehash.

Another user commented:

I hate backlash.

Many readers readers responded to this comment with a wide range of opionions,

• Teh ghey
• This faggotry has go to stop
• FUCK YOU TIMOTHY GODDAMNIT.

etc

Re:Backslash: Backslash

[alfs boner]

I would.

Re:Backslash: Backslash

[saskboy]

Yesterday's Journal entry on my journal about Backslash contained no posts, but I'm rehashing it now in the Backslash spirit of redundancy.
http://slashdot.org/~saskboy/journal/140669

Re:Backslash = dupe?

[necrogram]

three words.... Slow News Day

Does Wireless Cause Cancer?

[Anonymous Coward]

If so, then you're giving your neighbors cancer and they're entitled to take some of your bandwidth as retribution / reparations. Do not mod this funny.

Re:Does Wireless Cause Cancer?

[freeweed]

Does Wireless Cause Cancer?
(Score:5, Funny)

Do not mod this funny.

Do not mod this Informative.

Re:Does Wireless Cause Cancer?

[R3d M3rcury]

Yes! And we have to do something about second-hand packets...

Re:Does Wireless Cause Cancer?

[UltimApe]

*snicker* (ala mod(e)

Re:Does Wireless Cause Cancer?

[cciRRus]

The 2.4GHz or 5.8GHz radiation from 802.11 devices do not have sufficient ionizing powers to cause genetic mutations, which causes cancer.

Added Bonus

[ndansmith]

Having an unsecured wireless network provides plausible deniability for p2p downloading and what-not. Unless of course you live in Wyoming and have no neighbors for miles.

Re:Added Bonus

[IflyRC]

Actually, most of Wyoming is on fiber optic and wireless networks. One of the first broadband offerings in Gillette, Wyoming was from a company called Visionary Communications. They placed towers all around town for their wi-fi subscribers (no, its not open).

One of the interesting things about Wyoming is that within the boundaries of the towns, subdivisions and neighborhoods are closely packed in together. Sure there are the folks that live out on their own ranches but the trend is to live closer to town.

Re: Added Bonus

[Black Parrot]

> Having an unsecured wireless network provides plausible deniability for p2p downloading and what-not.

Yeah, but it sucks when all the songs are backwards.

Re:Added Bonus

[HoboMaster]

Nope. Precedent in court says that you are responsible for what happens on your network. Besides, your IP is enough evidence to have your computers seized and checked for evidence of filesharing, so it'd be hard to get away with.

Re:Added Bonus

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't kid yourself. It's not the least bit interesting.

Access to your LAN

[Throtex]

The second problem is you are allowing strangers access to not only your Internet connection, but also your LAN. I have multiple computers and put files in shared folders so I can access them from different machines. I don't want some strange to have access to those files, or worse, have their computer be infected with a worm/virus that propagates across the network.

I recently got a Nintendo DS and decided to set up a wireless network so I could play online with it. I have never previously needed a wireless network in my home, prefering the security of wire-bound communications. Since most of my computers are desktops that hopefully have little mobility, I can just drop a wire and forget about it.

My concern was the same, especially because the DS only supports WEP, meaning I should probably assume my network to be compromised. But then I found a better way to use my current security (NAT routing only ports where I'm expecting communications) to extend the network. Basically, take the existing network, showing only those ports you've opened to the public Internet on a common IP address, and move them back behind a second NAT router (the new wireless router). Set the first NAT router on the second NAT router's DMZ. Set the first NAT router's gateway to the IP address of the second NAT router (as seen by the first NAT router). Now, any wireless clients connecting to the second NAT router/access point will still be able to see the rest of your network, but only through the single IP address of the first NAT router, and only through those ports you would have opened anyway.

Sure, someone can still use your bandwidth, but at least you can add another layer of protection to your sensitive machines.

Re:Access to your LAN

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds like a whole lot more work than was necessary. Nintendo makes a dongle for you to use WiFi if you don't have/don't want a wireless network.

Re:Access to your LAN

[Namaseit]

Or you could only allow the mac address of your DS to connect and live happy without worry and complication.

Re:Access to your LAN

[Throtex]

I did that anyway, but one of the flaws of WEP is that it makes it really easy to catch a MAC address of a device communicating over the wireless network, and then you can simply spoof that address to get in. Sure, it's an extra layer of protection, but one I'm using on top of what I said, and should be used in any circumstance where it is an available option.

If someone wants to get into your network, they will get into your network. I simply assumed someone was in my network, and isolated the remainder of my network to prevent it from being compromised as well.

Re:Access to your LAN

[Throtex]

The dongle actually is a pretty worry-free solution because it's only physically capable of communicating with the DS (or something pretending to be a DS ... the dongle uses a Ralink chipset popular for homebrew use of the DS' "download play" feature) based on how the communications are formatted. The reason I didn't go with this perfectly acceptable route is because I wanted better signal coverage throughout the house (Linksys router running dd-wrt with signal power boosted a bit) and because of the aforementioned solution that gave me enough peace of mind to install the full-featured wireless network.

Re:Tag as intentionaldupe

[TheAngryMob]

Well, get yourself a login and use Preferences > Homepage, disable "Backslash" and quit whining.

Re:Tag as intentionaldupe

[SpecTheIntro]

I am consistently amazed at how many people bitch about this. Get over it. I can't read every article, and I appreciate these recaps. If you don't, fine; just shut the hell up about it. No one's got a gun to your head to force you to read the backslash posts.

Re:Tag as intentionaldupe

[timothy]

The idea is this:

Many people never read what may be some of the best comments because a particular story has gone quite a ways down the page by the time they see it. And some of the "best" comments (obviously there's some subjectivity to it) are ones that may not be as highly moderated as some decent ones which happen to have been made earlier and therefore had more time to be moderated up. (Also, some comments might be less interesting alone, but are catalyzed by the presence of surrounding ones.)

So we try to cherrypick some of the ones which would give a reader who'd glanced at (or even hadn't glanced at) the original story a sense of the reaction it inspired, without needing to dig through quite as many pages of comments.

You know, while I'd rather you enjoyed it, it's also easy to avoid (for any logged-in user) by adjusting preferences. Some people do; for any large-scale information feeds (or even medium-scale, like Slashdot), everyone filters *somehow,* whether by glancing past topics they don't like, or by using the provided filtering tools (including moderation threshold and section exclusion). It's not my intent to annoy you :)

timothy

Re:Backslash = dupe?

[Professor_UNIX]

Edit your profile and uncheck the Backslash sections so you won't see it again. No big deal.

I have a spare comment

[Efialtis]

Just redirect all their URL requests to the same URL...

CNN.com comes out as overstock.com
MSN.com comes out as overstock.com
Amazon.com comes out as overstok.com...

But, really, just lock up the network unless they are willing to pay 50% for their access rights...

Re:I have a spare comment

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

Or stick your referral account on the end of any URL from shopping sites.

Re:Backslash = dupe?

[linvir]

http://backslash.slashdot.org/users.pl?op=edithome

Why not just take them off your own homepage? That way, you won't be pissing everyone off with this already-redundant offtopic comment.

Re:Tag as intentionaldupe

[grim4593]

I happen to like backslash, gives me a change to read some of the comments I missed the first time I read through it.

the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[twiggy]

I'm amazed at the amount of people insisting that an open wireless router is an implicit invitation to join, and the number of people saying "if you are doing no harm, what's the problem?"

I love the idealistic vision of information being free, of internet access being free, etc - but the "hacker ethic" is no excuse for stealing.

Problem 1: Your average person is not very tech savvy, so your average internet router comes unsecured so that it works straight out of the box for your average version. This means that the vast majority of wireless routers are open unintentionally by people who don't read instructions or know anything about security. And why read the instructions if they don't have to? If it works right out of the box, why spend time reading the damn booklet? This means that the majority of unsecured wireless connections are likely that way because people don't know any better, not because they're Just Like You(tm) and want to share.

Problem 2: Even if these people left them open for convenience, sharing, etc - their terms of service with their ISP almost always have a clause saying that service is to be used only be residents of the billing address. By using their connection, whether they want you to or not, you are aiding them in breaking their TOS.

Problem 3: No, seriously, get it through your thick skull - that network isn't open because the guy who owns it reads slashdot and agrees with you. It's open because the guy doesn't know any better. However, his "stupidity" (reality: lack of interest in technology to the degree of yours) does not give you the "right" to steal.

Problem 4: You can say "if it doesn't hurt his bandwidth usage, it's fine", but that becomes a slippery slope. How many people get to borrow Unsuspecting Bob's internet connection then?

Problem 5: If you were to win the argument that people should be free to share their connections with the world, you would kill ISPs as a business. It's tantamount to arguing that it should be perfectly legal for one guy at the top of an apartment building to pay for cable internet, and for every resident of that building to mod a Linksys router and get the whole building on a WDS mesh through one connection. I'm no fan of the cable company, believe me, but doing this is still not fair to business.

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[assassinator42]

2WIREs come with WEP enabled by default, right? I haven't seen any that aren't encrypted. How is that working out?

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[Anonymous Coward]

This means that the vast majority of wireless routers are open unintentionally by people who don't read instructions or know anything about security. And why read the instructions if they don't have to? If it works right out of the box, why spend time reading the damn booklet? This means that the majority of unsecured wireless connections are likely that way because people don't know any better

Next time you get pulled over, tell the nice policeman that you didn't *know* you were speeding, and see how far that gets you.

Ignorance is not an excuse, in anything.

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[leoboiko]

If you were to win the argument that people should be free to share their connections with the world, you would kill ISPs as a business.

This is not evilness on the part of people, it's a weakeness of the ISP model. If we could give net access to everyone managing networks ourselves, it means the market has outdated ISPs (much like old-style telephony and elevator operators). I'd go as far as guess that wireless mesh networks will be the key to breaking telecoms monopolies over Internet access.

As for the open network controversy, I disagree with your conclusions. I've used a bunch of open nets and all of them were open to public; some called themselves "freenet" or "openap", etc. For good manners, I've always got in touch with the admin to warn about my intentions, and never once I found one who had his net open unintentionally. Maybe we live in different places.

I respect and understand you if you disagree with me and don't want anyone using your network. I can't respect you if you think this give you the right of playing childish pranks on them. If you don't want others to use the net then simply be polite and close/encrypt it.

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[Xugumad]

Something that really bothers me, and goes well with what you're saying:

A lot of people say "Well, they should learn how these things work and secure them properly!". Why? Are wireless routers as simple as they could be to set up? Is it unreasonable to assume that the defaults are sane? How about, rather than this current mess, someone adds a way of describing wireless networks, to DHCP. So:

Average user plugs new router into wall. It auto-generates a WEP (because it's well supported, and so a good default) key, and configures itself to use that. User then plugs their laptop into the router, using a standard ethernet cable, and the router tells the laptop about the wireless network as part of the connection setup. Laptop then prompts user if they want to use wireless, user clicks yes, unplugs cable, and is happy.

Wouldn't that be simpler? Safer? Generally all round better for everyone except /. users who might be using network connections of people who don't expect it?

Sorry, really fed up with this elitist attitude you get from computer people; just because you had to spend ages learning to do something, doesn't mean you shouldn't make it easier for other people.

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Problem 1: Your average person is not very tech savvy

Not my problem. We shouldn't have to work around other people's incompetencies unless legally obligated to do so. As an aside, I think people will eventually become more tech literate as technology is required for more day to day things. At some point wireless will be ubiquitous and consumers will demand security. Perhaps at this point, selling an AP without security on by default will be about as common as selling cars without locks/keys for the ignition.

> Problem 2: Breaking TOS

Not my problem. Probability aside, I have no way of knowing if they are breaking their TOS by sharing their internet connection. Even if they are, why would the burden of guilt fall to the person who never agreed to the TOS in the first place?

> Problem 3: No, seriously... that network isn't open because the guy who owns it reads slashdot and agrees with you.

Counter example. And I've known other counter examples who don't read slashdot.

> Problem 4: You can say "if it doesn't hurt his bandwidth usage, it's fine"

Rationalizations would seem to be irrelevant. It's legal or it isn't.

> Problem 5: Killing ISPs

Not my problem. It's not my job to protect someone else's business model. If it were, we'd all be in serious trouble.

I think there is one and only one question here. Does an open access point imply consent for usage? What if it is a random coffee shop? What if it is a private residence? What if it is a business, a museum, a hotel? What if you don't know the source of a the access point but you are sitting in a coffee shop? What if you are sitting down in a park and on the right is a sign that says free wireless but when you go to connect you find three wireless networks, which ones can you connect to? If you assume consent is not implied by openess, then you greatly restrict the availability of intentionally open wireless networks. Perhaps more importantly, if you make it illegal to access an open AP without human consent, for every one clueless AP owner you "protect", you will criminalize a hundred clueless laptop owners. Furthermore, that protection isn't real protection because it would be virtually unenforceable. The only real protection is the technological security the devices come with.

Of course, none of these are really legal arguments. As of right now, I don't think anyone knows whether or not access implies consent legally. It has not yet been determined. There have been one or two cases of incidents being prosecuted, but these have not really put much of anything to the test.

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[twiggy]

Next time you get pulled over, tell the nice policeman that you didn't *know* you were speeding, and see how far that gets you.

Ignorance is not an excuse, in anything.

But leaving your wireless open isn't the thing that's a crime (be it legal or just ethical) - it's taking someone else's resources without asking. The ignorant one in this case is the victim, not the offender.

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[twiggy]

All of your refutations amount to "not my problem".. but they don't address the fundamental issue of human consent vs. hardware consent. They're two different things. I don't care if it's your problem or not - I care if it's ethically right to steal internet from unsuspecting people who didn't intend to leave it open.

I know people hate the analogies, but seriously: If I leave my water hose running on accident, and it's sitting on the sidewalk, you can argue all day that "hey, the water's running anyway, and it's being wasted even though he's paying for it, so I should be able to water my lawn with the hose". From an economic standpoint you'll be right. From a moral standpoint, though, you're still taking something that's not yours. The moral thing to do would be to find the owner and let him know he left it running.

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[vertinox]

Problem 3: No, seriously, get it through your thick skull - that network isn't open because the guy who owns it reads slashdot and agrees with you. It's open because the guy doesn't know any better. However, his "stupidity" (reality: lack of interest in technology to the degree of yours) does not give you the "right" to steal.

So if I setup a web server and connect it to the net, leave port 80 wide open, and people connect to this server and read the content on the webpages and maybe download a few pictures... Well... Is that stealing?

Seriously it is the same thing as what we are doing here with bandwidth if we try to make it a tangible thing.

Now, if I wanted my web server to be only accessible to myself and I put up an .htaccess page with a firewall that only limits connections from certain IP addresses you can be sure as hell if someone still downloads the webpage that is stealing.

Why? Because you violated a security measure.

But you would say "But if I leave my house unlocked and you come in that is still tresspassing!"

Well... No... Because the internet and the wireless networks is considered open and public by default

Could you imagine the pain it would be to contact every free wireless operators or web hosts and go "Hey guys... Mind if I use your free service?"

Just as a web server is on the internet with port 80 anything on the FCC public wireless network is by default considered open and free to use unless you specifically make it so they can't connect.

Think of it like having an adult webserver that people pay to connect to get that information... Thats fine and dandy and heck... You could do the same with wireless technology so unless you specifically say... "Hey! Don't connect to my network! Provide me some authentification first!" then this is the case.

Its kind of like running a web server from your cable modem or DSL... Even if you didn't publicly submit the site to Google or even register the DNS for it, if someone connects to an open port 80 then that is not stealing your bandwidth because you are saying "here! have it for free!"

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[identity0]

Okay, I would not have butted in, were it not your use of the word "stealing" to describe people who connect to an open wireless AP. WTF?

Solution 1: If the guy doesn't care enough to even read the documentation of his AP, most of which are configurable from your webbrowser, then I don't see how he can complain about people connecting to it. It's easy enough that it's described in a little booklet, you do not need a CS or IT degree to do it.

Solution 2: That is legally true. However, ISP TOSes are really not something I hold with great respect. Most will forbid the use of uploading on P2P even if the content is legal, and I've seen RoadRunner TOSes that said "no servers", which if interpreted strictly enough could mean no dedicated game servers.

Solution 3: It's pretty funny hearing people complain about "stupid people" running open APs, because the only open wireless APs I've run into were either from FreeGeek, the college, or some Slashdot-reading friends who wanted to share their connections. Yes, believe it or not, there are people who believe in not being assholes about their connection.

Problem 4: As many as Bob wants to, duh. There is no point in arguing about "how many people" get to connect to Bob's connection, because the more concurrent users you have, the more each person's connection gets slower. It's a self-regulating system, with a maximum usage limit based on Bob's connection speed.

Solution 5: There will always be a market for ISPs, the only question is how many, and how much do they charge. I would hope that the inefficent, poorly thought out ISPs would go out of business. In your example, if an entire apartment building can be served by one cable modem, there is clearly underutilization of the infrastructure, and the ISP deserves about one household's worth of revenue. Wiring up all the apartments to get them to use the equivalent of one cable modem would be wasteful, excessive infrastructure, just for the purposes of billing more. If the company requires that kind of ineficcency to operate, they should go out of business, and be replaced by either:
  - A more efficent private company with slower individual connections, who will sell to more households
  - A neighborhood co-op with group bandwidth purchases or peering agreement
  - Publicly-owned utility

I've seen all three kinds work with utilities (gas, water, electric), so I don't see it as unreasonable that an extortionist ISP go out of business.

Again, if the entire apartment block requires just one cable modem's worth of bandwidth, then that's all they should have to get. Your solution would be like forcing everyone to buy an SUV for their commute, and banning carpooling, because "It's not fair to the auto industry."

I believe that we should charge by data use, not households served as ISPs do now. I know my water and electric bill are charged by usage, and if I let my neighbors use my hose or electricity, the utility doesn't care as long as I'm willing to foot the bill for their usage.

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[pengRate]

Problem 2: Even if these people left them open for convenience, sharing, etc - their terms of service with their ISP almost always have a clause saying that service is to be used only be residents of the billing address. By using their connection, whether they want you to or not, you are aiding them in breaking their TOS.

I find this to be rather unreasonable. I'm not saying that someone isn't breaking their ISP's TOS by letting non-residents use their connection, but rather that it might be a little difficult to defend. To follow the trend of ridiculous analogies:
If my neighbor yells across his lawn to me "How many pounds are in a kilogram?", and I head to google type in "pounds in a kilogram", and yell the answer back, is that breaking my TOS? Let's hope not.

So when does it become a violation? What if we yell properly formatted TCP packets? What if we use carrier pigeons? What if we send morse code through flashes of visible light? 2.4GHz light? Properly formatted TCP packets in the 2.4GHz range? Maybe I'll get tired of manually flashing morse code at my neighbor and decide to automate the process using a router.

No matter how you spin it, it can still be interpretted as simply differing implemenations of the OSI Model/TCP/IP stack.

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with unsecured wireless, whether intentional or not, is that you really can't see the boundaries. Let's say I buy a Linksys and leave it completely unconfigured straight out of the box... My neighbor has a PC running WinXP with no service packs... His machine will connect AUTOMATICALLY to my unsecured WAP without him lifting a finger. Am I now able to take him to court for stealing my bandwidth? What if we both buy Linksys routers and leave them completely unconfigured out of the box...how are we to know which WAP we're connected to? Sure, I can probably guess from the signal strength...but what if I'm out in my back yard and both APs are showing 50%?

Just the token effort of renaming the SSID helps define that boundary. If I name my WAP something different from his, at least we can differentiate between the two. If I set up WEP it'll make it even more obvious which AP is which.

Wireless bandwidth is invisible. You can't see the radio waves seeping out of a house. You can't hear a crackle of energy...there's no neon sign or waving banner... Unless someone changes the SSID to something obvious, you're not going to have any idea where the WAP is. If you've got a few neighbors, how will you even know who to ask for permission? If you live near a coffee shop, restaurant, library, or school how are you to know that it isn't intentionally open?

---BAD ANALOGY INCOMING---

Imagine you own a piece of undeveloped land out in the wilderness somewhere - a nice patch of land to go camping on and enjoy the scenery. You're out walking on your own property one day...just wandering through the woods. You wander quite some distance, and are just about ready to turn around, when some guy comes up out of nowhere and yells at you for trespassing on his land. No signs, no fences, nothing to indicate where your land ends and his begins. No way to tell if you're on your property, public land, or someone else's. And now you're going to court for trespassing.

---END BAD ANALOGY---

The problem is that the Internet in general is basically "an implicit invitation". Do I need to go ask Google permission before I load up their website, or is there an implied invitation to everyone on the Internet because they went to the trouble of actually building a web server, registering a domain, coding up a website and then opening up the ports to the world? And what if I mistype a URL and wind up at some private website, intended only for an elite membership. They, too, went to the trouble of placing their site on the web...and there's no password...how am I to know that I'm not supposed to be seeing it? Can they take me to court for ilegally accessing a private site?

The Internet is not like the real world. There are no obvious boundaries - no walls, no fences, no borders. Unless you somehow bar access to your network, there is absolutely no way for anyone out there to know they're trespassing.

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[E 99]

Problem 1: Your average person is not very tech savvy, so your average internet router comes unsecured so that it works straight out of the box for your average version. This means that the vast majority of wireless routers are open unintentionally by people who don't read instructions or know anything about security. And why read the instructions if they don't have to? If it works right out of the box, why spend time reading the damn booklet? This means that the majority of unsecured wireless connections are likely that way because people don't know any better, not because they're Just Like You(tm) and want to share.

I don't know if wireless routers mostly work right out of the box without configuration. I wouldn't have thought so, but regardless... A decent respect for your fellow man requires a respect for his actions, which at the very least requires the presumption that they are intentional, in the absence good reason to think otherwise.

Problem 2: Even if these people left them open for convenience, sharing, etc - their terms of service with their ISP almost always have a clause saying that service is to be used only be residents of the billing address. By using their connection, whether they want you to or not, you are aiding them in breaking their TOS.

I've never heard of an ISP TOS agreement limiting which individuals may use the bandwidth, although I guess it's possible... but then if he stands on his curb handing out cookies, I don't know whether or not he's signed an agreement promising not to share the cookies either. And yet I graciously eat them. But then a contract, by its nature is really only the business of the parties to it. If I do happen to know that it violates his contract, then that's a different question.

Problem 3: No, seriously, get it through your thick skull - that network isn't open because the guy who owns it reads slashdot and agrees with you. It's open because the guy doesn't know any better. However, his "stupidity" (reality: lack of interest in technology to the degree of yours) does not give you the "right" to steal.

No, seriously, even if most people are completely stupid, a society simply cannot function if we proceed on that assumption. People must be responsible for their own actions. And his action was to deploy technology to provide Internet connectivity with any computer within range of his transmitter. It has nothing to do with rights, and it has nothing to do with stealing.

Problem 4: You can say "if it doesn't hurt his bandwidth usage, it's fine", but that becomes a slippery slope. How many people get to borrow Unsuspecting Bob's internet connection then?

As many as he lends it to. You know, we could make the same complaint about Bob. People are driving along past Bob's house, and his router keeps connecting unsuspected with their laptops, which they've naively left configured to connect to any router it finds, thus using up their precious CPU cycles with all those connections. BAD BOB!

Problem 5: If you were to win the argument that people should be free to share their connections with the world, you would kill ISPs as a business. It's tantamount to arguing that it should be perfectly legal for one guy at the top of an apartment building to pay for cable internet, and for every resident of that building to mod a Linksys router and get the whole building on a WDS mesh through one connection. I'm no fan of the cable company, believe me, but doing this is still not fair to business.

First of all, what is this, trickle-down electromagnetic wave theory? Radio waves propagate in all directions, not just down. They're funny like that.;-) Secondly, if the ISP doesn't like it, they should prohibit it in the service contract. If they do already, then they should enforce the contract. This doesn't seem like it would be a difficult thing to detect.

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[Anonymous Coward]

the only open wireless APs I've run into were either from FreeGeek, the college, or some Slashdot-reading friends who wanted to share their connections.

I find this somewhat hard to believe. While travelling, about 50% of the time I can quickly find and join a network called "linksys".

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[Guy Harris]

I can't respect you if you think this give you the right of playing childish pranks on them. If you don't want others to use the net then simply be polite and close/encrypt it.

If a person doesn't want what some people insist on condemning as "childish pranks" played on them, that person should simply be polite, do as you do. and ask before connecting to somebody's network.

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's tantamount to arguing that it should be perfectly legal for one guy at the top of an apartment building to pay for cable internet, and for every resident of that building to mod a Linksys router and get the whole building on a WDS mesh through one connection. I'm no fan of the cable company, believe me, but doing this is still not fair to business.

Yes, it is fair to their business. Why should the cable company have a monopoly on conectivity? If I order food on the internet and share it with everyone in my house, is that unfair to the grocery company? The cable company can and does put limits on the bandwith of each connection. If one connection is enough for the whole apartment building why shouldn't they share that?

Doesn't it make some sort of sense for traffic between the residents of the building to be routed inside the building, rather than the cable company having to receive it all and send it back to the same building?

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[Anonymous Coward]

Um.. when has the business world ever been 'fair'?

Who said an ISP has a right to be in business? If they can't offer a better and better-priced service than Bob next door then I'm sticking with Bob. He gets my five bucks a month, and the indie economy grows.

All businesses will become obsolete. They must learn to evolve, or else they will die.

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[Anonymous Coward]

> I don't care if it's your problem or not - I care if it's ethically right to steal internet from unsuspecting people who didn't intend to leave it open.

The flip side of this question is, is it ethically right to protect people who unintentionally leave their access points open at the expense of other consumers and providers of wireless services.

> From a moral standpoint, though, you're still taking something that's not yours. The moral thing to do would be to find the owner and let him know he left it running.

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. Also, I've learned that the messenger often gets shot (imagine being threatened with physical violence for accessing a share on a network with a hundred other public shares). If I know the person well, I'd probably talk to them about it, and maybe even offer to help them secure it (and I've been shot for doing this too). But my niceness ends there. I won't play tech support to the masses for every person out there who accidentally leaves an AP open. And frankly, as someone who is always being asked to fix people's home computer problems, I think it's perhaps a little morally wrong to place that burden on me.

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[Brad Mace]

And why read the instructions if they don't have to? If it works right out of the box, why spend time reading the damn booklet? This means that the majority of unsecured wireless connections are likely that way because people don't know any better, not because they're Just Like You(tm) and want to share.

I think we just discovered why you should read the instructions. If you install this device and have it configured to offer up your bandwidth, don't be offended when people take you up on the offer. There are people who deliberately share their connections, and it's not the rest of the world's responsibility to determine if you're sharing on purpose. I'm sick of everything being designed around whoever has the most ignorance. Now, if you've set up any sort of access control that indicates that it's not public, and prevents connections from being made automatically, feel free to report trespassers.

By using their connection, whether they want you to or not, you are aiding them in breaking their TOS.

Again, not anyone else's problem. I didn't enter into an agreement with their ISP.

No, seriously, get it through your thick skull - that network isn't open because the guy who owns it reads slashdot and agrees with you. It's open because the guy doesn't know any better. However, his "stupidity" (reality: lack of interest in technology to the degree of yours) does not give you the "right" to steal.

No, Seriously. When you don't have the knowledge or inclination to do something yourself, you hire someone else to do it, or you live with the results. Give the kid down the street a couple bucks to spend 5 minutes setting up your connection if you're so worried that your neighbors might check their email.

If you were to win the argument that people should be free to share their connections with the world, you would kill ISPs as a business. It's tantamount to arguing that it should be perfectly legal for one guy at the top of an apartment building to pay for cable internet, and for every resident of that building to mod a Linksys router and get the whole building on a WDS mesh through one connection. I'm no fan of the cable company, believe me, but doing this is still not fair to business.

This is your worst argument yet. Why on earth would there be anything wrong with that? You're paying for a fixed amount of bandwidth, and if everyone's happy with 1/nth of it, that's their right. The costs the ISP incurs are based on the bandwidth, not the number of people sharing it. For the record, I've never had any reason to use anyone else's open access points whether intentional or not, but I have an open access point in my house.

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not my problem. We shouldn't have to work around other people's incompetencies unless legally obligated to do so.

So... if somebody wasn't savvy enough to lock his or her door at night, it would be ok to come in said door & take things?

Counter example. And I've known other counter examples who don't read slashdot.

Ahh... but just because you DO know people that are tech savvy that don't read slashot, doesn't mean that everyone who doesn't read slashdot is tech savvy!

Perhaps more importantly, if you make it illegal to access an open AP without human consent, for every one clueless AP owner you "protect", you will criminalize a hundred clueless laptop owners.

Ignorance of the law does not mean you're not breaking it, or will not get in trouble for doing so - yes, there are many obscure laws out there that many people don't realize exist, and probably succumb to on a daily basis. Perhaps the government should publicize them more, offer better education, etc. Regardless, one is still required to obey the laws. How tyrannical. Ignorant people should really get off easy, shouldn't they? Once there are more guilty verdicts against wifi stealers, said laws will become more publicized simply through the natural sensationalism of the media, and will likely discourage people from simply connecting to any available open network. Oh, and:

What if it is a random coffee shop? What if it is a private residence? What if it is a business, a museum, a hotel?

If I left my car running, with a sign that said "Please feel free to drive off with my car - I condone it," with my signature (as the legal and sole owner of the car, of course) attached, perhaps notarized, it would (almost - transfer of titles notwithstanding, etc) be legal for someone to take the car. Otherwise, it's not legal. Get permission. Know which network the coffee shop is offering. They have signs in their windows, you know, that advertise the free network. The college kids behind the counter are savvy enough to know which one it is, since that's how they get their myspace fixes. And the snooty woman at the museum's help desk can also assist you, although perhaps it requires a trip to the handy "Manual" first, or a call to "Tech Support."

Re:the continuing debate on this subject is sad...

[Anonymous Coward]

If Bob set up a webpage, would looking at it be "stealing?" Let's look at the basic conversation between my computer and the web server:

My Computer: Please send me Bob's web page
Server: sure, here it is.

Now let's look at a conversation between Bob's open router and my computer:

Router: I have free internet over here, come and get it. SSID is bob!
My computer: Hey can I have a connection?
Router: Sure!

Notice: Bob's router is advertising and authorizing free internet access. No different from Bob's web server, really. So, unless you think looking at someone's web page without permission is steal, stop bitching about using open WiFi and start bitching about the fact that the router companies ship open routers and don't educate their users.

Legal question

[Apocalypse111]

Suppose that you redirect all content requests to an illegal download that is not stored on anything that is associated with you. Who then would be legally at fault? You're doing nothing illegal, its your routing equipment, you can do with it what you damn well please. Is the freeloader suddenly guilty of breaking whatever laws the download or its contents violate?

Re:Legal question

[maxwell demon]

IANAL, but I'd think if you program that routing equipment to cause an illegal download, then you are legally at fault for this download happening, even if you don't store it on your computer. Your argument is just the same as if you built a bomb with a trigger, put the trigger somewhere where someone else may non-knowingly trip on it, and then when that happened you claimed that you are not guilty for the explosion because it was not you who actually triggered the bomb.

Re:Tag as intentionaldupe

[LiquidCoooled]

I think I speak for the majority when I say thank you for these backslashes.
You have shown us that editors do exist here and the effort is appreciated.

Re:Backslash is retard.

[denis-The-menace]

RE: Aren't there enough submissions?

Who knows. Slashdot is getting slower and slower putting up new stories.
I thought the same and submitted my 1st story in a year but it got shot down.
(nobody else posted the story, either)

I used to have a hard time keeping up with /. now I get bored.
I heard about digg and now I go there when I'm bored or when /. is having their usual "slownewsday"
Comments there suck and are hard to read due to spelling but it is getting better.
At /., there are too many comments to bother for because there are too few stories to comment on.

I could go on but I would cause a flame war.

Re:Tag as intentionaldupe

[XanC]

I agree with the other poster. I think the backslashes are valuable.

Re:Backslash = dupe?

[Kouroth]

So don't read them if you don't like them. I happen to enjoy reading them. I'm sure plenty of others do too.

Re:Backslash = dupe?

[int2str]

Thank you! I forgot about that.
Still think they are useless, but I guess I'm in the minority there.

Hypocrisy

[Captain Sarcastic]

What bugs me about this is how some people spend time writing up bitingly barbed and highly satirical screeds about the monumental stupidity of common users. "Imagine this bozo trying to set up a home network like he was a real sysadmin," they sneer. "And the whole time he doesn't realize that the brand of router he's using has a vulnerability somewhere deep in the firmware. If I'd been him, I'd have spent more money and more time, but instead this poor sap gets to deal with what his ignorance has unleashed...." and so on, ad nauseam.

The reason it annoys me is because, when these people are caught piggybacking onto their next-door neighbor's wireless, they then post that "this whole debate is silly, anyway, because the airwaves are free to everybody, and it's unfair to expect someone not to take advantage of such an unexpected bounty, and anyway the neighbor wasn't using that much of it in the first place, and he had it coming for not securing his network...."

But then again, I guess that's different.

Re:Hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you're saying is that people representing the entire range of hackers leave comments here.

Yeah, ANY group has a subset of hypocrits, but there's at least 900,000 unique accounts here nowadays. Sometimes it may sound like one voice, but it ain't.

Re:Hypocrisy

[Captain Sarcastic]

Sometimes it may sound like one voice, but it ain't.

I wish you weren't anonymous - I'd mark you "friend" for reminding me about that.

I'm not looking for unaninimity (sp?) of opinion here. I realize that if you put three random Slashdot posters here, you are likely to get six trolls - each one's opinion of the other two. It's when you have the same people espousing both ends that I get aggravated.

Re:Hypocrisy

[bobtroy]

the hypocrisy goes deeper in that...the overriding assumption is not only that the person setting up a network without protecting it is so stupid as to need protection from some ethical code, but also that the person stealing his bandwidth is so smart as to know that he is stealing bandwidth...when the situation could as likely be the opposite: the person setting up the network is the smarter one (and what router guide does not discuss security precautions? really!), and the one 'illegally' taking bandwidth could as likely have no idea (1) that his wireless card is accessing someone else's network (given wireless card defaults) or (2) that an unsecured network is not an invitation (understandable, given that even amongst the pros this is being debated--why would a newbie have a clue about it?)... also: if you're going to assume that the person 'stealing' bandwidth is the smart one, and you're someone not smart enough to secure your network, it would seem the last thing you want to do is mess around with somebody who knows enough to screw you over even harder...

Forget all these silly analogies..

[Khyber]

You don't want anyone using your wireless network, yet you want to leave it open? I have the perfect solution for you! Enclose your property in a Faraday Cage, and be done with it. Quit griping, quit saying "If this, if that, balh, blah, blah," and DO SOMETHING. Either drop some serious money on having your connection and network set up how you want it and secured how you want it, or don't complain and gripe when someone else accesses your shit. - PERIOD.

Re:Forget all these silly analogies..

[KillerDeathRobot]

There is essentially no reason to leave a network open if you do no want to grant free access to anyone around, which is another reason all these analogies are ridiculous.

R2.0 totally missed my point

[geekoid]

the bottom line is that the router invites people to connect. That is what it does, that's it's purpose that is why it was designed.

As for his retard analogy, that was just in poor taste; however as soon as the owner of the property came over and told the other people to leave then they would be obligated to do so.

And stop light do inform you when it is legal to cross the road.

He seems to be nuder the impression that 'polite' = 'moral' or 'legal'.

Another missed point...

[tthomas48]

I live in Austin. There are hundreds of businesses here with free WiFi. The city has free WiFi blanketing downtown. This isn't really a trespass issue. How exactly do you know which networks are free to use without using encryption as a clue? If anything the issue of trespass is only an issue because WiFi is public in much the same way as a large green space and includes no way to provide a "No Trespassing" sign.

What about the manufacturer???

[Anonymous Coward]

We are consumers buying products that are pre-configured as a "house party connection". Why don't they come disabled, so the user HAS to go into the config, and apply his personal approval to the routers setup.

So, if it's enabled at all, you know some liability/judgement was applied.

I do like these...

[artifex2004]

Not least of which because I check the dot several times a day, but I still miss some stories.
Having an editorial summary of the discussion before is pretty cool, not to mention it's a better troll filter than anything else you've cooked up :)

Thanks.

air-pwn

[OriginalArlen]

Did no-one pick up on the obvious feed line in the writeup about other possibilities? This is basically what the airpwn guys did at Defcon a couple of years back. Except that they rewrote every img tag to point to goatse. I swear, I nearly shat myself looking at their pics of stupefied lardass l337 types staring blankly at their laptops and clearly without a clue how they were being had. Google it, you won't regret it :)

Some counterpoints

[Anonymous Coward]

You can say "if it doesn't hurt his bandwidth usage, it's fine", but that becomes a slippery slope. How many people get to borrow Unsuspecting Bob's internet connection then?

I dunno, when someone slips off the cliff?

Btw, pro "open access" folks would say that ISP's got their monopolies on providing net access via fraud (direct or indirect) etc. and therefore it's moral to not abide by their TOS.

Some would say it should be allowed that people can share their connection with others if they choose. "This is the electronic equivalent of allowing someone to browse the net on my PC at home. Who's biz is it where they are? What's next auto makers restricting who a person can lend my car to?"

Others wish there was a legal allowed wifi name/key etc. that basically means the owner is saying "here's a "secure" wifi for others to authenticate with and use".

I'm not taking a position .. i'm just adding commonly touted counterpos.

One more caveat

[cirby]

6. If you're in a non-poor neighborhood, there are going to be several wireless nets in range of any given spot. Even if Bob Niceguy decides to share his bandwidth and tells his friends it's okay, they might not know which access point is his, and just link up to any random place. ...and if you're living right next to (for example) a coffee shop, you could get a dozen random freeloaders on at any given time who all think it's okay, since the "free wireless" sign is right there for all to see.

The answer to your wireless problem:

[Anonymous Coward]

/Wires/.

Maybe you've heard of them.

So maybe you can't take your laptop outside, or your bed, or wherever. I don't know about you, but I go to these places to get /away/ from the Internet.

(Anonymous troll powers -- Activate!)

TOE-MAIL ???

[Anonymous Coward]

...private photos of herself toe-mail her boyfriend...

What the hell is toe-mail ???

Re:TOE-MAIL ???

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is toe-mail ???

You obviously don't keep up with "renaissance revival" news.

Toe nails are a naturally produced defense, protecting the softest flesh found at the most vulnerable points of our feet. Aside from the strength, the most valuable property of these nails is that they are regenerated relatively quickly.

Anyway, the lastest trend is to exploit this protection by weaving many pieces together into body armor, in the tradional style.

The most popular version of this armor is very similar to the better known "chain-mail".

The name "toe-mail" was adopted because the original name of "nail-mail" caused many to believe that it was composed of metal construction nails (the type you stike with a hammer), which I should note had already been attempted (with disasterous results).

(What? It's almost quitting time and I'm tired. This is a joke thread already anyway.)

Re:TOE-MAIL ???

[Diamon]

What else? The mailing list from cameltoe.org

One reason *I* don't share my WiFi...

[SmoothTom]

I have a contract with my provider that in multiple places in the contract/TOS/AUP prohibits me from doing so. Here's one:

6.c. Multiple Users: The Service and the ______ Equipment shall be used only by you and by members of your immediate household living with you at the same address. You acknowledge that you are executing this Agreement on behalf of all persons who use the ______ Equipment and/or Service by means of the Customer Equipment. You shall have sole responsibility for ensuring that all other users understand and comply with the terms and conditions of this Agreement and the AUP.

This, and other parts of my contract with my provider, prohibit sharing of my 8Mbs internet access.

No matter how "nice" it might be to allow casual users to have access to the internet from my WiFi, I am not allowed to do so.

--
Tomas

Re:One reason *I* don't share my WiFi...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nice. You should read the FCC rules under Part 15.

You must accept all interfenence including that causing undesired operation.

This means someone can do whatevet they want on the air, and it's your responcablity for whatever your device does.

In short if someone leaves an access point open it's free to use and hack.

Very technically, to comply with your AUP you can't use any wireless device on Part 15.

But maybe you can if a member of your household was relaying for someone else?

Local laws may also apply

Re:One reason *I* don't share my WiFi...

[Dr. Zowie]

Therefore you should encrypt or MAC-filter your connections, to satisfy your TOS with your ISP.

Re:One reason *I* don't share my WiFi...

[b0s0z0ku]

This, and other parts of my contract with my provider, prohibit sharing of my 8Mbs internet access.

You're very unlikely to get caught, though. Personally, I break my TOS by having a fully-open wireless connection. All of my traffic gets encrypted via an SSL tunnel to my server, so sniffing isn't a problem, but others can use my connection to hop on the 'net and look for directions or what have you.

I guess that you drive exactly the speed limit, always cross the street at crosswalks, etc...

-b.

Re:One reason *I* don't share my WiFi...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm...

So your parents/children/cousins/gf/bf cannot use your internet connection when they visit you? Seems a bit draconian.

Re:One reason *I* don't share my WiFi...

[SmoothTom]

"Hmmm... So your parents/children/cousins/gf/bf cannot use your internet connection when they visit you? Seems a bit draconian."

Sure they can - takes about 40 seconds to add a new MAC address to the 'recognized' list and give 'em a login. From that point on their system can get on whenever they want it to. (Only ones besides mine in there right now are my mum's and a couple of friend's machines. No one else has needed to get in.)

Most folks don't bring a 'puter to use, they just use one of the 5 on my household LAN, anyway. :)

--
Tomas (BOFH) ;^P

Authorization System

[Thalagyrt]

I've tackled this problem at my house by setting up a captive portal and Radius-based MAC authentication. Basically, the captive portal tells them they aren't registered, then they register with their name and how long they want access for. It'll automatically grant them access, and it will email me right away. If I have no idea who it is, I can log in and disable their access to the Internet and prevent them from getting an IP address from my DHCP server, all from a convenient web interface I wrote. I also have a packet filter in place that disables people if they try to use any form of P2P, unless specifically allowed. This way I can leave the access points totally open, and if someone misbehaves, I simply hit the disable button, and they're completely offline one minute later.

Re:Tag as intentionaldupe

[geekoid]

This needs to be modded UP an insightfull.

The only reason someone wuold post in a story that doesn't interest them is because they need some attention. Or they are under the misimpression that people actual want to read what they type.

I don't think this was thought through very well

[g1zmo]

Your ID badge doesn't ask permission to enter your building, and the security system doesn't grant permission; YOU ask for permission by presenting the badge, and your employer grants it by programming said system to accept your request.

Your laptop doesn't ask permission to enter the network, and the wireless router doesn't grant permission; YOU ask for permission by requesting an IP address, and the network owner grants it by programming said system to accept your request.

Re:Backslash = dupe?

[geekoid]

It hurts you in on what way shape or form.
I believe you can even remove them from your view in your prefrences.

I mean, god damn, you doing nothing but complaining about nothing.

If you are that starved for attention, call a 900 hundred number.

Re:I don't think this was thought through very wel

[geekoid]

So if the connection is open, that implies that the OWNER of the connection doesn't mind that you connect.
Just like advertising you are having a garages sale implies you are inviting people over to look through your stuff. Of course barriers are set up so you don't wander into lother areas. If not a physical barrier, then certianl; a social barrier.
No such social berriers exist with a computer, so you need a physical barries, like asking for log in.
Now if someone goes around your barrier, then it is 'wrong'.

Property

[DeadCatX2]

WTF is with all these property analogies?

If I use your open WiFi, I am not stealing your bike/car/whatever. Theft involves the loss of property.

Doesn't anyone remember that copyright infringement != theft?

Re:Property

[Kindgott]

You're right, it's not a loss of property.

It's theft of services, in most jurisdictions.

MOD PARENT UP - FCC rules

[Dr. Zowie]

You should read the FCC rules under Part 15.

The parent anonymous coward had an excellent point -- the FCC rules under which your wireless access point operates include a clause that you (the owner of the access point) must accept any interference, even interference that causes undesired operation. To my mind, that includes interference that causes child-porn to be downloaded. (After all, that certainly counts as "undesired operation" of the router for most people).

  In short, owner/operator beware -- whatever EM radiation hits your router, it's your problem. If you don't intend your network to be shared, you must take active measures to prevent that.

Re:Phishing at a starbucks

[vertinox]

The more serious and disturbing outcome of this story is in that it presents a case for how wardrivers can have their passwords and personal information stolen through a clever phishing attack using a proxy.

What's preventing a guy from parking his van outside a Starbucks in a well to do neighborhood and having his his SSID say "Starbucks Free Wirless" and wait for people to connect and log all their actions through a proxy server.

I suppose he'd have to pull the current internet connection from the real starbucks router so he could route them legitimate pages first.

My point explained

[linvir]

Hypothesis: You are wrong
Procedure: Refute the analogies that made up the core of your argument
Conclusion: You are wrong

Re:Tag as intentionaldupe

[6Yankee]

'[S]ome of the "best" comments (obviously there's some subjectivity to it) are ones that may not be as highly moderated as some decent ones which happen to have been made earlier and therefore had more time to be moderated up.'

That sounds a lot like "Moderation is broken".

erm

[Anonymous Coward]

tl;dr

just set the fscking password!

[m874t232]

EOM

I have the opposite problem

[marhar]

We have a (desktop) computer on the far side of the house, so I set up a wireless link to it. Unfortuately, that link sometimes associates with the neighbor's (open) base station.

It would be nice if I could figure how how to instruct windows not to join any networks but my own, but I haven't seen an obvious way to do this under XP. Any suggestions appreciated!

Re:I have the opposite problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows ZeroConf is rather finnicky, but if you manually disconnect yourself from the neighbours network, it should mark that network "Manual" and not autoconnect to it anymore. Use the wireless network list and move your own network to the top of the preferred list.

Worked for me.

Re:I have the opposite problem

[compm375]

Pre-SP2 Windows XP connects automatically to nearby wireless networks, but SP2 should fix that. Unless you have a specific reason not to get it, I would highly recommend it.

That might be a fair comparison

[benhocking]

If you could guarantee you were only using bandwith that would otherwise go unused. However, in the router case, connecting to the network results in the owner having less "water" to use on his own lawn.

Re:That might be a fair comparison

[HTH NE1]

The basin is catching water that would have missed his lawn.

Consider instead a Van de Graff generator capable of generating a field that can arc into a neighbor's property then. The neighbor has a pole that is within this field and, when properly connected, causes electricity to jump from your generator to his pole for powering devices in his home, sometimes to power a single light bulb, sometimes to run the air conditioning.

If you would just properly tune your generator to not create an electrical potential across your property line, you wouldn't lose kilowatt hours.

Re:That might be a fair comparison

[KitFox]

Except that the water... And the electrical potential from the generator... both are simple the equivilant of radio waves FROM the AP. Neither of those anaologies covers the data carries in the radio waves, nor do they cover sending radio waves back to the AP and opening communication with it, nor do they cover using the signalling and open communication causing other systems on the other side of the AP to do your wishes or carry your data.

Re:That might be a fair comparison

[QRDeNameland]

Neither of those anaologies covers the data carries in the radio waves, nor do they cover sending radio waves back to the AP and opening communication with it, nor do they cover using the signalling and open communication causing other systems on the other side of the AP to do your wishes or carry your data.

Well, here's how I see that. Your equipment send out RF signals over public airwaves on to my property, which you say I am free to receive or ignore. Likewise, I send back RF signals, which you are free to receive or ignore...if you receive them, and then allow me access to your network, how is that anything but your fault? If you don't want my signals accessing your network, it is trivially simple to ignore them.

Re:That might be a fair comparison

[KitFox]

If you don't want my signals accessing your network, it is trivially simple to ignore them.

Trivially simple for technically inclined folks to tell their equipment to do so. But the laws are made for the lowest common denominator, and the laws state quite clearly that if you access the network without permission, you are SOL.

Justify it as many ways as you like, but it still all comes down to What Happens When You Get Caught.

Re:That might be a fair comparison

[HTH NE1]

A perfect analogy is an oxymoron. Not everything needs to be represented such as a method of encrypting electricity or gatewaying power access based on the identity of the appliance.

I can't believe I'm actually going to try to explain the analogy now.

Use of the electricity (the completion of the circuit through a device sharing earth ground) is the bidirectionality of the communication, and the kWh is the measure of data bandwidth consumed. The proximity to the property is not proximity of the access point to the neighbor but rather the configuration that allows unrestricted access.

In all, these analogies attempt to depict an unconfigured access point as a natural force for which the owner must take responsibility for in order to secure it for himself.

Those that are serious about cell phone call security don't rely only on the law against interception to protect them; they encrypt the call so it cannot be easily eavesdropped by someone with common equipment. At least cell phone users can know that such equipment is illegal (for private citizen use anyway), but someone with a wireless access point should know that if he can buy an access card for his laptop and have it Just Work(TM) without any configuration, then so can anyone else. (The law against interception of cell phone conversations is the exception rather than the rule.)

No one can realistically believe they are the only ones capable of possessing the equipment to use the Internet wirelessly and expect no one else can use it without configuring in restrictions. It would require exceptional deception on the part of a gift giver to a gullible ignoramus.

A good reason *for* that sort of prank

[Guy Harris]

Not only does it tweak your neighbor, it also produces a high-pitched whining noise from people who choose to find it offensive to their moral sense.

One of the best responses to the "But no childish games please." bleat was the note that "Pranks are a big part of the hacker ethic." , which indicates that Electroschock's "understanding of hacker ethics" is a bit off. (Note that the prankster explicitly referred to this as an alternative to securing the network:

My neighbours are stealing my wireless internet access. I could encrypt it or alternately I could have fun.

I.e., the network is "open" in the 802.11 sense, but isn't "open" in the sense that he wants people to be able to happily surf normally using his connection, or in the sense that you can expect your traffic through the network to be unmolested at any protocol level. Think of it, if you will, as a form of encryption. Yes, you can choose to view the act of not securing a network at the 802.11 level as an invitation to use the network as you please without any obligation on your part either to compensate the person providing the network or to provide a network others can use. You can also choose to view the act of not locking a bicycle as an invitation to use it as you please without any obligation to return it when you're done, compensate the person providing the bicycle, or provide a bicycle that others can use, but, if you do, in neither case would I take your moral views on that subject very seriously, and I suspect most other people - including, perhaps, even fans of free networks or bicycle-sharing programs - would do so, as moral views of that sort leave some people free of moral constraints on the issue in question.)

Electroschock's speaking of "P2P" in this context was also a bit off; he said "The net should be a net and wireless technology is great for the creation of a real P2P internet." "P" in "P2P" stands for "peer"; unless your neighbors are letting you use their wireless network, what's going on isn't peer-to-peer, it's somebody deciding that they're entitled to your bandwidth but they don't have to provide any bandwidth of their own.

In an ISP-less world of free networks, I think it'd be inappropriate to muck with the network access of people whose packets happen to be traversing your network if it's part of a free (inter)network. That's not a world people use ISPs to route their packets to the rest of the Intarweb, and in which some people use other people's ISP connections to route their packets to the rest of the Intarweb, however, and that's the world the prankster is speaking of.

Try my hand at anology...

[Belial6]

I want to try my hand... Let say that the bandwidth is like a hose. You rent one piece and you buy another, which are your connection to the internet, and your personal router. You take this hose and hook it up to a public waterline (the internet). You then leave the other end out on the street. I don't think their is a court in country that would convict you for taking a drink from that hose. I don't think that there are even many people that would say it was even rude to take a drink from that hose.

Now, if you put a sign up that said. "Please don't drink from my hose. It is for private use only.", SOME people might consider it rude to drink from it, but I doubt that you would find a court that would convict over it.

If you put a lock on the end of that hose, and someone came along and picked that lock to drink from your hose, you probably could find a court that would convict, and most people would see a problem with that.

If someone found out that if they blew three times into the hose, it would turn a nozzel, and start drawing water out of your personal water tank that is used to supply your house, and they proceded to drain your tank, or harm it in any way, everyone would see that as a problem, and most assuradly a court would convict.

Of course while the court would convict, and everyone would agree that that person was wrong in what they did, you would also get lambasted over how much of an idiot you were for not putting a lock on the end of a hose that is both connect to your personal water tank and has an end out on the street where anyone can access it.

Re:Try my hand at anology...

[Petrushka]

I want to try my hand... Let say that the bandwidth is like a hose.

"Tubes" are more traditional.

Share the code.

[Medievalist]

We'd all like to see that "convenient web interface".

Don't worry, you won't shock me, I've written .cgis in sed.

Re:Share the code.

[Thalagyrt]

Picture 1

Picture 2 Just a few pictures of it. =)

Re:Share the code.

[Thalagyrt]

Addendum: Once I've finished it up and cleaned it up some more I may very well open source it, if I think people would have a use for it. For now it's just under internal development here.

I'd show you guys the system that we have in place where I work, University of Miami, but that would be somewhat against my employment contract. Basically what I have at the house is a very scaled down version of what we set up at UM. Since it's a University with many departments, the SAs from each have to have their own restricted access to whatever devices they control, and manage those... It has full ACLs, groups, and can control pretty much every network management device.

Difference between WIFI and servers

[Temujin_12]

All of the locked door, stolen bike, and lawn analogies miss one important fact. 802.11 uses the radio spectrum. In the US we ALL own the radio spectrum, but "trust" the FCC to manage it. The FCC says you can transmit on that band within X power. They also say if a a signal enters your reciever you can read it. Together they imply you can join an unsecured network, because that person is allowing their equipment to broadcast, and recieve on open frequencies.

You hit the nail on the head. I think people too often overlook their OWN RESPONSIBILITY when they turn on their WIFI.

A slightly off thought I wanted to get out is that people often try to take your approach to unsecured servers. They figure that if the server is insecure and they get into then, as long as they don't harm anything, they are fully justified. There is a big difference between receiving/using transmissions that FEDERAL LAW ALLOWS US TO and purposefully (often forcibly) getting into someone else's server. Sorry for the analogy but, it is the same difference between picking up your neighbor's signal and entering their house (uninvited) to plug in an ethernet cable into their router.

Is this a troll?

[/dev/trash]

Have I already lost?

Clueless user

[natet]

As I mentioned yesterday (but apparantly wasn't cool enough to get included in the back slash), it is entirely within the realm of possibility that the neighbor in question just didn't realize they were using someone else's wireless connection. They very likely could have gone to best buy, bought a wireless 'kit' hooked up the WAP, installed their wireless card, which happily connected to the first wireless network it detected, the unsecured wireless connection next door. I know that even though I have the wireless card in my laptop set to automatically connect to "known" connections first, I have found myself accidentally connected to my neighbors wireless, with the only indication given to me was that my signal strength was WAY less than it should be. If I hadn't noticed that, there's no telling how long I would have been using my neighbors wireless.

Flying Vegetables Analogy

[R3d M3rcury]

No, actually we're saying that if your garden pelts us with carrots and peas as we walk past on the public street, we're at liberty to catch them and consume them.

Agreed. But that does not mean you can grab your excess summer squash and throw it in my yard just because I'm throwing vegetables into your yard.

There are those who make the argument that the signal goes onto their property and, therefore, they can use it. As I understand it, if the neighbor's fruit tree drops fruit in your yard, it's yours. In fact, if the branches of the fruit tree are over your property, you can grab the fruit off the part of the tree that crosses onto your property. So there's some reasonable basis for that.

However, I would argue the right goes both ways. You have every right to do whatever you want with the packets I am throwing into your yard. I, in turn, have every right to do what I want with the packets you throw back into my yard. If I want to ignore them, accept them, or fiddle with them before sending them through, that's fine. After all, once those packets entered my property, they became mine to do with as I wish, right? Just like the packets I sent onto your property were yours. Turn about is fair play.

Personally, I thought the idea was great. I'd've been far crueler, though, and changed out every picture with goatse.cx or tubgirl. Which brings up an entertaining question...

Suppose I redirect every web request to a website with pornographic pictures. Suppose the neighbor's kids try to go to disney.com and, instead, get smutsite.com. Can I be arrested for distributing pornography to minors?

woah!

[grrowl]

A better analogy, I think: If you have a cordless house phone, connected to your home line, on the footpath/sidewalk outside your house (I suppose it's chained to your fence or something as well). You sometimes use it there, and when people pass by they sometimes use it. The phone has the capacity to be locked to a certain password before it can be used, but you have chosen not to activate this because you are a good samaritan. In this scenario, someone has been coming along and calling china, parts of europe, and new zealand on the phone, and you don't like that -- so rather than putting a password on the phone so noone can use it, the homeowner has decided all the international calls are going to be rerouted to 1-800-KITTENS, ensuring both security and hilarity! It's the same as putting a password on the phone, but funnier because the person who's been abusing the priviledge is placed in a very confusing scenario. Lighten up, nerds!

Re:woah!

[Guy Harris]

Could somebody please mark the parent post "+6 Clueful"? That's the first analogy I've seen that managed to draw a distinction between the "borrowing the connection for a quick check of e-mail" scenario that people have been citing when raining thunderous condemnation down on those Nasty Evil Blue Meanies turning people's pr0n upside down and the "acting as if they had some Inherent Moral Right to use your connection" scenario that I suspect the creator of the original hack was thinking of (and perhaps dealing with, but he might've just come up with it as a "proof of concept" hack) when he came up with it.

NY analogy

[itcomesinwaves]

When walking around in Brooklyn one will often come across a box of books in front a residence. It's generally assumed that these are free for the taking. Sometimes it will be a nice sunny summer afternoon and there will be just one book laying in front of the building.

Re:I don't think this was thought through very wel

[b0s0z0ku]

Your laptop doesn't ask permission to enter the network, and the wireless router doesn't grant permission; YOU ask for permission by requesting an IP address, and the network owner grants it by programming said system to accept your request.

Most routers use the 192.168.0.*, 192.168.1.*, 192.168.2.*, or 10.0.0.* ranges by default. It isn't hard to set a static IP with the gateway and DNS (most routers proxy DNS) set to 192.168.0.1 or whatever. Even if you're not granted a DHCP lease, you can still get access pretty easily sometimes.

-b.

backslash reads like some kind of bad book report

[123beer]

I like slashdot a lot, but I like it less every time I see a backslash article. Even the name sounds like an unimaginative rehash of "slashback".

I HATE IT
I HAT?E IIT I HATE IT.

I'm not being a troll, I'm voicing my heartfelt opinion that this feature/section is an abomination and it makes my blood boil. AAHHH.

It must take less time to just pull another story out of the mail bag than to compile this bullshit, so why bother?

Honestly, ENOUGH!

Also, I know "If I don't like it, I don't have to read it", but I don't even notice which section a story is in half the time. I just read
the summary. Reading the section name first for each one just to avoid this section is a big waste of my time that I should be
doing something productive at work. After two sentences I'm like "Hmm... why am I reading a poorly written, poorly analyzed
summary of some obviously inconsequential, illinformed discussion? AH! BACKSLASH!" It's the Goatse of slashdot.org, really.

<strike>&lt;/rant&gt;</strike> I'M STILL MAD.

Stir of Dump.

[EinZweiDrei]

As a practicing dumpster diver, this is a topic well familiar to me. Fact is, playing little juvenile mind-games with someone who is probably just using your network connection to check their e-mail is no better than deliberately snapping a load of DVDs before discarding them, or kniving up boxes of food. It's the kind of childishness by which whenever another kid wants to borrow one of your toys, it proves itself the one that you were 'just about to play with'. An unsecure connection is no different than a Wireless Dumpster. Because by not employing so much as a password, you have openly shown a disregard for its 'theft' tantamount to discardation.

Once encrypted or passworded, though, your wireless morsels are shelved all snug indoors, and to use them is inarguably theft. But as long as your actions keep screaming 'Free internet!', I will remorselessly pick from your trash every time.

Case closed.

Emergency Operations

[NastyGnat]

Though slightly off topic from image inversion I'll put in my 2 us cents.

As a HAM radio operator I use an "embedded" PC running Xastir in my vehicle to track my location, the location of other HAM operators, send brief text messages and for the reception of weather alerts. I find it VERY useful if I can locate an open access point which further allows me to download live weather radar images, check on forecasts, etc. While I realize the "theft" of their service is considered illegal by most I hope it would make some aware that if they own a wap, and the weather is severe but you're brave enough to leave your equipment on you might consider removing security from it, especially if you see a vehicle with lots of antennas roaming the neighborhood.

Now, please don't confuse the black excursion with loads of antennas for a HAM radio operator. That is likely the NSA or RIAA/MPAA looking for goodies. The HAM guy will be in a beat up 80's model vehicle and likely be short, fat, and pale, much like your typical WoW player, except older and more intelligent. (Just Kidding!!)

Anyhow, there are both positive and negative aspects to open WAPs, the best anyone can do is educate people about the consequences and once that happens, I guess us HAMs will have to go knocking on doors.

73s

Re:One reason I *still* don't share my WiFi...

[SmoothTom]

"...I guess that you drive exactly the speed limit, always cross the street at crosswalks, etc..."

Well, actually that's not too far off... ;^P

My last traffic ticket was in 1978 for 'five over' on the freeway...

====

From my livingroom right now, my laptop can see 6 WiFi signals strong and stable enough to connect to, plus mine (which is locked down by passwords and MAC addresses).

Of those six 'other' bases, I only know where one is - my upstairs neighbor. The WiFi nets in this apartment complex make for a pretty thick RF soup...

Of those six 'other' bases, only two are set up as other than "wide open" to all comers.

--
Tomas

Theft of Services?

[DeadCatX2]

Theft of services implies that there is some kind of contract for payment before services are rendered, yes? That might fly if the person advertised selling access to their WiFi. Hmmm...I wonder what the TOS for their ISP says about that sort of thing...

Perhaps you mean denying the person the use of their own bandwidth? Hardly a problem if you aren't torrenting or doing anything else stupid, so I doubt it would have any meaningful impact on the person's intertubes.

Maybe in some jurisdictions you could get away with "unauthorized access to a network" but if the WiFi is wide open without any form of encryption I think defining authorized access becomes awkward.

Re:Tag as intentionaldupe

[timothy]

['[S]ome of the "best" comments (obviously there's some subjectivity to it) are ones that may not be as highly moderated as some decent ones which happen to have been made earlier and therefore had more time to be moderated up.']

"That sounds a lot like "Moderation is broken"."

Well, I guess the way I'd put it is more like "Moderation is imperfect." That's one reason it's constantly being tweaked; it's certainly broken compared to Utopia! But until time can be manipulated like play-doh — or cookie dough, or any kind of dough — older (earlier) comments are always going to have been, just by definition, available longer for moderation to take place. Moderation is helpful, but will never be the one true path to enlightenment :)

Another way of saying it: moderation lets Slashdot function as an extended conversation, not just a shouting match; that's a seemingly low goal to shoot for, but it's a trickier thing to achieve than it sounds, and calls for a lot of juggling. I am very glad that there are clever, thoughtful coders who stew over the details. (And if there's a specific bug you think could be fixed in the moderation system or other parts of the code that runs Slashdot, they take requests.)

Cheers,

timothy

Now I'll get replies about two-way data tranfer...

[Anonymous Coward]

I found the ballistic vegitable analogy funny, if very flawed. It reminds me of a Trailer Park Boys scene:
TV Engineer: Get those dishes off that roof
Ricky: What's the problem? It's free TV
TV Engineer: It's not free!
Ricky: Look, you're the ones beaming your TV signals into my trailer park without my permission from space. Do you own space? No, NASA does

Roll on the replies about a) two-way data transfer compared to one-way broadcasting/receiving, b) free-content advocation that TV IS free and c) either comedy-memorising, or bored-googling, people correcting my quotation

MOD PARENT UP

[Atragon]

This is rather insightful IMHO.

So its a feature

[mkw87]

I thought it was a bug when I was trying to run a game with Wine and the images were upside down, now I guess the game just didn't want me to play

(no joke)

Re:So its a feature

[segin]

That's neither a bug in Wine or the game itself. Reason: it's the way Windows bitmaps are stored. Windows bitmaps are actually stored upside-down in the file. A note of this is trying to run Opera 6 or 7 in Windows NT 3.51. The Opera banner logo (where you normally see ads) when it starts up is upside down. Microsoft's stance on this is that it's not a bug, but a "undocumented feature". Right. If you're wondering how I know this, I once wrote a QBasic program that reads icon-sized bitmaps and displays them. The image had to be 32x32 and use only 16 colours. I didn't read any spec sheet on the BMP format, I just used a hex editor on a bunch of different bitmaps.

Re:So its a feature

[mkw87]

Thats actually really interesting, thanks for the tidbit. I do wonder if M$ did that on purpose to make it a pain for people to reverse engineer.......speaking of that, I wonder how many bugs and security holes are a result of them attempting to keep their code so closed source its rediculous. Thats an interesting thought.

Who needs an anslogy?

[darkonc]

The FCC gives me the right to use (almost) any radio waves that hit my antenna at public wavelengths (like Wifi). If that data is unencrypted, I have the right to play with it and even respond to it. Modulo computer misuse laws, that pretty much gives me the right to at least try to use your network.

Although I may presume that your network connects sanely to the internet, you are not obligated to give me what I expect unless I have some sort of (explicit or implied) contract with you.

If you decide to provide fuzzy pictures where I expect normal ones, that's my problem ... I only have the right to intercept your radio waves. You have the right to broadcast whatever you want in response to my own transmissions.

YOu only hav problems if you decide to spuriously broadcast kiddy porn or other illegal/harmful content in response to my signals. Just because I expect something doesn't obligate you to provide it unless I'm paying for the privelege. If I'm leaching, off of you, you can give me whatever you want.

Now. someone like Starbucks which is providing signal to encourage customers would be a different case... They're trading their signal for my business, which (arguably) produces an implied contract. It's a different case than my "unsuspecting" neighbour.

sloppy proxy

[Danny Rathjens]

Reader "Sloppy"'s comment reminded me of a piece of software called "sloppy". It is a proxy you can use that throttles a connection to make it look like you are using dial-up speeds. I've set it up for QA departments to test websites.
He could use it to violate net neutrality and make two-tiered net access! :)

It's all relative

[Jetson]

The march of technology makes the cost of providing N bandwidth drop every year, following a near exponential curve.

Unfortunately, the demand to be "hip" means that individual web pages require N bandwidth to download, which is also increasing along an exponential curve. This Slashdot page was 194kb (text portion only) when I hit "reply". That would have been an insanely large download 10 years ago. CSS is helping to keep the size of web pages under control, but most of the gains are being lost to flash, etc.

Stupidity vs Ignorance

[fusion9290991]

It's a classic example of the stupidity vs ignorance debate.
The guy could be an actuary or a brain surgeon, and be just as "stupid" about wireless networks. Did you know that a Mark II Hoofengaffer can't be used on someone with a frontal lobe aneurism? Does that make you stupid? I doubt the surgeon thinks so. He might think that a surgical resident who doesn't know this is stupid, but would see your average network administrator as merely be ignorant. It's all about what you are required and qualified to know.
Simply not knowing about something doesn't constitute one as stupid, merely ignorant.

Re:Tag as intentionaldupe

[6Yankee]

Fair enough :)

I sometimes think I should change the sort order on comments the next time I get mod points, to try and even it out a bit - but when I get them I never remember. Might be nice if I could set that to happen automagically, though if I'm viewing a thread upside-down I should probably have the "Redundant" option taken away too, for safety's sake...

Whole "morality" issue is ridiculous.

[Kadin2048]

While I don't agree that using open wireless networks is unethical or, heaven forbid, "stealing", I would never use one for something that would affect the network owner, whether it's illegal or just bandwidth-intensive. BUT, if I move into a new apartment and don't have internet connectivity yet, is it unethical for me to pop on to a neighbor's open network for a minute to check my e-mail?

I've got a bigger question: Does anyone care?

I mean really, outside of this discussion, which as gone further into Bad Analogy Land than anything I've seen on Slashdot recently, nobody seems to give a crap. This is as far from a major public issue than anything I can think of.

Regular folks don't sit around moralizing about whether they should or shouldn't use that anonymous "Linksys" entry that pops up in the list of available wireless networks to check their email -- they just do it, if it's available and they need to use it. If you're racked with guilt every time you do it, don't do it. And if the idea of other people using your AP bugs you, put a password on it. Either way, it's a simple solution. But I really don't think it's a qualm that many people are losing sleep over in either direction.

Even if it is, technically, immoral on some level, it's so far down the list of Bad Things that a person could and probably does do in an average day, anyone who's bitching at others about doing it better be nothing less than a paragon of human existance and morality, or else they're a bloody fucking hypocrite. Seriously, I can't think of anyone that I know, who lives such a virtuous life that they should really be worrying about the morality or lack thereof, of the publicly-available/unsecured AP they might use once in a while.

Talk about a tempest in a teapot.

Looks pretty elegant on screen

[Medievalist]

Thanks for the screenshots. If you strip out anything that might compromise your employer's security, you can GPL it and get other people to clean and polish it up for you! I'd certainly be interested in helping out (well, when I get back from vacation anyway).