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Open WiFi Owners Off the Hook In Germany
ulash writes "Ars Technica reports that a court in Germany ruled in favor of an open WiFi network owner stating that if other users use your open WiFi network without your consent and download copyrighted material, you cannot be automatically held responsible for their actions. This does not carry much (if any) weight in the US but here is to hoping that it will at least have a positive impact in the EU as starters."
Do taxpayers get reprimanded for drug trafficking done on roads their tax dollars pay for? So why should someone providing network access be reprimanded for illegal action done by someone else on their connection? Who knows.
Step 1:get wifi router and leave it open
step 2:use other people's wifi
step 3:instant immunity for all
If so, then people are free to do whatever cybercrime they feel, claiming it was the neighbour.
I don't think this will stand.
Even judge Wapner knows that!
It won't take long before this ruling is put to the test.
What sort of precedent does this set with regards to other forms of illegal activity that take place over an open wifi connection? Does anybody have more experience with German case law? Fritz-sixpack might be off the line for copyright infringement, but what about some "think of the children" crime?
Good news about computing freedoms?
Who are you and what have you done with the slashdot we've come to know and love?
Does that make WEP like standing there with clear pants on? Technically your ass is covered...
Me failed English...
FreeBSD over Linux. If my comments seem odd, this may explain...
one interesting fact. You are only off-hook if you didn't know that your wifi can be used by someone else (this was the case here). If you are offering wireless LAN access to people for free, you still can and WILL be hold responsible when anyone of your users commits a crime. You don't have rights like ISPs have.
All well and good for prosecution immunity, but why would anyone keep an open access point these days?
I live on a main street with many business people walking past with their WiFi enabled devices. If I didn't have my access point locked down hard they'd blow my bandwidth limit inside a few days.
Finally some common sense from the courts. If I leave my doors unlocked, as I often do, and someone comes into my house and commits a rape there, why should I be held responsbile?
In the US the lobby's are so powerful that common snese goes out the window. If something could be used as an excuse, it doesn't matter if the excuse is valid or not, the excuse itself must be removed.
At least Germnay is showing some sense here.
What's to stop hackers from setting up open wifi networks with poor security, hacking their own networks to perform criminal acts, then claiming that someone else did the hack and they aren't liable for what others do over their open wifi?
Mobs have been laundering money thanks to ignorant loopholes like this for over a century!
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
I can now just spoof a MAC adress, download as crazy and tell them it wasn't me.
With truecrypt they can't even see what I have downloaded and saved.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Your own Wifi laptop connected to your open wifi network, and hidden in a good place. Cop come and will confiscate your OPEN wifi with no evidence whatsoever that you did anything. Who will be searching for a second laptop which use your open wifi ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
No, Open WiFi is like standing there waiting for someone to shove something up your arse. Yer gonna get screwed.
TANSTAAFL GIGO Acronyms to live by!
...to your government, since it doesn't directly promote free speech. Offering anonymous internet access to random persons passing by your house *does* promote free speech, and *is* thus a possible threat to your government.
Obviously.
Hey, I like something to be shoved up my ass, you insensitive clod!
Sincerely yours,
Goatse
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
The current law in germany is quite unstable from court to court regarding internet crimes and i donÂt think it can be a precedent for any case where an open wifi was used in a crime. At least i appreciate the fact that a court realizes that an IP is only a help in identifying the network, not the person.
In this case (iÂve read the original german text : http://www.olg-frankfurt.justiz.hessen.de/irj/OLG_Frankfurt_am_Main_Internet?rid=HMdJ_15/OLG_Frankfurt_am_Main_Internet/sub/dbd/dbd30488-fac8-ea11-f3ef-ef97ccf4e69f,,,11111111-2222-3333-4444-100000005003%26overview=true.htm ) the network owner was on vacation during the upload and he could exclude that his PC was used by others. So it could only be a user of the open WiFi. Interjection of the plaintiff that media coverage of abused WiFis would lead to the duty to secure the defendants WiFi was first accepted (he is be responsible what others are doing with his network, although it can not proved he did the crime) but rejected in the appeal.
The appeal court denied because he can not be responsible for every other persons illegal actions, although he would have the duty to e.g. prevent his (minor?) children from buying stuff over the net using his computer.
What the hell? The editing here has just gone down hill. I mean this is ridiculous!
Everyone knows it's spelled "gefÃllt mir"
p.s. yay german girlfriend!
p.p.s. /. doesn't like foreign characters so my correction won't be exactly right but at least no one can correct me!
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
I'd say it's more like renting out cars, selling guns or knives. You cannot assume malicious intent in everyone just because there's a few idiots out there.
OK 1 is not a big sample (/sarcasm), but it is enough for me to tell you that they don't always check inside the kitchen or some of the place where you don't wait for a computer. From what I could tell they don't dismantle cupboard or anything. So yes, there is plenty of place which are not searched in case of a civil delict. Now when this is not a civil delict, but a criminal one, I don't know, but I would assume that you and the other poster would be right, they do an extremly torough search for every stuff in your flat/house. The key here, is that copyright infringement is a civil delict, and the ability to search your whole living place is then limited.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I think there has always been common sense and good intent. The problem is that the people who 'are the law' don't know what they are really agreeing with/setting up and what the consequences are by doing so. They will always turn to other people for understanding the subject, which can make them extremely vulnerable to pass evil practices.
We can either inform them ourselves, or exploit their vulnerabilities to get them to do what we want instead. But every time we don't try, others will get there first.
Here be signatures
It baffles me why people would want to have open networks in the first place.
Some people like the idea of sharing. And it's a two way deal. Every time another open network is set up, that's one more place to get internet access for one self too.
If you can't control who accesses your network what chance do you stand of any type of network/pc/laptop administration?
What administration? You administrate your own systems, and let other people take care of their own devices. It's not like you suddenly are a network administrator in charge of running Windows Update on every system connected.
And who would want to use their own equipment on an unsecured 'unknown' wireless network?
The same people who would want to use their own equipment on an unsecured internet... The threats of connecting to a wireless network is no worse than the threats of connecting to the internet.
Free for all wireless networks send shivers down my spine.
That's YOUR problem. Not ours.
The users certainly aren't malicious - they're either clueless or don't see the harm. When [malicious] people start pulling into their parking lot to download kiddie porn or get all their TPB work done, guess who's gonna get dragged out into the street in the middle of the night by the Authorities? Some day, they're going to do that to the wrong person and all legal hell will break loose.
Most of the stuff on
How exactly am I supposed to "enjoy" my stolen Britney Spears collection? Streaming from the laptop from which you connect to the open wifi to.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I get your point now.
I had my 'corporate network' hat on.
So if I leave my keys in my car and someone uses it for joyrides or hold-ups, I'm not responsible either?
Home users aren't common carriers, are they? With that analogy everyone can just open up all their APs and so long as their PC/userid/etc is anonymous (randomized) you can download all the copyright content you want illegally, so long as you store it in something like TrueCrypt, and no one can prosecute as you can just claim it was your neighbor, right?
I was referring to the people using the WiFi. Maybe the owner might want to make it easy for visitors to his home to access the net, or allow neighbours to use it should they have problems with their connection. Just because there is a chance someone out there might abuse the opportunity, doesn't mean to say that he can assume they will.
The benefits of more freely available WiFi from cooperative individuals should benefit the society more and sooner, by far. e.g. mobile persons who prefer their notebooks for some inexpensive communication on trips to $99/mo "unlimited" cell phones or mobile internet accounts. Only rent seeking RIAA-SCO-telecom-corporatists and Nazi-Soviet-statist types are pushing WiFi restrictions and the fear campaign. Also, a society where every ISP connection is registered is one where free speech and privacy is on a very short leash. Having been to work in such countries before, it will be best to be leaving if you are not one of the elite class (top 1-2% incomes) running the show.
VPN and SSH tunneling provides a solution to using your own equipment on an unsecured wireless network. Its just serves as a gateway to your own network in that case - very secure.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Absolutely. There's a trust factor in keeping your WiFi open, rationalizing "oh, what could possibly go wrong" and you'd be largely accurate. It'll do the job for all the intended parties and another "visitor" in the next house or sitting in his car won't hurt a thing. That's true for practically all instances of open WiFi.
In this litigious society with prying law enforcement, recent laws written to nearly resemble entrapment and enormously stiff penalties, I've locked all my WAPs down against the casual driveby surfer. I don't want someone file sharing or surfing the rude corners of the Internet through my WAPs and have the RIAA SWAT team or FBI show up to arrest ME.
If I wanted to do those things, you can bet I'll park in front of someone else's house.
Most of the stuff on
We have a toll highway in Atlanta where you can either wait in line to throw your fifty cents into the thing for the privilege of driving on this oh-so-well-maintained road, or you can get a little card with some sort of RFID and just cruise through, letting the card debit your account. Naturally, those lanes are watched by cameras to look for evildoers who aren't paying.
The fun part is, if you get caught, the state mails you and demands that you pay. Their "evidence" of your crime is a blurry, black and white photograph of the back of your car, which doesn't show who is driving it. As far as they're concerned, I guess, if it's your car you're responsibile for anything anyone does with it, even if the real perp was a friend to whom you loaned the car.
So yes, there is legal precedent for the owner of something being liable for whatever anyone does with it, regardless of whether the owner had knowledge about it. I'm not saying it makes any bloody sense, but what did you expect from the government?
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
things rarely end up as they should.
TANSTAAFL GIGO Acronyms to live by!
Thanks. You're the second person who replied about my sig, but the first who pointed out my error. I've fixed it. BTW, in my defense, I had sigs turned off in my preferences, so I haven't seen my sig in 4 or 5 years.
TANSTAAFL GIGO Acronyms to live by!