Slashdot Mirror
German User Fined For Having an Open Wi-Fi
Kilrah_il writes "A German citizen was sued for copyright infringement because copyrighted material was downloaded through his network while he was on vacation. Although the court did not find him guilty of copyright infringement, he was fined for not having password-protected his network: 'Private users are obligated to check whether their wireless connection is adequately secured to the danger of unauthorized third parties abusing it to commit copyright violation,' the court said."
So does this mean if I accidentally leave our apartment unlocked one morning, someone breaks in, steals one of our daggers or guns, and commits a crime...that we could be charged for aiding a criminal?
Living With a Nerd
See subject.
You can't force someone to have security. Would they have fined him if he'd left his door unlocked to his house?
Sent from your iPad.
Up next, people paying fines for having their identities stolen. I
slippery slope. (sufficient encryption, content filtering, access controls.)
Not looking good if this carry's precedent. Pretty ridiculous IMO. Much like my own personal battle with building codes in my home town.
"'Private users are obligated to check whether their wireless connection is adequately secured to the danger of unauthorized third parties abusing it to commit copyright violation,' the court said." What exactly do they mean by adequately secured? Can they fine us for using WEP or WPA instead of the latest and greatest?
In soviet Germany, WiFi unsecures you!
Or your wallet, anyways.
The court said that he wasn't found guilty for copyright infringement, which would be analogous in your example to being found guilty for aiding a criminal. You would be charged with failing to secure your residence, much in the same way that he was charged with failing to secure his wifi.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
From Article:
"...if a third party takes advantage of their unprotected WLAN connection..."
So, what would happen if you just had a lousy password? (say the same as your ssid, or something like that).
Could you say it is "protected" in the sense that the person had to do something to use it, and not just use it?
I know they also say that it needs to be "adequately secured," but who defines "adequately?"
This could be great for promoting better security among citizens, but what happens when they use a weak password? Or what if I have the processing power and time to get their encryption key? Is the individual still responsible for all data transferred over his network?
The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.
Say I have some land behind a drive in movie theater. Some one sets up a camera on this land and films movies and posts them on the internet. Is it my fault for not fencing or posting guards to prevent this? I'm pro copyright but this is nuts.
He was fined 100 euro because a single user downloaded a single song illegally. One song. A hundred twenty-five times its retail value. And he didn't even download it. Copyright is out of control.
Do we start requiring people to lock their cars? Install alarm systems on their houses? Use encryption on their hard drives?
-or-
Do the police start to complain that with the VOIP systems out their and products like Skype, that the links need to be unencrypted so they can snoop?
Where does it all end?
So all those German citizens daft enough to allow thier machines to become part of a botnet are, technically, at risk of prosecution?
So, I guess now the German people are being expected to work for the benefit of the copyright lobby. This sounds like the tail wagging the dog -- first the government works for the industry's benefit, and then it starts to require the people it is supposed to represent to do the same.
Palm trees and 8
They fine you for having an open access point, but if it was password protected and broken in (as wifi encryption is weak) then the owner would of been charged with copyright violation.
Wow. Now, in Germany, your life revolves around the protection of other people's copyright(s). So from this, one can then make the simple leap to say that a barely protected network (WEP) is also offensive to copyrighters because it takes just 30 seconds to break into. Malware on your computer downloads something for you? Too bad, you didn't secure it well enough. Who cares if a bug actually caused it.
I realize this is Germany, and I admittedly do not know their stance on legislating from the bench, but talk about legislating from the bench. I hope this judge is disbarred because people like him are ruining the world.
I hope there is slightly more to this story than the summary suggests. It seems absurd unless they have a law against sharing your internet connection. I personally have an open guest network with no protection, but then so do every major company, all libraries, schools, the trains and even the busses here in copenhagen.
But seriously, is "Free for All" WiFi access illegal, or non-existant in Germany? In Japan, there are some places where WiFi is opened intentionally, as a courtesy to people around. Such as in hotels, convention halls, and so on. Not just some individual that figures that free access to all is a cool idea.
While others have pointed out an analogy to an unlocked door, I see it more like a public pay phone. If an anonymous individual makes a death threat from a pay phone, is the phone company somehow liable? If they're not, and it is because they are a common carrier, then how come the internet is treated differently?
This single issue may have been a case of German law, but it does have implications to every modern nation.
Not looking good if this carry's precedent. Pretty ridiculous IMO. Much like my own personal battle with building codes in my home town.
Such a brave American hero. I have a dream that one day builders will rise up and break the shackles of community approved building codes and regulations and finally be free once again to build their cement basketball courts within thirty feet of a roadway. A day when not only will that be possible but equal opportunities will be provided for you in the form of a check box on an job application that gives you preferred status.
You truly shall inherit the Earth!
The actual judgement is a bit more level-headed than the /. summary makes it to be.
The judge essentially said you ought to have some minimum level of security, elst you're liable for damages, much like everything else (e.g. if you don't put the brakes on in your car and it starts to roll and crashes into something).
The standard requested is pretty much "turn on encryption and change the default password".
Most commentators agree that for home users, not much will change. Unless you're an idiot, you already have these things for your home network. The challenge will mostly be to hotels, Starbucks, etc. with their open hotspots.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
While some of you slashdoters cannot even grasp what this means:
You can leave your wifi open, you can download anything you want, and the maximal fine will be 100 EUR!
I call that a big win where users would be sued up to 10.000 EUR for downloading/sharing music - this will put a dramatic lid on those things.
Cheers.
So, if this is how things are to be, I think that this guy should pass the buck to the manufacturer for not complying with local law. Such devices should be regulated in such a way that they cannot be sold to customers without ALREADY being secure out-of-the-box. Otherwise, I think that this should have no merit.
judgment seems to make anonymity illegal. unsecured wifi provides only this, it doesn't provide a free pass to copyright infringement. anonymity may make infringement a difficult crime to investigate, but should that make it illegal?
Maybe if this was extended to enforce a more responsible attitude for people leaving their PCs infected and sending out spam for months, I'd be all for it. Stupidity is no defence, so if you're irresponsible behaviour is causing misery for others, and potentially allowing a criminal offence to take place then you deserve to face charges.
Driving a car with no license, or instruction is an offence and whilst spamming thousands of people isn't actually dangerous, it affects more individuals.
Saying this, maybe wireless routers/modems shouldn't even have an option to operate in an open mode. Likewise, maybe ISPs shouldn't allow customers to send mail out on port 25 to random machines - just route it all through their own mail server. If a machine is sending a huge amount of mail, it's simple to block it until the user fixes their system. Surely it's not that fucking hard!
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
if I left my car doors unlocked (there is no law that says I have to do that) and someone used it to steal bunch of music cd from a retail store I be charged with copyright theft?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
In the US some areas charge you for having an accident. As in, you get into an auto wreck and all parties are charged a fee for emergency services.
So, in your scenario, your causing the police extra work by your negligence (just thinking out loud like a councilman looking for pennies in the couch would) and you should pay a penalty. Hell, we should be preemptive and apply a special tax to items you may own which thieves would want, a new desirable goods tax assessed yearly.
The government can force ANYONE to do ANYTHING. Never underestimate what government can do. If not directly they will do it indirectly, and if necessary undetected but that usually requires the target to vanish too
Face it, people have been more and more willing to ask the government to do things for them, who are they to tell when to stop?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
So *IF* I were a music pirate in Germany, this ruling would tell me to leave my router unsecured. The unprotected network fine is much cheaper than a RIAA lawsuit...
I like the thought, and others have commented on gun safety. Here's mine:
YOU leave YOUR apartment unlocked.
Bad guy enters YOUR apartment and uses YOUR telephone to make prank, obscene, or threatening phone calls.
The Court finds that YOU didn't make any of those calls.
YOU should not be fined because it's YOUR choice to lock or unlock your apartment.
YOU are blameless.
I guess it's not unusual to find the world mollycoddling the "Big Content" slimeballs.
E
Someone go find the RIAA/MPAA or whatever the equivalent in Germany is, use their wifi (would WEP or WPA-TSK count as "adequately secured to the danger of unauthorized third parties abusing it to commit copyright violation,'?) And start downloading everything you can think of. Lets see if they sue themselves.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
is that it often comes down to a failure to do right and a need to blame someone. If someone steals a gun and commits a crime with it, they should be 100% civilly responsible. Allowing the victim of the theft to be sued is nothing more than indulging the blood lust of the victim and their family who want anyone connected with it to pay dearly.
I know, it sounds like a pretty colleague who just won't let you work but there really is such a doctrine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance_doctrine
Set your phasers on "funky"!
In 20 years, I have never locked my house. I grew up in a town where locks were rare (we never locked our house), and I moved out to an even smaller town as an adult. I personally think the time I have *not* spent looking for my keys must been in the hundreds of hours by now, so if I go home tonight and everything is cleaned out, I still come out ahead.
I keep no guns in my house (and never would). I'm not opposed to gun ownership--it's just not for me. However, I recently acquired 2 traditional recurve bows for myself and my wife and have over a dozen aluminum arrows. These require some skill to use because they are very light "bare" bows with no sights, arrow rests, or triggers--definitely not a hunting setup. The bows are stored unstrung (but with strings attached). I think a random untrained kid would be limited in the damage he could do. Of course, any weapon is a dangerous item.
Do I have to begin locking my house because of this? Or do I have to secure the bows in a locked case? What is my responsibility here?
Free public Wi-Fi is one of the most important public services of the 21st century. It gives anyone who can come up with the $200 for a netbook the ability to access the sum of human knowledge. It allows people to communicate over long distances in many more ways that a simple voice conversation. Anyone who comes up with the money for an unlimited internet connection and jeopardizes some of his privacy (or some convenience, if he uses some kind of proxy/encryption) to let anyone access the internet without paying high fees to greedy monopolistic corporations is doing good for society. Saying that he's doing evil since he's also allowing copyright infringement is like saying cars are evil since you can use one to get away from a robbery. All technology can be used for good and evil, but the internet being freely available to the public does hundreds of times more good than it does evil.
But the user could prove that he was on vacation while the song was downloaded via his wireless connection. Still, the court ruled he was responsible to a degree for failing to protect his connection from abuse by third parties.
What if the "abuser" was downloading a copy of something he already owned, but potentially scratched the disc up so much that it was rendered unreadable? I don't know how it works in Germany but according to provision 117 of the DMCA:
(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.— Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.
Isn't this enough to cause reasonable doubt that the person who downloaded over the network may have not been committing copyright infringement at all?
Once upon a time in a mythical land called Soviet Russia, a hot bowl of grits had Natalie Portman.
Lets up the status even more. How about a public library that offers free wifi?
But assuming it is my responsibilitiy to detect/prevent/record the internet crimes of strangers in my area to allow the government to prosecute them, does that mean I am also legally required to put camers up all around my property to detect/prevent/record NON-internet related crimes?
Moron judges should be fired, regardless of which country they are from.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Let's say you never use your own connection, but always use your neighbor's connection. Then, you never have to worry about a large fine from infringement, because the owner of the line wasn't the one who did it.
In the article, you get fined up to $126.
It puts the lotion on it's skin, or else it gets the hose again.
His ISP has a responsibility to prevent copyright infringement as well, so they should be fined for it too.
Serious case of misleading headline.... The court said: "If you have an open WIFI and someone uses it to fileshare copyright protected material, the owner of the rights may send you a cease and desist letter (effectively insisting that you secure your WIFI) and extract 100,- Euro from you for covering the fees of the legal process."
The user was not fined, he was not punished, he was not ordered to pay for the damages.
CU, Martin
P.S. Who wonders, that lawyers don't get the technical aspects right when the techies confuse the most elemental judical terms....
As far as I know, you cannot be fined unless you do something illegal. In other words, there _must_ be at least one law you have broken with your actions or lack of actions. The obvious question then: _is_ there a law in Germany demanding that you secure your WiFi? Or is some law being extended to cover this situation?
In my country laws are usually interpreted very strictly: if they mention (just for example) print media, the law is not usually assumed to include digital media as well. This is normally a good thing: actions/things that are not explicitly illegal are automatically legal.
Comparing copyright infringement to murder is sickening.
Perhaps, but the comparison between prohibited copying and armed robbery of ships, which often involves murder, has been around so long enough that nobody outside the FSF bats an eye at calling it "piracy". The ship has sailed; the slope has slipped.
I go on vacation.
I leave my back door unlocked.
Someone enters my house while I'm on vacation with out my permission.
They bring with them a CD that they shop lifted from a store.
They use my computer equipment to rip 1 song off of that CD.
And >I get fined $100.
What... the... crap...
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
+1 - In the US, many court houses have free public wi-fi for people waiting on jury duty. It would be funny if the court that sentenced him had the same thing.
I hate to mention this because another crowd has co-opted the identity, but wasn't the Boston Tea Party pretty much a revolt against this kind of thing?
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
I'll add that the homeowner's liability for injuries to criminals who are trespassing and/or breaking in are quite different from one state to another. We don't all live in La-La-Land - errrr - I meant California. I read one story where a burglar hurt himself after falling through a roof, or a skylight, or some such. He successfully sued the homeowner, in California. In a more reasonable state, like Texas, the homeowner could have SHOT the SOB, and claimed that he was startled, and feared for his life. In fact, in Texas, you don't even have to fear for your life - you can shoot a burglar dead, even before he gets into the house. One woman in Houston used a shotgun to kill some guy OUTSIDE her house who was breaking into her car, and some old guy shot through the door and killed one of two burglars who were trying to break in. Now, THAT is reasonable!!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
This is one reason I really hate cities. Yes, there are definitely sickos and robbers and murderers outside of the cities, but there is a whole different attitude about security in a small town. You know everybody and, even if you hate someone, you probably watch out for them.
Other than when going away for extended periods of time, I have not locked my door in thirty years.
I'm not a fool. I'm not telling you where I live. But I really enjoy living in a place where someone can leave their car running with the door open while they run into the post office, start chatting with old friends, and come out 20 minutes later with their car still there.
When I lived in a million+ resident city for college, I hated feeling so god damned paranoid all the time about locking everything up. It's no way to live.
Some of my devices don't support my router's encryption. I have no choice but to leave my wireless unprotected.
So if I secure my router, and the security is circumvented, is the router manufacturer held liable? It certainly sounds like they should be.
Isn't this the same country that at one point made it a criminal offense to have wireshark installed on your machine?
... of course, the user that got fined for not securing his network access could sue the Wi-Fi router manufacturer / his ISP / the Wi-Fi alliance / the ISO (while he's at it) for not making it obvious enough that not securing his wireless network access is, in the end, actually a law infringement. Jesus!! This is a masquerade of justice.
I operate an open wifi spot for my neighborhood. It is just a decent, non-dickish, non-selfish thing to do. If you want to be a dick and not share, fine. But don't criminalize folks for not being dicks.
The vast proportion of airports and hotels (increasingly cafe chains) in Europe have 'open' wireless networks that require browser authentication. You pump for an IP, are granted one, yet must authenticate in the browser (usually with a bite of your credit card) to get you through the gateway. Up until you authenticate you're a member of the LAN only. These APs usually have a EULA that prohibits such uses as the downloading of copyrighted material.
So, what specifically constitutes a Protected Network in the context of this new law?
#1
In a car, you are required to be licensed in order to use it (at least in the US and europe).
To use a car, you have to know how to drive it.
To use a router, you have to know how to set it up properly.
If you don't know how to use it, don't buy it.
#2
In your CD theft situation, it is not the normal behavior of the thief to then return the car to it's owner. Your argument makes sense but in the real world it doesn't happen that way and therefore is not a condition you have to deal with because the owner of the car is a victim of theft too. With a router, you gain unauthorized access and commits crime, but you do not actually steal the router. The owner of the router did not intend to help the criminal, but the owner's inaction did assist the criminal. The purpose of a fine would be to deter crime like this by making people responsible for their property, and learn to set up their routers properly. It's cheaper in the long run to find ways of making people concerned about security than having to drag cases like this through court and waste court time.
#3
Car manufacturers put locks on ALL cars and they are easy to use and understand. Comparitively, routers have locks, but you have to turn them on to enable them. It's like having a car with locks that you can't lock until you open the door with tools, get in, and enable by hand. People need to educate themselves on these locks or they shouldn't have wireless routers.
Along the lines of #3, this is also a great argument to start pressuring manufacturers to come up with a simple and sane tool for router configuration that requires/ you to set a password and security before you are able to use it at all! Plug it in, turn it on, try to access the internet, and you are given a page that says "set security bub". By default, routers are open and anyone can use them and the manufacturers don't care.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
If you have an open WIFI, a prosecutor may be able to prove to a jury
that you are an ISP. If ACTA goes through, and ISP's held accountable,
then *you*, Mr Open WIFI, are liable.
I do not use wireless, don't trust it, but my netbook has the ability to use it. So booting it up during the daytime (when there are usually less connections around) shows up that around me, there are two homes with 100% open WiFi connections, and a number with WEP and WPA, with the netbook telling me visually which is the weaker security protocol, and also the ID of the network being broadcast.... the box name anyway, so if you were a bad person, you could look up the manufacturers default passwords and change the box so you have unlimited access.
I'd love to tell the people here that they are running an open connection, because just the other day there was a car that parked up with a laptop who was scanning for WiFi, but rapidly drove away when I switched on my netbook with the connection ID "you are being scanned". They came back minutes later, and I tried to scan them again before they again rapidly drove away, this time not to return.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
So if I go to Starbucks and use their open Wifi to download a song, I can sue Starbucks for allowing me to commit copyright infringement?
As I mentioned in another post - it depends on your city/state/country. In California, you could easily be found negligent for having *ANY* unsecured weapons. In Texas? Not freaking likely. Dude steps on your property uninvited, he's pretty much fair game for both you and the law.
However - I don't *believe* that any state in the US considers a bow to be a weapon. There are a lot of laws about firearms, and more laws concerning knives over x inches in length, but I've never seen any citations of laws about bows, or the arrows. Of course, IANAL - anything is possible if you should go scraping the law archives.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
1. The network was in fact not open. It was secured with WPA1 and a default password (source, German)
"Somit ist auch noch einmal zu Betonen: Es ging in der Entscheidung nicht um ein vollständig ungesichertes WLAN! Der BGH hat also nicht über ein offenes WLAN verhandelt, wie lange fälschlicherweise berichtet wurde. Vielmehr ging es ganz allgemein um die bedeutsame Frage, welche Sicherungspflichten die Betreiber von WLAN allgemein trifft."
2. The 100 euro is not for copyright infringement, but rather it seems that in Germany the reciever of a DMCA-like notice is liable for up to 100 euro unless they can either a) Point the blame to someone else or b) Pass some standard of having done everything reasonable to avoid damage. That's at least how I read the law:
" 97a Abmahnung
(1) Der Verletzte soll den Verletzer vor Einleitung eines gerichtlichen Verfahrens auf Unterlassung abmahnen und ihm Gelegenheit geben, den Streit durch Abgabe einer mit einer angemessenen Vertragsstrafe bewehrten Unterlassungsverpflichtung beizulegen. Soweit die Abmahnung berechtigt ist, kann der Ersatz der erforderlichen Aufwendungen verlangt werden.
(2) Der Ersatz der erforderlichen Aufwendungen für die Inanspruchnahme anwaltlicher Dienstleistungen für die erstmalige Abmahnung beschränkt sich in einfach gelagerten Fällen mit einer nur unerheblichen Rechtsverletzung außerhalb des geschäftlichen Verkehrs auf 100 Euro."
The key sentence here is "Soweit die Abmahnung berechtigt ist, kann der Ersatz der erforderlichen Aufwendungen verlangt werden." which translates to something like "When the warning is justified, compensation for the relevant expenses can be demanded." The second caps it to 100 euro for simple cases.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
would WEP or WPA-TSK count as "adequately secured to the danger of unauthorized third parties abusing it to commit copyright violation,'?
There's a reason why they call it "wired equivalent privacy". It's supposed to be as hard to break as entering the premises and using a wired Ethernet port.
However - I don't *believe* that any state in the US considers a bow to be a weapon.
Umm, I'd be surprised if there is any state in the US that *doesn't* consider a bow to be a weapon. It certainly is in my state (Utah). Here's the relevant section of the code:
UCA 76-10-501(6)
(6) (a) "Dangerous weapon" means any item that in the manner of its use or intended use is capable of causing death or serious bodily injury.
(b) The following factors shall be used in determining whether a knife, or any other item, object, or thing not commonly known as a dangerous weapon is a dangerous weapon:
(i) the character of the instrument, object, or thing;
(ii) the character of the wound produced, if any;
(iii) the manner in which the instrument, object, or thing was used; and
(iv) the other lawful purposes for which the instrument, object, or thing may be used.
(c) "Dangerous weapon" does not include any explosive, chemical, or incendiary device as defined by Section 76-10-306.
In the case of a bow, I don't think the court would even bother looking at the criteria in (6)(b), since a bow is clearly an item whose manner of use is capable of causing death or serious bodily injury.
Every state whose weapons laws I've examined (and the number is at least a half-dozen) has a similar broadly-applicable definition of "dangerous weapon", though they often use other terms.
BTW, the reason (6)(c) excludes explosives, etc. isn't because they're not dangerous or can't be weapons, it's because they're classified differently, and have more severe restrictions associated with them.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Same as fining the bus driver for transporting the bad guy who later stole valet and took the bus to get back home. Is driver responsible for whom he transports? Should the driver secure the buss against unauthorized third parties abusing the law?
Should not be the securing of the valet (copyrighted material) be responsibility of the owner?
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
If it's illegal to use the WiFi router on the settings it's sold on then surely the product itself is illegal? I'm not sure how the law works in this area, but wouldn't the retailer be responsible for selling a product that doesn't comply with the law straight out of the box?
(Maybe this point has already been raised, but too many comments to check)
Interesting.
But, it's broadly worded enough, that MacGyver or any special forces who can make a weapon out of pocket lint are going to be shafted no matter what. ;^)
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Someone trespasses onto your property, it doesn't matter how your weapons were stored, its their ass, not yours, BUT, if you invite kids onto your property and your weapons are not secured, only then is it your ass
He should sue the music industry for distributing the music in the first place. After all, if they hadn't sold it, it wouldn't be available to steal.
Then, the industry can turn around and sue the musician for the same thing.
Well, typically this sort of thing has a test of reasonableness applied. Since someone clearly logged on without trouble, this is not adequately secured. WEP probably is. It's breakable but most people aren't going to go to the effort. The prosecution would need to demonstrate that it wasn't adequate to keep people out. There aren't enough people regularly breaking WEP for this to be an issue. If there were, and it was well known that there were, then he could presumably be fined.
There's a big difference between profitless civil copyright infringement and a violent felony. This is more like someone sneaking across your yard to photograph some pages of a book your neighbor carelessly left out on their deck. Except even That constitutes a greater crime, with criminal trespass, etc. If anything the police should be investigating the person who accessed the WiFi point without the owner's permission. I don't have a fence around my front yard, but that shouldn't be construed as an open invitation to have a picnic in it.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
Interesting.
But, it's broadly worded enough, that MacGyver or any special forces who can make a weapon out of pocket lint are going to be shafted no matter what. ;^)
Yeah. But the other side is that if it were any more specific it would exclude things that people pick up and use as weapons. The fact is that darned near anything can be a dangerous weapon, it's more about what you do with it than what it is (regardless of what the TSA thinks). So, the laws are worded broadly enough that anything used as a dangerous weapon legally qualifies as a dangerous weapon, as well as anything that clearly is a dangerous weapon (like a knife, gun or bow).
Then we rely on the judges not to shaft people who weren't really doing anything objectionable.
It's an imperfect world.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
1) Someone posted that the user wasn't actually fined - yet. But he could be fined if the copyright owner goes after him for failing to secure his wireless device. However, in the USA I'd be afraid that somehow the wireless owner would be sued and blamed by the RIAA for whatever happened. Given 2 high profile losses of exorbitant amounts of money by consumers to the RIAA in some relatively recent court cases, a 100 Euro fine would seem like a good deal.
2) I'd bet that the mysterious unnamed artist is Prince. He's been known to go after Europeans (ask The Pirate Bay) in European courts. And for a guy who for a while was an early embracer of the internet and used it to make money, he's turned into a fuddy duddy old school technophobe.
On top of that, I'm going to complain about crummy routers resetting themselves. I've tried to set the security on mine several times, and it always reverts within a few weeks. I'm tired of messing with it. I didn't sign up for monthly homework to keep my router maintained.
....the bank accounts of the ambulance-chasers involved.
Regards;
You hit the nail on the head, and pointed-out a classic geek blind-spot:
A thug wants into your encrypted storage unit. Do you actually think he's going to whip-out a bunch of super-sophisticated tools to analyze your hardware and crack the system? No; he's going to whip-out a crowbar and beat you with it until you give him the password.
Hence: The Crowbar Effect. Welcome to the Real World, kiddies....
];)
Regards;
Is there really a law in Germany that all wi-fi networks have to be secured? I personally don't know but it sure seems unlikely that it would be a legal requirement.
If there isn't such a law this guy actually hasn't done anything wrong at all so he could tell the record companies to go screw themselves. Furthermore he should counter-sue for all losses associated with their malicious and ill-advised actions against him.
You wouldn't be charged for "aiding" a criminal (which requires intent), but you might be liable for negligent entrustment:
http://injury.findlaw.com/defective-dangerous-products/defective-dangerous-products-law/firearms(1).html
It's the same thing with a lot of other dangerous things: nuclear materials, poison, explosives, etc.: you need to store them reasonably securely, both to prevent accidental use and to prevent theft.
So call me an idiot, but why are we actually securing our wireless, again?
There's really no sane reason to do so, that I can think of, short of earning ISPs and the MPAA/RIAA's of this world more money than they're entitled to.
(Assuming that your computers are adequately secured themselves)
If you're going to punish people for things they do on the Internet, then holding operators of open WiFi spots liable is really the only logical consequence--otherwise you could rarely prosecute.
Germany is somewhat ahead of the curve since Germany effectively has no anonymous speech anyway as far as the government is concerned (phone, internet connections, etc. are all registered with the government). But the same kind of liability is likely going to start appearing in the US if we aren't careful.
Or is that illegal in Germany?
Lets up the status even more. How about a public library that offers free wifi?
Nothing of this is or was illegal. It was just terribly unsure what happens if someone uses such a service for illegal things.
By the way, free WiFi here in Germany is very much getting rarer month by month. No one really knows how to handle the legal implications and in more and more places there is no free WiFi anymore.
but there's a real world out there, and it's far more important than the fucking internet.
I disagree.
There's a world out there because we have knowledge that lets us build it. That knowledge is MORE important than the thing itself. If we lose the electric power, we can begin work to restore it. If we lose the KNOWLEDGE OF ELECTRIC POWER, it will never be restored again.
The internet represents access to all accumulated human knowledge. It is more important than anything we have ever built.
Come out to my neck of the woods. If you are injured and call and ambulance, it'll be here in about 40 minutes. But using the internet to get the information allowing you to deal with the injury takes only 40 seconds. WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT NOW?
Let us not all forget that this is a country where if you tried to sue someone because your child did something stupid.....you would be dismissed and then fined for bringing "frivolous legal action". German courts don't like to have their time wasted especially if you don't watch out for your own self.
"Don't Panic"
...unfortunately, what you're talking about is well beyond the technical expertise of a great many people. Most users don't know a monitor from a computer and they're expected to be tech cops for the movie/music/games industries?
Best thing for all concerned is, if you don't respect other's property, don't go to Texas. You'll get into serious trouble real quick. On the other hand, if you DO respect other's property, you should get along just fine. It isn't like people are being blown away without good reason, by law abiding citizens. Criminals, on the other hand, whether they be citizens or illegal aliens, have no problem blowing people away without good reason - and the gun laws that Texas DID have were relaxed to deal with that little problem.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Everyone posting is starting with a Score:3.
Everybody knows, that GPL/CC is communism and that *IAA organizations are acting in our interests!
Just you wait until somebody is sued because her or she didn't cover their windows so somebody could take a picture of a Mickey Mouse poster and share it with the world.
Or when somebody sings "Happy birthday to you" using your telephone.
Really? What part of the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB) are you referring to? Or did you just apply Anglo-American "Common Law" to a German case?
Like the majority of the world's countries Germany uses the "Civil Law" system (Roman).
Again, IANAL, but from what little I've read of the Illinois laws on weapons I'd be, extremely, surprised if a bow wasn't considered a weapon. On top of guns and knives over X inches long, many states also have laws regarding things like saps, "sand clubs" (blackjacks), and other kinds of bludgeons. Often these laws come into play in claimed self defense situations.
For instance, in Illinois you can defend yourself with a hammer if you happen to be attacked while doing work on the house or if you are a contractor for a living and get attacked during the work day. However, if you're just a paranoid nut that carries a claw hammer around for "self defense" then my understanding of Illinois law is that it would be considered an illegal "bludgeon".
My point here is that if they have special laws regarding stuff like that, I find it very hard that they wouldn't have laws regarding bows.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
Reading one of the articles mentioned that one song was downloaded while he was gone. I presume that more then one person in germany is pirating music, videos,etc so how in the world was this person singled out?
In Germany most WLAN Routers ARE sold with encryption enabled. The Top selling brand here is AVM with their "Fritz-Box". That has WPA2 on by default and the key is different for every device sold.
The case with the defendent was settled many years ago when the court found that he could not be held liable for doing what any novice would do. And, at that time, it was not trivial for a novice user to know how to set the password or even that the password must be set. The network was not open, but the password was left unchanged and, at that time, the mfg had the same default password on all routers.
However, the case was brought up again as a case of interest to set precedent for future cases where the court found that today a novice user should be able to create a secure network, mostly because, routers are delivered that way by default, with unique passwords for routers and WPA2 Personal as default.
Some times the /. headings are a little misleading.
More like you leave your door open (not just unlocked), place a big poster that you can get weapons in your house and go on vacation.
By the way. This is a good thing, people should be forced to secure their networks when they are exposed to the public. The damage could have been much, much worse then some copyright infringement.
Shouldn't the recording industry be sued instead, for not securing their songs enough to prevent downloads?
Now McKinnon can pay for his legal defence by suing the USAAF for leaving it's networks in an 'insecure state'.
So does this mean if I accidentally leave our apartment unlocked one morning, someone breaks in, steals one of our daggers or guns, and commits a crime...that we could be charged for aiding a criminal?
Germans will actually fine you for just being stupid. You can actually get fined for running out of gas.
You find some judicial explanations of this case here: http://www.undergermanlaw.com/disturbance-liability-the-reason-for-wlan-restrictions-in-germany/ (Explanations by a german lawyer, written in english)
There ARE no legal implications. Citizens are NOT required to prevent other citizens from engaging in crimes, nor are they required to detect/or even watch out for it. If someone leaves a wifi open, then no one can tell if a crime has been done and that does NOT mean the person that left the wifi open committed a crime.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
There ARE no legal implications. Citizens are NOT required to prevent other citizens from engaging in crimes, nor are they required to detect/or even watch out for it. If someone leaves a wifi open, then no one can tell if a crime has been done and that does NOT mean the person that left the wifi open committed a crime.
Right, but as soon as someone uses an open WiFi AP to do something illegal the owner of that AP can and will be required to secure it and then the open AP is gone. That's it.
Picture this scenario:
you leave your wi fi unlocked
perv uses your wi fi to download kiddie porn
feds trace it back to your connection
feds remove all of your equipment, dvds, video tapes, cds, thumb drives, and every other storage you own to gather evidence
you get arrested for suspicion of child porn consumption and need to post bail
all of your friends find out because someone reads the police blotter
your storage devices and computers sit in the FBI evidence room for a year while they take their sweet old time getting to you
eventually they look for the porn on your storage devices and find nothing
they return your gear to you, due to lack of evidence and suggest you lock your wi fi down
you get to enjoy coming up in google results for a child porn arrest forever, most of your acquaintances think you are a child molester and believe you are guilty of something
because you got arrested on suspicion of child porn, you probably lose your job and none of your former co-workers will talk to you.
Isn't it easier to just set a password? Just sayin'... The gov tends to shoot first and ask questions later, within the limits of the constitution, of course.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.