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UK Bill Would Outlaw Open Wi-Fi
suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from ZDNet about another troubling aspect of the UK's much-maligned Digital Economy Bill:
"The government will not exempt universities, libraries and small businesses providing open Wi-Fi services from its Digital Economy Bill copyright crackdown, according to official advice released earlier this week. This would leave many organizations open to the same penalties for copyright infringement as individual subscribers, potentially including disconnection from the Internet, leading legal experts to say it will become impossible for small businesses and the like to offer Wi-Fi access. 'This is going to be a very unfortunate measure for small businesses, particularly in a recession, many of whom are using open free Wi-Fi very effectively as a way to get the punters in. Even if they password protect, they then have two options — to pay someone like The Cloud to manage it for them, or take responsibility themselves for becoming an ISP effectively, and keep records for everyone they assign connections to, which is an impossible burden for a small cafe,' said Lilian Edwards, professor of Internet law at Sheffield University."
Relatedly, an anonymous reader passes along a post which breaks down the question of whether using unprotected Wi-Fi is stealing.
First post. I've given my credit card details, scan of passport and my fingerprint to the clerk. Can I have WiFi now please?
It really depends upon how it is that they do it, but at the end of the day open access points aren't any more the cause of infringement than ones that one pays for. At any rate people shouldn't have truly open access points to begin with. I know that with PF you can set things up to redirect to a log in page that has them agree to the rules. You could always require they put some form of identification in which should get you off the hook for making it anonymous. Unless the new requirements would require an ID check. Which I'm sure there's some reasonable way of dealing with.
This is mostly just an excuse to shake people down for their change than actually fight any kind of real problem.
Bars were outlawed. The only place that could serve drinks were private clubs.
So I paid a $7 "membership fee" at the door and had a great time. First drink was free!
To paraphrase the philosopher Ian Malcom, "Life finds a way".
What happens when your diners start sharing across an ad-hoc wireless network in your shop? Are you obliged to jam signals?
Yet another case where elected officials aren't really thinking, or they don't understand what they're doing.
1) They think everyone can still have free Wi-Fi in public places, but it'll be "protected."
or
2) Someone's paying them off... Maybe the ISPs since they can swoop in and say, "Hey! Even though you can't offer free (beer) wi-fi, we can help you out! We can set it up so any BT subscriber can use your wi-fi, and that's like X% of the population. That'll be almost as good."
Or, it could just be innocent rampant stupidity.
At my work we have both. a closed mac address limited, use WPA keys to gain access. This dumps traffic right onto the VPN, with it's own inernal DNS severs, and traffic management( some websites are blocked etc)
But we also have an open access unsecured AP that uses the local ISP DNS servers, and never touches the closed network. This is for salesmen to gain internet access when they visit. There is usually range limitation on that point as well. I ofen see this type of setup at places that offer free wifi with their services. One closed network for themselves, and one open one for guests.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
> "This seems almost unprecedented to me, for a government document."
This seems quite ordinary to me, for a government document.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Open wi-fi should be as legal as me, on my own property giving away things for free. No one would care if I was giving out free water bottles on a hot day, nor would anyone care if I was giving away books for free, but when I'm giving away something in essence unlimited* it becomes bad?
*yes, it does increase bandwidth and would slow down your internet use, but how often is someone going to notice that?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Yeah, not only a bad idea, but how the hell are you gonna enforce it? I mean seriously, anybody driven down around a couple of square blocks in Downtown, Anywhere with a sniffer lately? What, at least 40 or 50 APs show up, most of which are unsecure?
Heh, if they do have some sort of WiFi goon squad running around with a scanner, one could keep them busy for a while with FakeAP...
Because we all know that coffee shops hide servers behind the counter.... Most of the time the free wi-fi they provide is simply an extra consumer-level connection that goes to a cheap-as-free router, they change the SSD and let people use it. Its no big deal if someone uses it and doesn't buy a coffee either, they pay the same for it if someone drank 1000000 cups of coffee or if someone drank one. Its a good advertising scheme too, traveler is walking downtown sees an open access point for a coffee shop, goes in has a coffee and uses the wi-fi.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I'm sure if you paid Peter Mandelson* some brown envelope money then he would amend the law. But as it is, I think he's more interested in the kind of money that media moguls have when he goes mixing with them on yachts in the South of France for a "friendly chat." The man and the current UK government are evil. * the chief architect of this whole bastard Digital Economy law
Take Nobody's Word For It.
What's really needed is a multi-national organization to address what's clearly an all-out assault on internet freedom by a variety of vested interests. Governments, patent trolls, multi-national entertainment corporations...all of them are pushing in the same direction, and there doesn't seem to be any unified push back.
Let's be clear: I'm not alleging a conspiracy. What I'm saying is that these groups all know where their best interests lie (screwing the consumer/citizen/user/whatever) and they sense that if they don't get their boot on our throat, no matter how badly they have to bend the various constitutions of the democracies they use for cover, the opportunity will slip away. They aren't about to let that happen if they can possibly help it.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Would you allow us to have open streets, sir, or should we wear tags to identify us while we walk outside?
The government have totally lost the plot. I'll be so glad when BRrown and his morons get voted out in May.
There, its secure :)
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Every call will be logged, every transaction filed, what you do, where you go, who you see and what you think will be traceable. You will be watched, profiled, targeted, and the number plate of your vehicle registered at each motorway intersection.
There will be no cheating and you will do what you are told - though to be fair, for the milch cows amongst us that will not be a problem.
The UK government introduced the quaintly named. "Care in the community" in order to allow them to cut costs by dumping people with serious psychological disorders out of the hospitals and on to the streets.
Now they are taking it a step further. Welcome to, "Imprisonment in the Community". No need for the concentration camps. You are already under control right where you are - going about your daily business.
Sure. And that's probably how the lobbyists sold it. The problem, at least in the States, is that we no longer seem capable of electing politicians who _think_. The good ones just _deal_ and justify it as the way pragmatic realpolitik works. The bad ones purposefully deal for dollars.
Well, in Canada, there's a section of the Criminal code (342.1) that disallows the use of computer computer resources (which would include WiFi) without permission from the owner. A person's ability to access the resources is not taken as an indication of any implied permission. If one can show that the use was inadvertent, it will not, in general, carry an legal penalties unless there are extenuating damages. Claiming "the network was unprotected" would not fly as evidence that it was inadvertent. In fact, if one actually tried to use that as an excuse, it would essentially be a confession that they knew that they were utilizing somebody else's network in the first place, and so make them legally liable.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
* Shut down the last hiding-place. Anonymity be gone.
* Make encryption illegal. No Secrets.
* Make people sign every ip-packet with their government-issued key and make ISPs drop all unsigned packets. Total accountability.
=> Everyone secure beneath watchfull eyes (especially our children)
creepy!
What's to stop coffee shops from setting a password protected wifi spot and then putting a big poster with the password on it?
right...
Ignoring any moral arguments against these laws, did anyone actually do the analysis of the cost vs. benefits? I mean these laws have direct costs for 1) ISPs 2) small businesses/libraries/etc...3) the increased costs to the state for enforcing such laws. There will be indirect costs for 4) all internet users as the cost of connection is raised. Finally, this will mean loss of connectivity, either in certain contexts or simply due to rising costs hence there will be a cost 5) the economy as a whole.
Alright, what about benefits. Did someone do actual accounting how much the entertainment industry will gain from these rules (I am assuming they are the biggest beneficiary). Not how much they are saying they are losing. That's a made up number. But in reality, did anyone analyze how higher the profits will be with these rules in place? What needs to be taken into account is that some people who download illegal content would not buy it legally, and further what needs to be taken into account is that such rules will only reduce the rate of piracy (presumably) and will definitely not eliminate it. People copied content before the internet and they will continue to do so. Perhaps less so, but it will continue to occur.
Finally, did anyone independent really analyze the benefit to society and economy from the increased profit of the entertainment industry? Is there a pressing need? Are there fewer artists that create content? Are movie studios not making new movies? Would really more content be generated with these rules in place? Do make sure to figure into any analysis that decreased connectivity will to some degree stifle content creation, and besides the negative effect on society that this may have, this will also have a negative effect on the very industry which they are trying to "protect."
Another perhaps strange effect is that people ARE willing to pay for things even when it is possible to get them for free. Economists often forget to figure in this effect. If you look at statistics of album sales during the napster days, you will notice that sales were up when napster was around and there was plenty of illegal music sharing, and sales went down around the same time that napster got shut down. Without drawing a conclusion of causality, such correlations should be on better scientific footing that simply the "obvious" conclusion that the music industry could have made even more money if napster wasn't around.
I have not seen any such analysis done anywhere. The only arguments for are the faux-common-sense arguments that espouse the obviousness of the benefits of such rules and therefore there is no need to actually figure out what the benefits are.
Of course I am assuming that internet access does contribute to value creation in an economy and it is not true that internet is used solely for viewing porn and downloading illegal music. If I am wrong in this assumption then of course these rules are a boon to the economy. It will be a double whammy, less illegal downloads AND people will probably do actual work out of boredom from not being able to access porn.
The UK already has one: they patrol neighborhoods scanning for unlicensed televisions, those on which they haven't paid their "license fee", which anyone else in the world would call a television tax.
The idea of a public TV license isn't as unique to the UK as people seem to think. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence - It's a lot more normal than you might think and doesn't make the UK unique or special.
It's more the US that's "special" because they don't have one.
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net