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EFF Advocates Leaving Wireless Routers Open
SD-Arcadia writes "We will need a political and technological 'Open Wireless Movement' to reverse the degradation of this indispensable component of the Internet's infrastructure. Part of the task will simply be reminding people that opening their WiFi is the socially responsible thing to do, and explaining that individuals who choose to do so can enjoy the same legal protections against liability as any other Internet access provider."
Yeah, I'll really enjoy making that assertion before a judge, *after* my door has been kicked in and my gear confiscated!
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
... it might get rather expensive to share one's WiFi. Yes, it would be nice to have uncapped service, and some of us might have such. But that's not the case here in Quebec.
Not in every country. Also even if you are it doesn't stop other people using up all your bandwidth and depending on yout ISP contract it may cost you a fortune. Oh , and they may throttle your connection while they're at it.
Yeah , genius idea. Not.
Someone tell the hippies to keep away from things that concern grown ups.
If you sometimes find yourself needing an open wireless network in order to check your email from a car, a street corner, or a park, you may have noticed that they're getting harder to find.
No, actually, I haven't, because I just use the bloody cellphone I carry all the time in modem mode. I need the service, so I pay for the service. I don't leech and expect somebody else to foot the bill (note that I don't consider using a coffee shop's wifi either, unless I have purchased something from them).
Tell all of this to the guy who had his door kicked down and assault rifles put to his head after a wardriver used his open access point for distributing child porn.
Maybe if Communism actually worked I'd consider doing something like this.
Leaving your router open is a Bad Idea. Yeah, off in magical happy fairy land where your theoretical legal protections actually matter it'd be great if everyone left their routers open. But reality shows that your protections aren't worth squat and you should lock up your router so you don't get punished for what people do on your network.
It's the socially responsible thing to do ... and they really want a pony!
most ISP give you a small bandwidth limit and charges for overages. who in their right mind would want to pay for other people to connect to the internet.
before this came happen we need some freedom on the internet, things like net neutrality and unlimited access.
Unfortunately here in the UK, the law is a might fuzzier on that one. But even so, there are other issues on open wifi, like the easy of arp spoofing, or rogue access points. Not to mention, what happens if I want to open a sensitive service on my own internal networkfor some reason.
So basically we are all supposed to leave our Wi-Fi networks open so strangers can check Google when they are lost.
When the cops won't bust down my door and my ISP doesn't gouge me for data usage I'd be glad to share.
I don't have the time energy and money to deal with criminal justice system, even if you're found not guilty it can be disastrous. The civil court system is even worse.
It's much better to simply be a sheep and play super nice to avoid any possible suspicion.
It's certainly kind to share, but what about when your connection gets bogged down and becomes unusable because it's being used by numerous non-paying (nameless, invisible) users?
This obviously has benefits to society but comes at the cost of making your home network less secure - most routers don't separate the internet side of things from the home network side of things, so it's similar to allowing a person to connect their PC to your LAN socket. Any machines on your network are now visible to an attacker.
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
I don't leave a connected extension cord going out to the sidewalk so anybody can use my electricity...
I lock my doors so they can't use my shelter or car...
My car's gas tank has a lock on it so I can't "share" my gasoline.
Anybody think that these guys don't encrypt their home APs?
Put down the bong and step away from the keyboard son.
A few more cases like that and we might get some laws changed...
No sig today...
I'm astonished by the degree of cowardice expressed by the other posters to this story so far.
If you don't exercise your rights, you lose them. Simples.
"Notice all the vehicles outside, parked up and down the street?"
"Yeah, bunch of leeches."
"How can you say that? They're taking advantage of a basic freedom, exercising their rights, lest the government usurp them!"
"Have you looked at the plates on the cars and vans?"
"Uh, no. What's special about them?"
"Exempt. Almost all of them. They're using your connection due to cutbacks - they are the government."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
[From the article:] There is currently no WiFi protocol that allows anybody to join the network, while using link-layer encryption to prevent each network member from eavesdropping on the others. But such a protocol should exist.
An easier solution would be for a WiFi access point to offer two networks: an open one and a secured one. The owner/operator of the AP could use the encrypted network, and enable the open network for public use.
The open network could also have a lower priority than the encrypted one, be subject to bandwidth restrictions, and limited to certain times of the day.
I'm not saying that any of this is a good idea. I just think there's no need for a new protocol.
Most of us have had the experience of tremendous inconvenience because of a lack of Internet access. Being lost in a strange place with no way to find a map; having an urgent email to send with no way to do so; trying to meet a friend with no way to contact them.
A wise man once said "A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
So while one person pays for internet service, all his neighbors can leach off of him and not have to pay anything? This is the dumbest idea I've heard in a long time (ok, not that long, but still dumb). Not only from the financial viewpoint, but when one of your neighbors uses your internet connection to pirate music and movies or download kiddie-pron, you'll have the RIAA/MPAA suing you for civil damages and the FBI kicking in your door and leaving you in a holding cell to rot while they tear apart your home and confiscate and destroy all your computer gear. Good luck with that!!
WPA-2 + MAC Filter on the router and a good firewall to monitor and close any open ports that aren't essential on your computer (and other network connected equipment).
Actually, you have to be pretty stupid to back this proposal for *at least* the following reasons:
1. Bandwidth caps: I may be charged overage fees for traffic which I didn't made
2. Legal liability: I may get sued for a infringement which I didn't made, but was made by an unknown 3rd party which I cannot identify.
3. Contract terms: AFAIK most (home) contracts forbid you to provide services to 3rd parties.
4. Service quality: I may get degraded service because of unknown 3rd parties browsing for free.
All in all, not free. Isn't it?
Surely not in the favor of a free and open internet though--and honestly, back before Google filtered search results (or when their image sorting game first started), some of the results were... disturbing... to say the least. I would be all for increasing penalties on whoever films/photographs such things (death would not be too much I don't think). Should the individual home owner be protected from what other people do with their internet if they leave it open? Yes. We need to focus on the source of the problem, but given how widespread it surely is (or why would there apparently be taskforces breaking down doors), this may be difficult.
Yeah, it'll become fucking illegal to have open wireless access points anywhere.
After all, if you have yours open, you are "obviously" intending to aid child pornographers. Or terrorists. Or democrats. Or something.
Most home users have their APs on their private network. Behind that hardware firewall that at least gives them some protection. Advocating that people who don't understand the risks of an open AP, especially one that is not segregated, is really poor judgement on the EFF's part.
"Why would I pay for internet service when I can just use someone else's?" Eventually, no one is paying for it. Overall access to the internet decreases.
And if I am paying for it, why would I let other people degrade my connection, hurtle me toward the bandwidth caps, and possibly do illegal things and get my door kicked down?
Letting strangers onto my network or my connection is something I'll be safely be saying no to for the indefinite future.
The socially responsible thing to do is to tell the leeching looter to get a job and buy his own damn internet service. At the same time, he can feed himself, put a roof over his own head, plan for his own retirement, and squirrel away money for his own health care.
I won't do this because:
(1) I don't want a slow internet.
(2) I don't appreciate piracy. I write software for a living, and that means having people pay me for my software. Until you've been on the other side of the fence (i.e. the side of the people trying to earn a living from creating digital media, rather than existing purely in the group of people who benefit from free digital everything), you probably won't understand my viewpoint. And let's face it: the EFF has constantly sided with pirates on issue after issue. I suspect this is the EFF's way of helping pirates by frustrating any enforcement of copyright.
Isn't this exactly what Fonera is all about? You buy their WiFi hotspot and connect it to your Internet connection creating a separate WiFi hotspot from your personal secured WiFi and anyone who also owns and provides a hotspot is able to access it. That way you don't get freeloaders because only people who opt-in can access the network. There are even some ISPs who are starting to deploy them.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
The summary made me immediately think that the EFF had gone batshit crazy. Fortunately, the article is a very well written state of the state of public wireless and what they feel needs to be done. It is a call to action piece, with part of the action at this stage being the "need to do technical work: we need to build new technologies to ensure that people have an easy way to share a portion of their bandwidth without affecting the performance of their own network connections while at the same time ensuring that there is absolutely no privacy downside to running an open wireless network."
The summary also over sell the liability issue. The article does not.
"If you run an open wireless network, you may be able to receive significant legal protection from Section 230 of the CDA (against civil and state criminal liability for what others publish through the service) and Section 512 of the DMCA (against copyright claims based on what others use the service for). While these protections are not complete, EFF regularly engages in impact litigation to help ensure that these laws offer as strong protection to network operators as possible."
However my network does have some unprotected devices. (most noticably: media player) and my wireless router does not have an option to have a second ssid that has internet only routing.
Also this this post from bruce shows that you still might be harressed because of open wifi, even if you end up innocent in the end.
and I'll be the porn provider king for the entire neighbourhood...
Privacy is terrorism.
Prior to WiFi, we moved along fine for decades without holding out extension cords to our neighbors. This is an operation akin to demanding that all corporate headquarters blindly put publicly accessible wired wallplates in their parking lots just because they can afford 24/7 internet. We all know the security implications.
Just because we're already leaking our radiation* doesn't mean that preventing other neighbors from misusing it and implicating us in their crimes. We have everything to lose and little to gain. Corps have been doing it right all these years, and even though I like unsecuring the WiFi once in a blue moon,
It's terrifying to see how many blackberries, portable videogames, laptops and recent Wifi-chipped desktops connect when I newly name a network. Savvy neighbors in my building just find and attach themselves to it in a single afternoon. I used to be one of them.
* regardless of WPA usage and hiding / not hiding the APs
Socially responsible. There's a term that makes me shiver. Let's just write it into a law so I don't even have a choice anymore. I appreciate open wireless networks when I'm away from my home. A business expects that I'll use their services and that's an incentive to bring me to them. If I open up my network to ever joe who walks past my house (or lives next to it) then I'm deincentivizing them getting their own service. Depending on how good my wifi is I might be encouraging 3 or 4 neighbors to simply hitch a ride on my dime. Usually I'll get behind the EFF on a lot of things, this is not one of them. If you do want to provide some open wireless, setup a separate network and apply some strong access rules to it.
Should I open the doors at home too? :\
Yea. I'll pass on being one of those cases, TYVM.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
In Denmark it's illegal to use other peoples unprotected network without explicit permission. There's been no trials about it yet, but that's what lawyers here have said.
Also, I wouldn't know how to protect my internal network, if someone else had open access to it. I mean, my NAS server, uPnP/DLNA, Windows shares etc. Not an easy task, unless u just block the main door (or know lots about how to do networks).
With the data caps Internet providers are putting on all of our access these days, I'm not going to let my stay-at-home-neighbor stream Netflix movies all day, so that the cap is hit half-way through the month. If the data caps were removed, it might be a different story.
CyberKender
Apparently Appointed Lord Mayor of There
The EFF really jumped the shark on this one.
That would, I think, violate the Terms Of Service with my ISP, which state that the internet connection is for the use of my household only, I don't know whether they could find out that I was providing connections to others, but I prefer not to violate contracts I freely entered in to,
Not that many people would be likely to use it - we are on a country road with no convenient stopping place outside.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Depends on whether the people whose doors are getting kicked down exercise their second amendment rights.
If enough of those raids backfire, then maybe the cost will be seen as too high.
"explaining that individuals who choose to do so can enjoy the same legal protections against liability as any other Internet access provider"
Please explain this to me in terms of the laws of my country, state/province/whatever, and local government and then explain it to all relevant police forces.
OR explain it to me and my lawyer and pay for my lawyer and pay for any damages the police do when they bust me for my neighbor's *insertillegalactivityhere* internet usage after the courts throw out my civil suit for wrongful trashing of my house.
--
Doing this on an individual basis only works if the individual is willing to pay the price normally associated with civil disobedience, including having his house trashed in a raid, being arrested, possibly having his kids taken away by the courts or, if divorced, by a family-court judge who takes away custody and gives it to an ex-spouse, losing a job due to being in jail and missing work, and possibly other consequences. Not all of us have the willingness or ability to pay the price of such actions.
Or we could have communities, you know, groups of people supporting each other. You talk about how you won't leech off somebody else as if that's some kind of righteous thing. Chances are high it goes the other way too -- somebody in need, you just walk on by. Not your problem. People like you are dicks. You aren't trying to do the right thing, you're trying to make a statement -- you're too morally superior to use open Wi-Fi, which, by the way, I leave open precisely so people who need net access for a moment can use it for that purpose. It's fake morality.
Yeah, sure, socially responsible thing to do. I'm not putting down $60/month and minding a wireless router just so that the neighbors can get free wireless Internet access on my dime, TYVM. Last time I checked, there were also a few clauses that basically say that you may not pretend to be an ISP, resell bandwidth, or sublet bandwidth, should you be a Verizon/Charter/Clearwire/whoever Internet subscriber. That reads to me that if you do try to use a 'all the protections of an ISP' claim, your ISP will say 'no, WE'RE the ISP' and cut you off. Nice try EFF, but it's not going to fly.
reminding people that opening their WiFi is the socially responsible thing to do
No, it is not. This is like saying it's socially responsible to leave your keys in the ignition so your neighbors can barrow your car when they need to run to the store. It's not socially responsible to suggest that it's OK for people to use Internet connectivity they don't know anything about, like who the man in the middle might be. It's not socially responsible to allow unknown third parties to rile though your personal belongings, like those tax returns you left on that unsecured windows share.
Finally, "legal protections" are for people who can afford lawyers.
Been doing it for years. And have been doing it for something along those lines for a reason.
1. The norm that we all need to lock the things down out of fear has got to be checked. There is no need for that.
2. I like the EFF reasoning.
3. The security stuff is a PITA. I've got some stuff that I would rather not share, and it's not on the open wi-fi. Easily done.
Drives my neighbor nuts. They say, "but I want to use MY INTERNET". And I say, "ok" and "why don't you just do that?". "But yours is just there", "Isn't it the SAME Internet", "well, yes but", "so then no worries right"....
Blogging because I can...
1) Uncapped business internet connection
2) Static IP outside my private network that could be assigned to a wireless router
There's still that "no illegal activity" part of the ToS, though. I doubt having a business net connection would indemnify me from anything, even if the only relevant equipment of mine is a wireless router. Frakking criminals...
It would be nice to have wireless internet where ever we are, but are you kidding me? Open my WIFI to strangers outside of my house? Have you forgotten War-driving? The average person doesn't know how to limit usage for users or even make sure important files are not shared? Give me a break!
... you know that binding agreement you enter into that you and your family will be the only users on that connection. It then gives my ISP the right to revoke my connectivity because I broke that TOS agreement and they are not obligated to provide me with Internet connectivity.
A few more? Raise your hand if you won't mind be labelled a pedophile for life, regardless of the outcome of the investigation or Court / trial?
Yeah...I thought so.
Great, you'll be exonerated. But only after you name appears in the newspapers in conjunction with [insert wrongdoing here], you've lost your job because you were accused of [insert wrongdoing here]; and you've lost anything vaguely computer-related in your house while they take an unknown amount of time to determine that you really were not guilty. And for some types of accusations, your life stays ruined even after you're shown to have no complicity in the activity.
Yes. I love it when people surf for Child Porn on my open wireless network. Having my computer confiscate and being thrown in jail is exactly what I'm looking for. Major flaw with that whole ideal is you can't prove who connected and downloaded child pr0n using your system. So, you will be held accountable. ISP's can say who connected through proper logging...
This was about the DUMBEST article ever. People can't even use proper AntiVirus/Malware products or browse the web safely.... so now they're saying let any stinking Dick, Tom and Harry use your open WiFi connection and possibly compromise your own home network??? That's amazing! Morons.
You will have all the lukewarm apologies you like after the police have ransacked your house and tasered you to death while calling you a pervert. Did you realize that the suspicion of possessing child pornography is punishable by extra-judicial execution?
Be careful what you wish for. A new law may outlaw non-commercial open wi-fi or it may make wi-fi router owners legally responsible for its users.
But too often, to troubleshoot a slow connection, I'd disable it. It's easier just to keep it invisible.
I did purposely open up a wireless point for some time, but restricted where it could go. Places such as wikipedia, weather.com, youtube, PBS, Microsoft patch sites, and some of the local government websites.
Outside of those websites, I used a transparent proxy with a url rewriter to redirect users to kittenwars.com with a side html frame informing users to be careful, not to expect any privacy on an unencrypted connection when using wireless points that aren't their own and to properly secure their laptops.
Technically this is easy even with "dumb" routers that don't allow segregation of traffic.
It just takes 3 routers or - if you have 2 IP addresses available - a switch and 2 routers.
The first router does nothing more than turn your 1 IP address into as many as you need, in this case, 2.
The other two are your segregation zones, one for you, secured and locked down, and one for "the public" that is "open" for wifi but of course locked down from an administrative point of view so nobody but you can administer it.
Total additional cost over what you have now: Well under $60.
Now, this IS a legal risk from at least 2 angles:
One, your internet provider may hate you for it and may use it as an excuse to terminate your contract or insist that you pay twice the going rate or switch to a pay-per-GB setup. This is a matter of contract and is outside the scope of this discussion.
Two, unless or until law enforcement CLEARLY understands that you are NOT responsible for traffic others put on your devices or a relevant COURT-TESTED statute or judicial decision provides you with complete cover, they will assume you are responsible. Even if you are legally covered the police may still make your life difficult by asserting to a judge "we don't know if it's him or someone using his equipment and we can't know without putting a wiretap on his line and/or seizing his routers and oh by the way if it is him he'll no doubt destroy anything on his computer so give us a warrant to seize his computers and media - we promise to decide if he's a suspect within 3 days and return his equipment if he's not." Bottom line: Even with legal protection, your house is trashed and you are without your computer and media for 3 days and/or your personal information will be monitored by the police for the duration of the wiretap order.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
This is a great idea, please, listen to the silly man at EFF so that I can haz free wifi. Four Loko is expensive and I need a new feed for my porn machine. Thank you.
Your ability = my need. KThxBye
I might consider it, if it was just going to be a neighbor or two, that I knew well, and would only use the access when they were on their back porch. However, I live next to a hospital. I tried setting up a hotspot with a password so the kids friends could get on the internet when they came over, but people just hammered on the AP day and night, even though the login page said it was not a public access point. Now, the hotspot is gone, and I only see someone trying to guess the key about once a week. No, thanks, EFF.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Protected? What about the poor guy that was "lying on his family-room floor with assault weapons trained on him, shouts of "pedophile!" and "pornographer!" stinging like his fresh cuts and bruises" because his neighbor was sending kiddie porn and using his open WiFi to do it.
http://o.seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2014867387_wifi25.html
The EFF doesn't know what it's talking about here.
What's to stop a child pornographer from keeping his WiFi access point open, then claiming that it wasn't him when he gets busted? It sounds like a repugnant "insurance policy" for someone that wants to break the law.
BUFFALO, N.Y. – Lying on his family room floor with assault weapons trained on him, shouts of "pedophile!" and "pornographer!" stinging like his fresh cuts and bruises, the Buffalo homeowner didn't need long to figure out the reason for the early morning wake-up call from a swarm of federal agents.
That new wireless router. He'd gotten fed up trying to set a password.
Depends on whether the people whose doors are getting kicked down exercise their second amendment rights.
If enough of those raids backfire, then maybe the cost will be seen as too high.
So you're suggesting that law enforcement officers executing a search warrant are fair game to be shot? That's the most idiotic thing I've heard today; granted, it is still early.
I guess this is supposed to be part of "Shared Propserity", the progressive cure for what ails ya.
What happened to the majority of geeks who were radical libertarians? There aren't any at EFF, obviously.
(Heh - the capcha that I am repeatedly getting got to submit this is "idealism")
That doesn't work for the second amendment, so I doubt it will work for the first.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I'll use open wifi for "generic" things that won't tell a snooper much about me.
I'll use it for completely-encrypted traffic like HTTPS: or VPN traffic.
I won't use it for sites that deal with off-the-wall hobbies (cough /. cough) or for logging into web sites where the underlying content isn't completely encrypted.
What I would LOVE is for sites to use WPA2-with-a-public-passphrase access. Awhile back someone proposed having public-access sites use WPA2 with a passphrase like "free" or "open" and posting signs to that effect or even including the passphrase in the SSID, like "Starbucks Wifi - the code is FreeMochaTuesdays".
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Good point. But wouldn't the ISP need proof that others are accessing your wireless connection before they cut you off?
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
But therin lies the problem. We do, in fact, live in a police state, where guns powerful enough to repel a home invasion are outlawed in favor of the police state. The leftwing gun control freaks have no idea that they've cooked their own goose, in arming the police state while disarming the populace. Not to mention, giving all rights to criminals and stripping rights from law abiding citizens who are trying to protect their lives.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Speaking of legal protections, it would be really nice if there was some EULA and throttling options in DDWRT. I leave mine open, and I had a neighbor that used it for a while. I didn't really mind since they weren't using much bandwidth (I checked that out a few times I was having internet issues, and it was never them). But it got me thinking, it'd be really nice if I could "EULA" my router easily, similar to what you see at Starbucks or whatever, and make them click through an "I'm watching your bandwidth, don't start torrenting" screen, and then automatically throttle traffic from non-preferred computers. I don't mind giving people some easy internet access. Especially where I live, where cellphones access is flaky for anyone not on Sprint, I just wish I could fine grain my control of it more easily.
Bullshit. Even if you're pro gun rights you have to be an idiot to think that 'backfiring raids' will make the government think, 'gee we should stop doing these'. The actual response would be, 'gee we should bring MUCH more firepower as the default'.
The ADSL service provided by my local telco (MTS - Manitoba Telecom Services) features unlimited access, but they also provide a free wireless gateway that AUTOMATICALLY has encryption enabled. The password is the serial number for the unit, so it's clear that they really don't want you to share your connection by default. Besides, I only get about 2200kbps/35000kbps so it wouldn't take a whole lot to saturate my connection, if they were to do a lot of uploading.
The whole idea of someone else using my internet connection that i'm responsible for creeps me out. At the end of the day, it's my name on the bill and my address.
Apparently, EFF Doesn't read the news, or Slashdot for that matter. Regardless if the guy was eventually exonerated, getting thrown to the ground at gun point and called a pedophile isn't exactly how I'd like to be rewarded for opening my wireless. Try again EFF. Open wireless is for monitored public initiatives, not for the average home user who has way more to lose (like their reputation and livelihood).
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
it doesn't matter what legal liabilities you have, nor what the legal system ultimately decides with regards to your guilt. There's a great deal that you can't just waive a "not guilty" verdict at to make go away. Because we place too much faith in law enforcement to do things right, there's an automatic assumption of "arrest= guilt." The police aren't infallible, though. Due to complacency or laziness or incompetence, they screw up, and their mistakes, which inflict a harm on society that is at least equal to the damage caused by the criminals that they do manage to take off the streets, are an all too common occurrence. Then, when the cops screw up, we act surprised and wonder how this could possibly happen.
When the dust settles after a major police screw-up, something that I find to be absurd happens: The police continue about their way, immune to any real consequences. They are free to screw up again--which they will. Meanwhile, the poor soul whose life they've ruined has little to no recourse to repair his reputation and make himself a productive member of society again.
As much as a applaud the EFF's efforts to bring sanity to law in this digital age, they're wrong on this. My first responsibility is to protect and provide for myself and my family. As long as I don't bring harm to others by taking care of myself, any protections I take in the fulfillment of this first responsibility are reasonable. Encryption on a wi-fi router is hardly damaging to anyone else, and, therefore, is reasonable.
"osake no hou ga, biiru yori ii" to omotteiru.
I like you guys and all, but this is fucking dumb.
http://www.allometry.com
I think it is more efficient to provide internet by turning cities into giant wireless hotspots.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
In the case in question forensic examination of the defendant's computer equipment showed no traces of the files he allegedly downloaded. Provided your theoretical pedophile can manage the same feat, he can probably get away with it too. However since the kicked in doorway usually comes unsuspected, I think his story won't match the evidence on his computer.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The problem is how those stories will be reported. Instead of "Innocent man has door broken down for leaving wifi open," it will be "Child pornographer shot dead, one police officer injured." The laws favor law enforcement when executing a no-knock warrant, and the media presumes guilt. Imagine how hard it will be to hear them yell "Police" when they have just set off a 180db flashbang in your house, or how hard it will be to see their badges when they have a tactical light in your eyes.
And for the record, I have a gun next to my bed at night.
Definitely not. We're talking about a media that conflates violent behavior with other behaviors of the perp. If the perp plays violent video games, video games are responsible for the crime. If the perp used encryption, encryption is responsible for the crime. If the perp used a gun to protect himself from unidentified intruders knocking down his door at 3 AM, guns are responsible.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Wouldn't it be traceable? Couldn't we determine if a bot put the pics (or whatever) on someone's computer versus the user himself/herself? I had a friend who had the misfortune of being a Muslim around 2001 in the US (they had a great deal of difficulty in the community and still do to a certain extent). His computer was a zombie and the FBI took him in for a fairly lengthy interview... and also looked into his computer. Was he involved in doing "bad things"--no, but they were quickly able to determine that.
I have an open access point in a DMZ on my network at home. I've only allowed ports 80, 443, and 53 on the traffic on that access point and bandwidth limited that traffic to 128k/sec. I've found it's just enough to be useful for guests, and restricted enough to prevent permanent use.
-ted
The push to eliminate guest wireless has largely come from ISPs, especially the cable companies, who don't want people sharing bandwidth with their neighbors instead of everybody buying their own connection. A few ISPs, such as Sonic and Speakeasy, actually encourage sharing and roaming, but the companies like Comcast that also are pushing bandwidth caps have been the main propagandists against sharing wireless, and they're also the people who didn't want you running a web server from home when the broadband business was getting started.
On the other hand, sometimes there are actual problems. Back when I was running open wireless, I once got a call from my ISP saying they'd blocked half a million spams from my address overnight, and could I check that my computer wasn't infected? The computer was fine, but my neighbor's laptop had gotten infected and was blasting away over my wifi. Eventually when I upgraded to wireless-N I turned on encryption; unfortunately the wifi standards don't give you an easy way to have open access and encrypted connections, and I'd rather have the privacy.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
> ... you know that binding agreement you enter into that you and your family will be the only users on that connection. It then gives my ISP the right to revoke my connectivity because I broke that TOS agreement and they are not obligated to provide me with Internet connectivity.
Then pick a better ISP. Even Best Buy's ISP allows bandwidth sharing ( http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2007/03/best_buy_swallo/ ).
Your ISP should sell you bandwidth.
Not dictate how you're "allowed" to use your bandwidth.
I don't know if you're joking or not... A judge actually basically ruled as much in new york a few years back in a wrongful death suit. Unfortunately, it was filed against a city that sent a SWAT team kicking down the door of a 95 year old woman. She had a heart attack and died on the spot in a no-knock raid.
The court basically ruled wrongful death wasn't relevant, and that the city had all the "disincentive" it needed because of the second amendment, so there was no need to challenge no-knocks. Of course, this is in NY where you can't actually have a weapon effective enough to defend yourself against a SWAT force... Good luck holding back the M4's and battering rams with your 7 shot .22. Of course, the police would certainly stop and identify themselves after the first shot fired.
And nevermind I don't believe there actually exists a LEO with the integrity to permit you to surrender peacefully and without "accidental" execution after you defend yourself against an unannounced raid if one of their buddies gets wounded. There's already about a dozen of incidents (that I know of) in the past decade where police have shot somebody in the gut and refused paramedics/EMTs (or even to call for them) access under grounds of "securing" the crime scene.
Don't get me wrong, I actually agree with you...but the only way to actually practice this is with weaponry that is VERY illegal everywhere. And even if you had the equipment and training, in some places they'd just set up the M249 and start sweeping downward into the building...read about that incident last night.
You might want to check with your ISP first, considering mine (and probably most of them) lists sharing your connection as a violation of the TOS. Granted, nobody will probably catch you, but you'll probably get cut off if they do.
With Fonera, you at least have to contribute to the network in order to connect to it.
It is a noble idea. Actually, most of the features in Microsoft Windows were noble ideas, too. Now they are called exploits. Sad but true.
Nothing protects you from that really. My father represented a guy who had his house rolled by SWAT tanks because they had a warrant for a neighbor and had the wrong address. Of course they still drug him into court, rather than admit they messed up with their expensive SWAT equipment.
Events like that happening to you are one in a million flukes, and your best bet if you do get struck by that lightning bolt is to have as good a case as possible (and some dough for a lawyer). Your case will be much stronger if you had your WAP open than if you had it "locked" and your neighbor hacked you.
A few years ago, when coffee-shop internet access was much less reliable, my usual mobile wireless data carrier was "Linksys". They had nodes almost everywhere, and were usually good enough to check if I had new email (even though they usually didn't work for sending it.) Eventually people started using encryption (yay!) and closing their open access (boo!) and coffee shops started to be consistent about offering access - I'm just fine with buying a cup of coffee in return for internet access, but I usually needed it in the evenings after Peet's was closed, and Starbucks's wifi connections often didn't work.
A friend of mine used to leave his wireless access open, figuring that not only was it nice for guests, but it was a public service to allow the neighbors' teenagers to have uncensored Internet access if they needed it. Eventually the neighbors' teenagers discovered file sharing and started hogging all his bandwidth, so he closed it off.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
If they use excessive force and threaten the lives of citizens in executing that warrant? Absolutely.
If cops knock on my door and show me a warrant, they'll get my cooperation. But if armed men burst through my door, I have to assume a home invasion. It doesn't matter if they're wearing uniforms and yelling "Police!", this is a known criminal tactic (And in fact real cops have used blitzkrieg tactics to stage home invasion robberies.) Against armed criminal invaders, lethal force is justified in self-defense.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I might draw the attention heavily armed government thugs, plus I' m getting ass raped by "Monopolized Mega Corporation" for an internet connection why shouldn't everyone else. Sharing, FOI and anonymity are for terrorists, baby rapers and communists.
I just RTFA to make sure I'm getting this correct, because I normally am fully in support of "damn the man" stuff like this, but this is just ludicrous. There has never been a time in my life where I have needed to "urgently" check my email and been unable to, nor has there ever been a time where the only thing standing between me dying of thirst and reaching a nearby oasis has been my ability to access Google Maps on a laptop. In fact, I would like to go so far as to say that if you are the kind of person who ever "urgently" needs to check your email, consider: a.) purchasing a cellphone and distributing that number to whoever might need to get in touch with you, b.) purchasing a smartphone so you can check your email without a WiFi connection, and/or c.) checking your email before you leave for a four-week safari. Who is this demographic that can afford a laptop and conducts vital business via the Interwebs, but can't afford a data plan?
I know that people around here get fussy about car analogies, so...
This is like asking me to buy a horse, and leave the horse saddled in my front yard just in case anyone needs to use it to go somewhere. And then just trusting that no one is going to hop on the horse, rob a stagecoach, and then drop the horse back in my yard for the posse to find.
At a certain point, personal responsibility has to enter into all of this. Of course someone shouldn't be liable for nasty things accomplished using a WiFi connection if they made an honest effort to secure it, or just didn't know that that was something one ought to do. But if they intentionally leave it open for anyone to use, they should accept some of the blame when someone uses it to do something naughty.
And furthermore, it's WiFi, not clean drinking water. Since when is leveling your paladin a vital civil liberty? What's next, should I set up an HD projection system on the side of my house so that people outside aren't suppressed by the tyranny of Netflix requiring a subscription? Because Ironman 2 is one of those bits of information that "wants to be free"?
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
They don't go after people who "download" it. Just the other day there was a story on here about someone arrested for "downloading" KP. It also mentioned in the same article the story of another who was arrested for "downloading" Millions of images from a boat using a cantenna several blocks away from the WAP.
But if you actually read the SOURCE articles for that, the truth comes out: the one who "downloaded Millions" did NOT "download" but UPLOAD. And it wasn't Millions that were UPLOADED (for, obviously, that would take many many hours and this was alleged to have happened in one very late night) but MILLIONS of images that were found on the guy's PC when he was raided.
This seems to be a deliberate confusion of the truth. "Upload" is consistently confused with "download" in articles like this so the reader is led to believe if you even download something from the internet big brother doesn't like then the MIB will come knock down your door and drag you to hades. Of course this is in the interests of the MEDIA OWNERS who publish this nonsense, because the more fear of the internet they can generate the more likely people are to be good little sheep who only use their connections as an extension of their TV sets, thus ensuring even more monthly income for the big media giants who own shit like hulu and who profit from others like netflix.
The witch hunt won't end until the last big media conglomerate lies dead in its grave. This is why I don't have cable, I don't go to movies, I don't subscribe to magazines, and I don't "rent." Ayup, I watch what the fuck I want to watch, and listen to what the fuck I wanna listen to. Sorry Alice, I know you own your work but I've bought enough copies of Billion Dollar Babies in my life from people who show absolutely no respect for the rights of the people of the society from which they profit.
I pay for the water I use... I wouldn't let my neighbor fill their pool or water their lawn from my faucet.
I pay for the phone I use... I wouldn't run a line across the yard for my neighbor to share my phone.
I pay for the electricity I use... I wouldn't run a line across the yard for my neighbor to share my electric service.
I pay for the internet service I use... why on earth would I just give that away for free to anyone who just wandered by!?!?!?!
Um, you are joking, right?
Stormtroopers break down doors because it's fun and dramatic. They get their rocks off and politicians get to blather about being "tough on crime." It has nothing to do with how widespread any actual problem is.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Can someone drive over to the house of one or more EFF Board of Director and see if their personal WIFI is "unlocked"?
Only a doofus leaves his wireless router open, unencrypted and not password protected in some way. When the one weirdo in my town accidentally stumbles onto my open AP and proceeds to download gigs of child porn while I'm asleep, it'll be impossible for me to prove I didn't download it. I may be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but in the news and my community I, like others, will be considered guilty until proven innocent.
A user who wants to share his connection (despite possible violation of his ISP's ToS) and is not a brain-dead, naive, trust-anyone, first-class moron will give his neighbors the SSID and encryption passphrase. But first, he'll have them sign a one paragraph permission form written in plain language, for his own legal protection.
So, are you stupid enough to do everything the EFF tells you to without thinking about it first?
sigfault (core dumped)
Excuse me but where in the 2nd Amendment does it give you a free pass to shoot at law enforcement officers carrying out a lawful search warrant?
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
*smirks*
I like your style, Dude.
For years we've been trying really hard to get everyone to close down their open WiFi spots to prevent hacking/leeching/malicious activity/etc. Now they want us to do the opposite? I'm sorry, while I don't think a person should be held liable for the child porn their neighbor downloaded using their open WiFi, I also don't think we should be telling them to just ignore security. We have botnets precisely because people ignore security.
They are paying for a service and shouldn't be told to let others use it for free. Why wouldn't they then just cancel their service and use someone else's for free? They shouldn't have to open their computer up to being hacked (or do you want to explain to them how to beef up their security after telling them to lower their security?) just so someone can get free service. They shouldn't have to worry about bandwidth caps just so their neighbor can stream netflix for free.
They SHOULD be hassled if something goes wrong on their open network as a lesson to secure their system.
Hell, I turn off both my router and my cable "modem" when I'm not using them.
IANAL, but I play one on
In the UK, BT has an opt-in scheme for its customers whereby if I sign up, other BT customers who are within range are able to connect to my wireless router and use it as if it were their own (subject to bandwidth limits, to prevent the home owner being drowned out of his own internet connection). In exchange for allowing this on my router, I am able to take my laptop around the country and connect to other BT users' wireless in the same way.
It's almost like having an open access point, except that it's under the control of the ISP (so no liability for the home owner), and it's only open to others who are also part of the scheme (so no freeloaders).
I haven't joined yet, but I'm quite tempted.
Since this event happened just this week, the EFF might want to majorly reconsider.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
So your ISP doesn't even allow you to let guests in your own home use your internet connection? Wow... that's harsh.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Depends on whether the people whose doors are getting kicked down exercise their second amendment rights.
If you think you can outgun a SWAT team who's just kicked your door in, you won't live to try that a second time. And it's highly unlikely that your survivors (if any) will get the time of day from the courts, much less indictments from a grand jury, because everybody knows that the cops are the good guys. Voters don't like people who are anti-cop. Even if there is an occasional tragic mistake.
But this won't be a mistake, because when they look at your computer, there will be kiddie porn on it. Even if it wasn't there before.
"Open" is typically unencrypted. Trivial to snoop without joining the network.
Sharing the same key does present some risk but it makes it harder to snoop and harder to do so without at least joining the network.
By the way, I posted in partial ignorance earlier - I had not read the article and did not know that people on the network could figure out my session keys and snoop on me. Having read the article, I now agree new protocols are needed so I CAN put up a segregated, secure, no-password-needed network if I want to and if my internet service provider contractually allows me to or is required by law to allow me to.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'm sure your widow will be comforted that you died fighting back against the man.
Maybe one has to admit that sometimes the reality is such that there's no way to get evidence. The presumption that one has to be, unconditionally, able to obtain evidence no matter what is silly. Sorry, civil liberties sometimes imply that some crimes have to go unpunished. It's the price of a free society. Nothing wrong with that.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
I read the article and I check my neighbourhood and basically everyone has already taken part in the movement and set their wifi to open.
To me this is like leaving the door to your house unlocked just in case a passerby needs a place to stay for the night, or a quick snack, or something to drink, or to watch TV for a bit, or a place to sit, or maybe a chair or two for their lawn party, or maybe some clothes, or maybe your wife, or ....
While commendable, the EFF initiative is fatally flawed on two points.
- Protection from liability: the law is always dual, it states not just rights, but obligations too. If opening up my WiFi makes me an ISP, I may be immune to DMCA notices, but I WILL be obligated to provide the uptime, speed, etc. I may not be able to, because of problems or changes further upstream, but nevertheless, I will be breaching my obligations, making me vulnerable on a different front.
- Security: remember the ruckus that went down when Google sniffed the wireless routers along their routes? And how some people said their open connections carried confidential data? Does anyone else see what I'm driving at? I'd rather have my easily accessible wireless link encrypted with a nice, strong WPA2 password, and not have every other guy walking by with a sniffer in their pocket see what I'm browsing, whether it's Slashdot, Wikipedia, research for my thesis, Flash games or porn.
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
I live on a boat and cruise the US East Coast and The Bahamas. We don't stop at marinas, we anchor out and try to snag a WIFI from somewhere within a mile or so. I have a omnidirectionalWIFI booster antenna.
People like me have no wired option.
We're often in out island areas where there is no cell phone signal.
There is no paid service I can buy that covers all or even half the places I go.
I know I'm freeloading but I have no alternative.
Ars story about neighbor using open AP to get his neighbor fingered
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
I'd rather not have my sessions hijacked or my login data for insecure sites stolen, thanks.
Yes, I do recognize the irony in my previous sentence, but unless you work at an ISP, it's not easy to hijack a session or gain access to non-TLS-encrypted credentials and if you do work there... why would you get mine in particular?
So, is it then the socially responsible thing to provide free access to my other basic services, too? Is the EFF suggesting that I need to provide a series of power outlets outside my house, so that people can share that? And a sink and toilet as well? Should I be sharing my heating/cooling too?
Please. Get a grip. I pay for the services just mentioned, just like I pay for internet access. If someone wants the same services, then they have to figure out how to pay for them themselves.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
http://www.iraq3.com
I live in the countryside where no one cares about IT (sigh) and most houses around mine are out of range of my 2 routers...
But would I be living in a place where people would actually make use of it I would leave my wifi wide open why?
1. I dont run vulnerable machines on my network and I am not paranoid about people finding my stash of pr0n or whatever, in fact im likely to leave it in the open if people want it.
2. I have 2 subnets so it is easy enough to restrict people to a subnet.
3. I have no caps I can tell on my connection (downloaded over a tera each month for years now)
4. It makes the "lets point random fingers and hope we get a pedophile/anarchist/pirate/person" job of the authorities abit more tricky, since it is very likely they'd get the wrong guy
5. I know how to QoS...
I think EFF is absolutely right. If you care about your freedom in the future you'll realize that only an open network can guarantee equality and thus freedom.
On paper, yes. If you shoot at a cop while he's performing his duties (no matter how poorly) the shit is going to roll over YOU.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
So according to you ...if i leave my door unlocked and somebody comes in and rape my wife..i have to share the blame. This is ridiculous no ?
It is my property i don't mind people coming and borrowing something but i can't be responsible for their usage of it.
Other wise you know that tree in your yard is responsible for oxygen that the arsonist used to start a fire in the neighbourhood...thus you are liable for it too no ?
If folks borrow my internet, that's fine by me. If they park for a while I ask them to move along.
Frankly, I'm very disappointed that the http://nocat.net/ project seems to have died off. I would very much like a standard distribution where I would monitor and modify access to my wifi using a trivial web interface. A micro linux or *bsd ROM image with a couple of configuration file that I could run in a VM would be ideal.
Let me see if I understand here.
You should share your WiFi.
Sharing your WiFi makes you just like an ISP, legally (in theory).
You should put a bandwidth cap on your Personal ISP service, because its reasonable to say your stuff is more important but you still want to share whats left over.
Lets compare to an actual ISP:
You should sell your services for a reasonable price.
You ARE an ISP so you have legal protections (in theory) against things your users do that could be illegal.
You should NOT put a bandwidth cap on your ISP service, because thats unreasonable, you should let your users run hog wild using up all the bandwidth they can suck up downloading porn.
Am I the only one see the discrepancy here between what this article is saying and Net Neutrality in general? Seems like a contradiction to me. (that said, I agree with the contradiction, I just don't know how to explain why its ok).
-- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.
Yeah, dopey ideas like yours are why everything is a full on SWAT raid with assault rifles now, nobody ever knocks at your door and serves a warrant politely, or gives you a chance to come in peacefully.
Unless you're rich and/or a celebrity..
You could always just take responsibility for your own activities, and secure your network so that others cannot do unwanted things using your Internet service.
It works for me.
I don't need to use other people's wifi networks either. If I need access urgently, I can always pull a 3G stick out of my ass. (In more rural areas, I might have to drive a bit closer to a tower to get a better cellular signal, but it still beats trolling for open wireless networks.) Barring that, I'm always up for a good cup of coffee anyway.
I think we should be lobbying for personal incorporation so we can place possesions and services within a limited liability legal entity that we can shed as necessary when the law find us guilty until proven innocent. We could also the depreciate our stuff and save on taxes. Most families would be able to show net income of nearly nothing if we could run our families like an corporation and with the legal protections of not every really being guilty of anything that didn't involve physical action against another person, we could finally be free.
They break down doors because they feel that knocking would increase risk of harm to the arresting officers or of flight of the suspect. They do not simply break down doors for fun. If the police came to my house and suspected I had a meth lab or something else dangerous, I would hope they'd come crashing in--but if they had the building surrounded and knew I would come quietly (and I would... why risk harm to home or property while whatever I might be charged with was sorted out and I was shown to be wrongly suspected--as I would be... no sense breaking the law in a country where all the laws I come up against are fairly reasonable), they would likely knock.
I just want to point out that Time Warner's ToS explicitly requires you to secure your wireless router. I don't know if any other ISP's do this, but TWC definitely does.
I am normally an EFF supporter but this has gone to far. So, I should open my router as it is the socially responsible thing to do? No, I don't want to do that and have someone freeload off of my rather expensive broadband connection. Also, I don't want someone else abusing my network for pirating software and media. Actually, it has nothing to do with social responsibility. The socially responsible thing to do is to build a wholly community owned network based on open standards and WiFi where everyone gets free access and is separate from internet.
Sooner or later, someone's gonna refuse to wash the Peoples's Truck.
My concern is not with the legal ramifications of the usage of my internet by my neighbors/passerby...
My concern is with the fact that I have 3 Mb of available downstream bandwidth, of which I often make full use. You want some internet, don't slow me down, go bloody buy your own.
Just another ignorant American.
Well, I am of the belief that there'll be a massive civil war within our lifetimes, and all sides (actually, I suspect that there'll be nearly as many sides as there are people) will be scrambling for as much firepower as they can get, all the way up to nuclear firepower.
Nuke beats M249.
Which then results in Mexico - the people getting raided also get more firepower, and then get MONEY, and then just BUY the police.
The police state insists on back doors so if they choose, they can back door you.
has an insightful bit about pederasty and CP, that for obvious reasons can't be repeated here.
Problem: ... homeowner has door kicked down. ... homeowner exercises their 'second amendment rights' ... standard street-available bullets fail to penetrate kevlar armor, helmets, etc. ... door knockers respond with return fire, from military weaponry.
Yes, once the smoke clears and the follow-up investigation (if ever published) confirms that homeowner was innocent, the door knockers will be in for a public relations nightmare. Very expensive. Homeowner's next of kin will have maybe 20 years of a ruined reputation and a massive legal fight before the eventual court settlement.
Homeowner was still buried in a bucket.
http://cdn.crooksandliars.com/files/uploads/2009/03/calvin%20fails%20at%20capitalism_55384.jpg This is how I imagine you right about now.
I've long wanted to set up a router that's open, but by default sends all connections through TOR. One port would have SSH for my own tunneling.
Problem is I don't have the time, knowledge, or currently the equipment to set this up.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
My thoughts exactly.
I would *happily* open up a QOS-constrained public connection, were it not for the hassles involved if someone uploads or download what they're not supposed to.
As for bandwidth caps, I have none: I have a commercial 1 Mb/s up 5 Mb/s down SLA, which often gets me 5 Mb/s up and 15 Mb/s down with no monthly caps.
I lived in an apartment complex associated with the University while my wife was in grad school. Internet, through the University, was free. So I figured heck, I'll just turn on my guest network and leave it unsecured. Everyone's got a free connection anyway, and it simplifies things when friends are over.
Well, two months later I get a forwarded notice from the RIAA demanding a several thousand dollar settlement. I ignored it, and thank god nothing happened. Someone decided to download a few movies on my unsecured network. Goodbye unsecured network, hello secured, "FUCK_U_MOVIE_DOWNLOADERS" guest network.
It's trivial to determine.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"...opening their WiFi is the socially responsible thing to do..."
Yeah, right. When the lazy, idiotic Marxists help pay for my connection rather than committing theft of service, which they currently engage in, I will be the first person to open my connection.
Of course I would only do it on a separate nic using my Smoothwall router.
: )
In this day and age, why should we be worried about providing Internet access to EVERYONE? If our neighbors were actually giving back and helping society, that would be one thing, but in a world where EVERYONE is only looking to take as much as they can while giving back as little as they can, it makes NO sense to worry about making WiFi available to EVERYONE. As I said, I am all for helping your neighbors when they in turn help you back, but these days, I don't see acts of kindness, and helping others EVER result in any real benefit, unless you get a tax deduction from it. In many cases, your neighbors make just as much if not more than you do, so why should YOU pay for Internet access when you get zero in return? Why should someone with a laptop just get free Internet access when they don't do ANYTHING that will ever benefit you, even in a long and roundabout way?
Those who have the least tend to want to see EVERYTHING be free and open, while those who have to work for a living and struggle to pay their bills tend to expect that if they are having financial difficulties, then why give ANYTHING away for free when no one else is even helping them in any way, shape, or form? It is like the classic song, "Signs". When you have nothing, and have never had to work or take responsibility for PAYING to maintain something you own, you want EVERYTHING to be free and open from rules or cost, but the moment you learn the pain of paying bills, you have a lot more respect for others who have to pay their own bills and have responsibilities.
When others start helping make life easier for ME, then I will be more inclined to make life for others, but until that happens, the government doesn't make life easier, and all the millions of illegal immigrants don't make life easier(or even learn the language of the land they have moved to) , then why should I turn around and make life easier for THEM? Let the wealthy start the trend since they have DISPOSABLE income.
I'll leave all my house doors and windows open too. Better signal propagation!
I agree on all points. Police raids are rare and hard to prevent. Just have some money set aside for a lawyer and new dog, and avoid seriously illegal behavior. You can't let fear rule your life, especially fear of lightning.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
The right is just as complicit, if not more so.
It's the right who insist on giving police a "tough on crime" mandate, allowing them to arm themselves better in response to high-powered weaponry possessed by criminals, bought from the proceeds of the utter failure known as the "war on drugs."
Even if the suspect is armed only with a lowly handgun, you don't always know this in advance, so you bring your best guns along because you don't want to be caught holding the lesser weapon, and your mandate to use higher levels of force is increased even against cases unlikely to have extra-lethal weapons on hand.
The end result of this one-upmanship, assuming less regulation and where anyone with the means can obtain a gun but aren't mentally responsible enough to handle this freedom can be seen in many war-torn regions like Afghanistan, Somalia; and Mexico seems like it's not far behind.
The reality is, far too many Americans love gun freedom, but refuse to accept the responsibility that goes with it (guns being pulled during road rage incidents? Seriously, WTF?).
Even if you don't open your internet connection to other users, I recommend including the words "public-wifi" somewhere in your IP address' PTR record if you have access to it.
Exactly what outlawed gun do you need to repel a home invasion which would have be close-quarter combat by it's very nature?
You know, I have some sympathy for your point here, but I don't see a lot of evidence, either. Back in the misty days when Thompson sub-machine guns could be purchased over the counter and Clyde Barrow toted a BAR, the cops weren't notoriously polite to the people they arrested. Apparently the widespread availability of firearms did not, in fact, prevent "third-degree" interrogations and prisoners who never even made it to booking.
I suspect our perceptions of how it used to be are based on a sort of Pleasantville image of happy white people trusting their neighborhood patrolman, who spent most of his time helping lost children with melting ice-cream cones.
After all, before all those hippie liberals got in the way, it didn't occur to most cops that they shouldn't tap your phone, turn out your pockets, hold you for days without access to a lawyer, or "tune you up" before formal questioning.. Each of those issues had to be dragged through a court before Officer Friendly gave them up.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
I am certain, the critics of Ayn Rand, and perhaps Mr. Obama, will say that you have enough money and it is your responsibility to share it.
I don't want my wireless access point open because my bandwidth is crappy enough as it is. I don't need to be giving random other people access to fill up that bandwidth.
Skip Franklin
It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black. -- despair.com
That is what people said when Home Security started their shit. Now I am wondering how I must explain my children NOT to scream if an uniformed guy touches their funny bits.
Some more cases like that? You have no idea how much worse it can get. 1984 will sound like a fairytale once everything is done and in place.
No, there is no plan to get anywhere. Just a little bit more each time as long as you let them. Give a finger. Take an arm.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Most internet services have a lot more bandwidth avail for you, compared to what you can deliver to your neighbors over a 811g/n wireles router. At least in Sweden.
I have a Closed network for my in-house computers, printers, etc; and an Open network for visiting friends, and older devices that don't support WPA (Nintendo DS, for example.)
The closed network is 802.11n 2.4/5 GHz, SSID hidden, WPA-2 protected, the open network is 802.11b-only.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Well, I don't know what else to say to the EFF other than they can go eff themselves. Really, who the hell thinks that this is a good idea? They're barking up the wrong tree if they think that individuals should be opening up their own wireless connections, and frankly, the fact that they would even put out such a statement smacks of either superb naivete or downright stupidity. If they want to encourage anything, it should be for business and/or ISPs to build more public access WiFi.
- because people usually cares more about their private stuff and interests and cares less about their common stuff. Just compare common lawns and private lawns in a communistic (?) country, the common ones looks like shit.
You're right. I guess we should self-censor ourselves since the government is going to do it anyway.
Well said.
To counter-argue, I could say that communication is vital to a democratic society, and as the technology underpinning it changes, you may find that it is enormously to your interest to have a certain minimum of communications ability made available for free to all, the same way it was enormously to your interest to establish the public library system or the public highway system. You could say that's enshrining "a right" to internet service if you want to use a trigger word, but let's be purely practical for a moment. Dogma won't float the dollar or fix my deck. Certain policies are better for the economy than others, and it can be argued that may be one of them.
Communication leads to economic activity. (Yes, even leveling your paladin and watching Iron Man 2, while funny, refers to two separate multibillion dollar industries.) Never mind that it leads to personal improvement, or beneficial political action. If you don't believe me, let's go visit a sunny pacific island together.
The island has an unregulated free market for telephony and internet services, which has naturally and unavoidably resulted in a near-monopoly on wired and wireless phone and internet. The local economy is largely driven by tourists. Both local businesses and visitors pay $3 per minute to use their phones, and internet service is similarly expensive (and non-neutral, i.e. skype-blocked, and terribly slow to boot). Instead of making calls or (heaven forbid) using smartphone apps or internet, a tourist must wander the beach to find a place to rent a boat or a good restaurant and he can't tell if the boats are rented or the tables are full in advance. Not as much money gets spent. Eventually either the tourist or the business may even go to a better country, where phone and internet are at least cheap. Or even better, to somewhere where it's free.
Not to mention there are many non-tourist-economy local businesses that could exist with cheap connectivity that now can't. Oh wait, suddenly one begins to realize why this is way bigger than just this one pocket example about a tourist and a beach economy.
The free marketeers will tell you that an entrepreneur offering cheaper, competing phone and internet service must be arriving "any minute now." This is because posting nonsense on slashdot has a better rate of return than actually attempting to compete against an entrenched telephony monopoly.
By the way, this is not a hypothetical island. Not even the prices have been made up.
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I'm glad you're rich enough to afford your own portable wireless hotspot and a data plan on your cell phone. Some of us are not, asshole.
Your provider might prohibit this, and you could be violating the terms of something you agreed to. Not commenting on the morality of it, but you should know the possible reprocussions of doing something.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
had he used encryption on his ap and the samewar driver cracked that encryption he would have had a much harder time convincing anyone that it wasn't him.
so you could say having an ap someone else could see got him in trouble, it being open possible gave him an easier way out
The ToS in my ISP agreement explicitly states that I cannot open my wireless access to those who do not reside in the dwelling my service is provisioned for.
Your ToS may have similar provisions prohibiting you from redistributing your bandwidth. ISPs are well within their rights to incorporate such requirements.
I'm amazed that the consensus here seems to be...keep the networks locked up! I've long benefited from open networks and have always kept my own network open as a result. I am tech-savvy enough to monitor how many others are using my network (generally few or none) and to just kick them off whenever I need my bandwith (e.g., for streaming or downloads). Over the years, many neighbors have used my network after first moving in and have gradually transitioned to their own networks after getting booted once or twice. The police haven't kicked in my door, and I don't expect that they will. I've also been horrified to watch the progressive loss of open networks across San Francisco. It really is amazing...ten years ago I think that about 60% of networks were open; now it is more like 2%. Surely the police haven't kicked in that many doors? When non-geeks ask my opinion, I generally suggest that they protect their networks, because I figure that they don't have the knowledge needed to occasionally monitor and throttle outside use. But I figured that here, on Slashdot, most people would recognize that open networks are generally very *useful*, and, if you have one, quite easy to police. Is this wrong? My reading of many of the negative comments about open networks is that they reflect a lot of anxiety and defensiveness. Where's your generosity of spirit?
This is already the case in Germany.
My problems with this is - Legal issues. If some perv downloads childporn through my connection I get fingered and go through hell trying to prove it was not me. Its a multi year costly nightmware - Protection of my equipment and data, I don't need people trying to go through my files, risking adding a virus to my network - Bandwidth Hogs, I don't need some kid next door using up all my bandwidth when I try to make a skype call or worse using more then what my allotment is before my ISP gets pissy with me - Free loaders, why should I pay for my internet connection and have half a dozen people using my line and not contributing back to me for it. Not a chance in hell would I ever do this. I would maybe consider it if I had a router that supported a guest network that isolated my network from the public, that also allowed me to control bandwidth so I could limit it to 20k down and 5Gb monthly max, then I might share the internet for passers wanting to check email or check a webpage while in range. Would also want it logging all websites used to make it easier to defend against what might have been done on my line.
I left a comment in support of open networks, but Schneir states my argument more cogently than I did myself. Read what he has to say: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wireles.html I couldn't agree more.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wireles.html
He links to the Slashdot post at the bottom in Updates. It's funny, he had quite a bit of support back then. Now there is almost none, I still think he might be right. That guy who got his butt kicked for CP on his open wireless got let off the hook so quickly due to his open wireless. Do you believe if his WEP had been cracked (which takes maybe 5 minutes) he wouldn't have been prosecuted instead?
You can cry all you want about "No one needs to play WOW to protect their civil rights," but increasingly we participate in culture and government via the internet. My local post office didn't even have tax forms in the lobby this year.
And if you're crying about your service being degraded. Really? You're on /., you know how to do QoS already, or can figure it out really easily. You can measure bandwidth to cut way back as you get closer to the cap. Your retired neighbor who's a member of the Lion's Club may not know how to do this, but you have no excuse; what is more, you can sure help them if they want to do the same.
As some people noted we do not share the same legal defense. When I was trying to set up some new hardware I had opened my wifi and out of laziness left it. About a week later my internet was slow so I looked in to what it might be, turns out someone else had connected to my wifi, when I looked at their traffic it was to torrent trackers.
Without a doubt, I would be held responsible for whatever he downloaded unless I could find his computer and prove otherwise, and if I had left my connection open out of kindness it could end up costing me huge fines. Not to mention he wasn't just using up a little bit of my internet. It may be selfish but if I upgrade my internet speeds I don't want it to be so that my neighbor can now watch youtube in 1080p while I see no noticeable speed increase.
I have used routers that allow you to broadcast two wifi channels with separate settings. If my home router could do this so that I could block p2p sites and limit bandwidth on my open channel, and then encrypt my personal channel, then i may consider it. However, this hardware is not available at a practical cost for home users.
WiFi routers should have the option of putting the air link on the outside of the local firewall. Actually, it would make sense if, by default, open WiFi links gave guest access to the outside Internet world, but not the inside LAN world, while encrypted links offered access to the inside world. This allows opening up guest access without exposing local servers and Windows shares.
A router should support both modes simultaneously, offering itself as two access points. Encrypted links should have higher packet priority over nonencrypted links, so that guest access can't starve out authorized users.
This seems obvious enough that some routers probably implement it already. Anyone know of one?
Yeah you do want to watch for this sort of thing. Many municpalities now have "social host" ordinances. In some cases, the language of the ordinance could even make a homeowner responsible when they are not present. For example, parents leave town and Junior throws a party where underage drinking occurs. The parents could be cited even if they had no idea because they reasonably should have known that underage drinking would occur while they were gone. How far does the liability go? I don't know, but what if one of Junior's friends left drunk, drove and killed somebody?
Ok, there are a lot of selfish slashdoters saying the same thing without adding anything constructive to the discussion. I can't blame them, we all have pedophile as neighboors and we never heard of routers that can limit the bandwidth to prevent abusive behavior on guest connections.
What I want to ask these slashdoters is what they think about the Tor network. Should Tor users stop their relays or exit nodes because of a few jerks abusing the system?
Get a router that supports OpenWRT.
Install it.
Enable QOS.
???.
Profit.
Also, if you want to track who exactly is using your limited bandwidth, you can try installing chillispot in openwrt as well. It will allow you to make it a true hotspot with registration/login and all the tracking you'd ever want.
Bandwidth caps
Still a proud, albeit undocumented, internet up-link for Seattlewireless
http://map.seattlewireless.net/
Legal protections, abuse, etc., are all important, but the basic issue with the article is the assertion that everyone has the right to free WiFi (one could argue that we all have the right to clean drinking water but I still pay a monthly bill for mine and know my neighbor would not approve of me filling my bathtub from his garden hose). The issue becomes, if it's a right, or at least socially responsible, who pays for it? If you have the right to demand free WiFi access, you are demanding someone pay for it. If I can use my neighbor's WiFi for free, what do I do when he moves away? Demand my other neighbor let me into their system? If it's a right then why not increase taxes and have the government subsidize all the ISPs...pay your taxes, get free internet. If I can afford it and my neighbor can't, would a law be passed saying I'd have to let him use mine? Where would it stop?
I can understand the the reasoning of leaving wifi open, I have used them in the past myself when my service was down or when I was troubleshooting my own wifi issues ...but...
sorry but if I am paying for internet service why should I let others use it for free? Should I also leave my front door open so the homeless could have a place to stay - that would also be considered socially responsible.
then there is my reputation - In my own town there was a recent raid of a former police officers home for child porn. He was innocent, his neighbor, who was using his open network was guilty -and was shot and killed by the police. In the meantime, people are still wondering if the former pollice officer was also guilty and there was some sort of cover up. Why should I take the chance of being embarrassed of being handcuffed, roughed up with all my computers and data phones being confiscated and searched. I may not have anything illegal on my computers but I might have some files I would not want others to see or even know about.
finally if too many open wifis is being taken advantage of, then isps that don't have bandwidth caps may consider it.
That is not to say I would not help a neighbor for a temporary need, especially if she was a blonde or redhead with great..., but I would watch the router logs very carefully for my legal protection.
Image the same thing happening but due to the encryption was broken, which case do you think will be the worst to defend?
...but wasnt there an article here on /. about some guy who was arrested because he left his AP open and someone else DLed CP? Ya, anyone who doesnt secure their APs/routers are just plain ignorant, regardless of what the EFF says. That is unless you get a second ap and put it in a DMZ and then put your personal AP behind the FW. But really, does anyone want to go thru the extra work so someone else can siphon your bandwidth? I think not.
Where has reason in the world gone? Have we abandoned it in favor of power and politics?
Automatic Weapons.
Ten round clips, not a "gun" but gun control.
I want an Uzi with 50 round clips to repel the police state. Outlawed.
Designed for close combat use and used by swat teams around the world because it is small and easy to use in close quarters.
Next question please
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I would venture to say that many (though not all) of you pay the same amount regardless of how much you use. Instead of the 'electricity', 'heating', and 'borrowed car' analogies, think of it this way instead: A Buffet. You pay $10 regardless of how much you eat. If someone had a legitimate need for an egg, would you really give them the stiff, unwavering middle finger? It doesn't cost you anything more than a very temporary inconvenience... Some people have (arguably) legitimate needs (http://xkcd.com/466/). If they don't, and it impacts me enough for me to do something about it, I have the upper hand. When you transmit data over *my* network, *I* can do whatever I want with it. You downloading CP on my wireless? I'll post the news on *your* Facebook.
But clearly you have something better to say...
TFA assumes that people will use open WiFi briefly as they are passing through, like at a coffee shop or park or something. Instead what often happens is you have people who live near you that use your internet instead of getting their own.
The article does not account for full-time leeches, which makes their suggestion impractical and not worthwhile for most people.
So now it's my "social responsibility" to keep my router open? WTF? Uh, no. Not any more than it's my social responsibility to lend you my cell phone, feed you my groceries, or let you use my hot tub, or loan you my girlfriend. (Since this is /. I'm assuming most of you don't have one.) But the answer is still No, regardless. I don't have ANY responsibility to give you anything, not even the time of day.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Yeah, just like how the RIAA lawsuits led to a change in the law...
The problem is that wireless networks can be spotty when streaming HD content. I got around this by plugging in a cable to my crabby neighbor's router during a public wake for his daughter and running it over the fence to my house.
We do, in fact, live in a police state, where guns powerful enough to repel a home invasion are outlawed in favor of the police state.
Seriously? What kind of gun do you need to "repel a home invasion" - a machine gun turret pointed at the door?
Last I checked, rifles in military calibers are still freely available, and, say, anything in .308 has heck of a lot of stopping power which no bulletproof vest will protect against. Sure, you don't get full auto (unless for exorbitant prices), but do you think this really makes any significant difference?
Indeed, US gun regulations are ridiculously lax if you look at them purely from self-defense point of view - they permit much more than is reasonable. Which is perfectly fine, because self-defense is not the only motivation to deregulate guns. But I don't see how that helps you any vs an armed SWAT team breaching your door.
Most routers that do support this call it "AP isolation" or something like that. I know DD-WRT supports it.
I agree totally with the article and believe free/open wifi should be easy to setup securely. But I think Local/City Wireless Networks would have great value regardless of whether they provide a direct connection to the Internet or not.
I live in Vancouver and right now, from my home I currently "see" 12 neighboring routers. When I walk around town I rarely "see" less then 5 routers within range from any location but usually i see 20 OR MORE routers all the time. If I can see all these routers with my portable device as I travel on the bus... then all of these routers can "see" each other and potentially relay information amongst one another. This could pass peer-to-peer services directly between two devices anywhere in the city without ever interfering with the users Internet bandwidth limitations or effecting their ISP agreement. I could see such a network covering a city and other populated areas quite easily and providing free services to anyone in the city such as: free voice calls, free chat service, free access to your home network, content broadcasting (by local radio, tv), file-sharing programs, media streaming one's owned content between self, friends and family and free access to any other sites/services connected to this network. Regardless of whether there is a mechanism for this network to provide access to the greater "Internet" as a whole is irrelevant. Although... one could imagine that it would be quite possible to proxy across this network through your home router and out to the Internet at large for oneself... even if this user doesn't want to share their bandwidth to the public at large.
With such a community based network and a large portion of participants... most of my phone calls, and chat sessions with friends and family could use this technology totally free. Local services such as banks, government services, police offices, tourist information and libraries could all "hook-up" their existing networks to this city wide free network as well to provide access to services and content. Commercial entities and other local services could join in as well and make their network content available for city use for free. All without touching some users precious Internet connection or having participants worry about what there ISP might think about this "sharing of bandwidth".
But the most interesting part would/will be the lack of control. Since there is no longer an ISP agreement about how the network is to be used, every user would have the ability to implement their own services. So everyone can configure their home servers to provide a range of services, from email, chat and web page hosting, to legal media sharing to publishing and broadcasting... all directly from home.
Some may read this and complain how this network will never support streaming or wont handle this or that. My response: "so be it". It doesn't matter. The network will deliver what it is capable of and that is the service it will provide. It is not intended to be 100% reliable... just near 100% coverage. If we demand more from it... then it will simply not deliver to our expectations and then demand will generally decrease. But remember: wireless IS FAST. Faster then your Internet connection and faster then the latency of transferring between multiple hops to gather content from across the globe. As an example, I have streamed 2 full hi-definition (1080i 8Gb/hr) broadcast programs across my home 802.11n wifi at the same time to 2 different televisions. I cannot stream this quantity/quality directly across my ISP's connection. I have tried to do so, using a neighbors PC that was connected to the same ISP through a different IP. It couldn't even properly put through a single HD signal. So if the content is being shared between neighbors or only a couple hops... I expect the speed will be far greater then what you are currently accustom to. And sharing will be far more convenient between close community members.
IMO, making the protocol force the user to become both a client and a repeater/router in orde
This is already the case in most countries.
...and you might be on to something.
By "something", I would mean the true spirit of this "freedom" thing y'all are talking about.
Think about it. Keep your WEP, WPA, MAC filters and all intact... but get with your neighbors and interlink your routers. Nobody gets to "steal" that bandwidth, but you both get to benefit from each other's bandwidth.
Now a two-neighbor scenario may not seem like much freedom. Get a whole neighborhood involved—maybe a dozen routers or more—and you're talking something like a movement. Contribute to each other, provide guidance and security wisdom, don't let it be a one-way street. In the end, everyone benefits from the shared bandwidth, reduced downtime and maybe even get to put a few new dots on the Internet map. When Comcast blacks out, make FiOS take up the slack, and vice-versa. Pity the poor community that ever has to rely on someone's DSL... but a whole building of DSL connections could make for some sweet bandwidth.
Just... think about it.
This post © Copyrite Duggeek, all rights reversed.
And what does the EFF says I have to tell the FEDs when they raid my home for browsing child pr0n or stealing credit card info (of course meaning someone else would do it with my own Internet access)? In the same way, it will be easier to access and hack my own systems.
It is very nice if EVERYONE had a connection and was willing to share. You could be online anywhere.
Of course the usual ones will pay and other will just "backpack" on other people's connections without having to get their own ever.
So, no thanks.
The solution: a network access solution that works like electricity, you pay your fee and the rest is transparent to you. I was tempted to say public networks, but seeing how public things work, specially in Europe I don't think it is the solution...
But if they intentionally leave it open for anyone to use, they should accept some of the blame when someone uses it to do something naughty.
No, it should not. Back to your horse (which is bad analogy again). If someone steals something using your horse, of course you're not responsible! How on earth could that be justified? The only risk of course for horse owner is that some witness could recognize the horse, and then owner could be on the list of suspect. Same must apply to internet connection.
And furthermore, it's WiFi, not clean drinking water. Since when is leveling your paladin a vital civil liberty?
Either you are trolling or don't understand the notion of free speech, free access to information, etc. Only blind & deaf people don't see the current trend that big corporations & governments want to control the flow of information, access to media (mainly for profits, but also for political issues). If they were free internet access everywhere in the world, this would provide true anonymity and true free access and information exchange. But of course copyright lobbyists will immediately call for wolves saying this would be a free pass to pirates. But since when our fundamental rights should be tied to profits of some organisations?
the buffalo version of dd-wrt has support for many hot spot services, including ones that get revenue from ads. either that or use a linux computer as a router and spend a couple of hours with iptables
Schneier runs an open network
In my own experience, I learn that trusting a link is *never* a good practice. You must trust an end-point, an entity, a device. Trusting a link is only a convenience (it eases things).
They SHOULD be hassled if something goes wrong on their open network as a lesson to secure their system.
Why? One can run a perfectly secure network over internet (heard about VPNs), so why someone should be punished when he has an open network at home??? Following your advice, we should put in jail parents of kids stealing in supermarket as a good lesson for not teaching them the importance of respecting property of others.
http://www.free.fr/ does it as a business. There must be others too.
To echo parent post - you yanks don't know how good ya got it - welcome to the UK version of the law around this topic... http://www.lawdit.co.uk/reading_room/room/view_article.asp?name=../articles/1412-uk-pub-owner-fined-for-illegal-downloads.htm
I read some comments... I think you are jumping conclusions and contextualizing with your current legal system. You should be considering sharing your wireless internet based on the following assumptions: you don't have a download limit or you don't use up all traffic dealed with your ISP, you can reserve bandwitdh to your self, there is a separate network so your own local network isn't visible to strangers.
The whole point of the discussion should be on sharing infrastructures. After all, the only thing people don't share while connecting to the internet is the router. You all share the rest of the infrastructure. You all share the same neighborhood intenet cable, the roads that cars use, people living on apartments share the same entrance on the building.
Other discussions could follow like, more routers means more radiation pollution, more energy consumption, more raw materials transformed. If one reaches everyone why have four if you can use that one evenly? It's a case of infrastructure overlapping. Its like having two roofs on a two stories apartment building.
Another important discussion surrounding this one is identifying authors of bad doings. My opinion is that there will always be a way for bad doers and that sharing your hotspot would not cause a criminality surge or nothing of the like :)
I have to say that there is a lot o money interests in this discussion. ISP don't have a reserved bandwidth for every client, they rely on statistics to calculate a worst case scenario usage and build the infrastructure accordingly. So you already share bandwidth.
If four adjacent clients canceled three ISP contracts to share a single router, the ISP profit would plummet.
Now about the police barging in to your home for some suspicious internet activity... that's your own cultural/political problem. Maybe you are hostages of your own fears.
Joaquim Silvestre, from the about to be broke country, Portugal.
Tell all of this to the guy who had his door kicked down and assault rifles put to his head after a wardriver used his open access point for distributing child porn.
Dude was a victim. He didn't break any laws. Did the police overreact? Yes. Something they do alot. This case isn't anything new, cops have been busting doors down and point guns at the wrong sort of crimes for decades. Shit, it's all they know. It's how they are trained.
Dude needs to sue for emotional/mental damages. There was no reason for the cops to bust in like that, even if he was the guilty party, but seeing as he wasn't, all the more reason to sue.
Get the city defending a few lawsuits like this, they might start thinking different on how they bust doors of some suspects.
Be seeing you...
Yes, you are the only one who can see your straw man. Unless you can find a statement from EFF stating that people should get more bandwidth than they are promised. You are conflating bandwidth and amount downloaded, and are ignoring the reason why people complain about caps on downloads, that they are promised unlimited downloads (within the bandwidth they are promised).
You might have been saying that facetiously, but in fact Germany has already made it illegal to leave your wifi open:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100512/1116409394.shtml
Imagine if everyone did this! It would be awesome! We could all cancel our Internet connections and-- Oh, wait. Never mind. ...
The underlying fallacy of the article is in the first sentence: No one "needs" a WiFi connection. It's a convenience, not a right.