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EFF And Others Push For Open Wifi APs Everywhere
netbuzz writes "Forging ahead with an initiative that proved controversial when introduced last year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and nine other groups today are advancing the Open Wireless Movement to encourage ubiquitous sharing of Internet access. 'We envision a world where sharing one's Internet connection is the norm,' said EFF Activist Adi Kamdar, in a press release. 'A world of open wireless would encourage privacy, promote innovation, and benefit the public good, giving us network access whenever we need it. And everyone — users, businesses, developers, and Internet service providers — can get involved to help make it happen.'"
We envision a world where sharing one's Internet connection is the norm,' said EFF Activist Adi Kamdar, in a press release. 'A world of open wireless would encourage privacy, promote innovation, and benefit the public good, giving us network access whenever we need it.
The person sharing their connection has to NOT be concerned with being successfully sued.
Some judges realize that IP != person, others do not.
I lived with roommates, and it was somewhat of a concern that the "owner" of the internet account will be the one responsible for anything that may get tied to that IP address.
I don't feel like getting arrested for distribution of child pornography or getting a warning letter for infringement because some nitwit decided to use my open AP to do illegal activities.
...the EFF is willing to back me up with unlimited legal support when the FBI comes knocking at my door because my next door neighbors turn out to be pedos, I'm all for it.
How do they think this will work in a world where we're all getting dinged for bandwidth? If connections were still unlimited, great, but otherwise this is a bit of a non-starter.
It's a nice idea but with the law as it stands if I open up my connection and someone uses it to download copyright music or films (or worse) it will be me that gets the warning letters, the police knocking at the door or gets my connection cut off. And anyone wanting to commit an on-line crime is far more likely to do it using someone elses connection than their own.
If they give me legal support after someone misuses my connection, then I'm into it.
They're there in their room. You're on your own.
[citation needed]
Cite an actual statute, please, not just a ruling by an idiot judge.
...under the premise that no individual can be held responsible, by any kind of state of the surveillance or police type, for what others do. But wait. Let's turn this argument around. If technology did exist to ensure that no individual could be held responsible for what either he or others do, then this would be quite the act of opposition to the states you and I live in: Western European states, the USA - i.e. surveillance and police states.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
[citation needed] Cite an actual statute, please, not just a ruling by an idiot judge.
[citation not needed] "Stare decisis" - rulings by idiot judges can act as precedent to other idiot judges.
So long as we have (invisible) bandwidth caps, limited bandwidth to begin with, crappy upload speeds, and a responsibility for anything that gets downloaded....
Yeah my wireless will be closed. As will any company ones i setup.
The law and the ISP's are aginst open AP's.
Why?
Because money that's why.
Will the EFF be handing out some cash? No? This will go nowhere then.
Before the US court system says you're liable for everyone on your connection, getting free internet was great. You'd go to any place in the city and have a chance of getting wifi. Then for some reason by the law enforcers, this was hated, and they even started hunting "unsecure" locations with cantennas. I'd love to go back to the day where I can go into the city and find internet for free without having to trek to a store.
God spoke to me
Ever hear of "Stare Decisis"? Rulings by idiot judges *are* the law until you get a law passed to overrule them or manage to convict a judge in a superior court that it's so idiotic that it needs to be overridden.
And everyone — users, businesses, developers, and Internet service providers — can get involved to help make it happen.
That just made an executive at an ISP laugh really, really hard.
Better known as 318230.
When I lived in SF I set up my home network to provide free wireless to the coffee shop at the end of the block.
QOS routing prevented guest bandwidth from interfering with my own. I put the wireless thing outside my firewall to protect my network.
Occasional casual monitoring suggested that no-one abused the network from either a bandwidth or content point of view. And the only thing it had protecting it was a "please don't abuse this or I'll take it down" welcome message.
TL/DR: Most people are basically good, so it (like wikipedia) works and isn't abused as much as you might thing..
If we continue to treat internet access as a commodity to be purchased rather than a public service - this will not fly on a large scale. Outside of a few generous individuals and companies that stand to benefit from expanding access - this is an uphill battle. The question is, when access is such a lucrative source of income for telecom companies and pressure against government provided services is so high in the US, would a publicly funded "access anywhere" campaign have legs?
Hard data caps. Q.E.D.
The EFF does a lot of good work but this "bandwidth wants to be free" nonsense is not something they should be involved in. I'd be fine with sharing my connection with the casual passer by, but I don't want some idiot to come by and saturate my connection when I'm trying to watch TV. (I never watch TV on TV anymore; easier to just wait for the online stream to come up.) They need to stick with defending people's rights and not waste efforts on silly schemes.
Leaving my Wifi open somehow encouraging privacy? Is the EFF doing lines of koolaid they forgot to drink or something? How is it encouraging privacy to open my network to the world. If anything, that sounds more like I'd be losing my privacy, not getting more of it. I encrypt my network to encourage and promote my privacy.
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
In the state of Florida, it's illegal to have an open wireless access point. I know 'cause Slashdot reported it. So you can ignore all the worries about possible content. Opening your AP is itself illegal in some states. It wouldn't surprise me if there are other states as well.
You know how everywhere you (in residential areas, mostly) you see APs with names like '2WIRE123' (to pick just one) all the time? Or out in public, 'attfreewifi' at McDonald's, Starbucks, etc.? AT&T (and the rest) should configure their residential products to have, say, 10% of your total bandwidth optionally made available with a separate standard SSID (like 'Free2WIRE' or something) that is separated from your main network. (So strangers can't print, browse shared resources, play 'Macarena' through your AirPort Express, etc.)
ISPs who are also cell providers (like AT&T) will be happy to save some cellular bandwidth. Yes, they like charging for big plans and overages (and tethering, and everything else they can think of, the greedy bastards) but they really do want to save relatively expensive cellular bandwidth also. As they tell me via text every time I approach my limit for the month, "Tip: Mobile Data is unlimited over WiFi."
It would also save you from having to ask friends with secured APs what their password is. A) it's a bit of a pain, B) it's a bit awkward, C) if they're serious about security they won't want to share it in the first place, and D) if it's long and complex it's REALLY a pain.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
It's not meaningless. It's the key that the (cough) "authorities" will use to take all your equipment somewhere, eventually get around to digging though everything on it, and then, if they "remember" to give it back, you get to see what a wreck they've made of your files and filesystem. Then there's the time lost without the machine, or the money spent replacing it, if indeed the idiot judge who authorized the taking allows you to have one while the process lumbers through its various phases. Or afterwards.
The rule is: Don't allow yourself to be tangled up in the gears of "justice" unless you either meant to (protest, etc.) or you can't avoid it (speeding to get to the hospital.)
There are few things on this planet less pleasant than dealing with the legal system, which is fucked up beyond any reasonable way to measure it — and expensive in every sense of the word. You are fucked until proven innocent, and possibly fucked then, too. You are fucked if you plea bargain. You are fucked if adjudicated guilty. You are fucked if adjudication is withheld. You are additionally fucked if the process results in a "sexual offender" listing and/or a felony determination -- no more jobs, and in the case of the former, where you can even live becomes an issue. They can, and will, throw you out of a house you own. The key thing to remember: get involved with law enforcement, and you are fucked.
Have you ever tried searching google from a tor node? Most of the time it is ok, but every now and then you end up with google asking you to enter captchas just to do a search. Worse is some websites outright ban any activity coming from tor exit nodes. Some sites just give you a 403 forbidden, other sites will forbid you from posting, and if you log in from an account you've established previously, you can get that account banned for being associated with spamming.
That's fine for tor, but I'd rather not have my everyday use internet connection blocked off from much of the web due to abuse.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
A Dutch provider does it like this: You share your modem, then you can use other users' AP's. Every guest gets its own static IP independent of AP, plus the bandwidth is separated from the host. It is not yet available where I live, but I am definitely are going to opt in for it when it becomes available. One big plus for me, next to having WiFi available throughout the city, but that you can put your never changing, but roaming IP in your home router for secure access. Article in Dutch: https://www.ziggo.com/nl/pers/persberichten/60,2914/ziggo-breidt-proef-met-klantenhotspots-uit-tot-heel-groningen/
KERNEL PANIC -SIGFAULT AT ADDRESS #51A54D07
I would, but I really do not trust some of those nearby. I have the bandwidth to spare, and the tech chops to wall off open access from the rest of my home network. But some of those who live nearby have proven themselves to be non-trustworthy. Mostly elder teenage foolishness, but I do not want to have to *prove* it was not me that did whatever idiocy they committed.
Any investigation would start with me, being the named owner of that ISP account. The cops investigation has to start somewhere, and I'd rather it not be me.
I live in one of those parts of the world where data transfer actually costs money. The last time I opened my wireless network, the neighbours pirated more stuff in a day than the amount of data I would transfer in a month.
The reality is that, no matter what nice happy communist policy you put on your open wireless network, people will abuse it to download large torrents, and you'll be the one paying for it.
They may get what they wish for as it's happening already, but when it arrives it they will come to realise it wasn't what they wanted.
There are already companies that allow you to re-sell your access point bandwidth. It's not rocket science. They just provide you with a router than is also a captive portal. You get to use it for free of course, but if foreigner logs into it they charge them for the bandwidth and split the fee with you. In fact most paid for captive portals operate on this basis already.
In theory this should be a win-win for everybody. It sending a byte over a land line generally costs between 1/10 and 1/100 of sending the same byte over a commercial 3G/4G network. So the mobile user gets cheap ubiquitous data and the land line owner gets to make a little money on the side.
In practice, right now, that isn't how it's working out. Somehow these captive portal operators manage to make data on these networks more expensive than the commercial 3G/4G networks. But one day someone will figure out how to make it work, and on that day a new competitor the current 3G/4G networks will arise, and it will be in the form of millions of 802.11 microcells dotted around the country. I bet they know it's coming, but don't have a clue what to do about it. They will find themselves in the same position as music publishers, newspapers, TV - except in this case it will be a case of the internet eating its own.
As I said, even though I consider this almost a long term certainty and it is what the EFF is asking for now, it isn't what the EFF actually wants. The EFF wants open access points so people can send and receive information anonymously. In this new world order every access point will be open, but every byte will be paid for, and thus tied to a credit card.
I have offered free open wireless Internet to my neighbors and passersby for many years, with no problem. Occasionally, I see a car parked in front of my house to use the connection. It's the good neighborly thing to do. Those who are more stingy and/or fearful need not follow suit, but they need not spew negative speculation about those of us who do. Bruce Schneier, security expert, does the same. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wireles.html
Mike O'Donnell http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~odonnell/
On my little consumer-grade cisco* router I have dd-wrt installed. It has quite a few options. I can set up a Hot Spot, allocate bandwidth, restrict access, adjust the txpower, and so on. I've never gone so far as to set up a Hot Spot, but I'm quite sure it would be easy enough to have a user-agreement wall. I'd be just as comfortable with something like that as I'd be with WEP. And then there's OpenDNS and such.
And I'd find it strange that government, which seems to operate on utilitarian principles, would fail to see the "greater good" in providing positively-used access to far more people than the fewer who'd comprise the abusive. Regarding the FBI (or others) raiding homes because of abuse, it seems in most situations a more hypocritical rather than critical response. In 'my' town, some beast had been out on his boat while connected to an open AP at one of the nearby condominiums. He'd been doing nasty things, apparently. The FBI raided the unit of the condo AP in the middle of the night, nearly killing the innocent couple by shock. Odd that they couldn't have sniffed the waves first and perhaps deduced a remote host. As advanced as they are, and for all their budget, they sure seem primitive sometimes. I have my doubts though.
I think we can see how well our post-911 hysteria has worked for us. Everyone's a terrorist now, but hardly anyone is terrorizing. We're spending enormous amounts of liberty and money on departments and agencies that are primarily self-serving. Departments like the DHS are bridging dangerous gaps between the DoD and local law-enforcement. And for all the collective efforts of our militant angelic protectors, safety hasn't increased much. We're petrified of bogeymen, yet we fill the role ourselves through social indifference and mainstream-media-administered xenophobia. It's mildly ironic that we're petrified that our networks will be abused for pedophilia, but we now lend our children without hesitation to the TSA. The yield of fear is golden indeed.
Self protection is good, and I'd not advise every soccer-mom to open their WiFi necessarily; but I can't see any benefit in building our society on principles of fear and self-imposed disadvantages, especially while so many viable sources for fear are above, not below the law.
And finally, the typical ISP competition duopoly between two gluttonous villains is not so great for many people. It's expensive, and many broadband (FIOS) subscribers never use much more than could be offered by DSL. And take note; in my area, DSL is not offered -- only cable or FIOS.
But playing the social board-game of Divide & Conquer is fun enough. After all, we're all our own unique snowflakes, and we should emphasize it as much as possible. Anything else would result in hippies, pirates, pedophiles, communists and zombies taking over our streets, eating our children and using our toothbrushes.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
I can be reasonably sure that my ISP and their upstreams aren't going to be injecting malware into the Slashdot pages I view. I might trust a coffee shop or a hotel. I'm not sure I want to routinely connect to random access points though.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I'd like to provide public access, but I don't want trolls and other idiots getting my IP banned everywhere or criminally investigated. What I'd like to see is some kind of VPN-only / proxy-only access to the Internet. The idea is that I'm giving you access but not identity.
You'd be required to proxy through either your own server (ssh/openvpn), the Tor network, or some kind of commercial VPN/proxy service. I mean, you ought to be doing that anyway. All common ports, *especially* http/https, would be blocked.
That doesn't stop someone from ssh'ing into their hijacked zombie computer in Russia and using that to launch an attack, which could still lead to a criminal investigation if they didn't cover their tracks properly, but at least it'll hopefully stop the sysadmins and bots who assume "IP address == person responsible" from reflexively laying down the banhammer on my IP or suing me for allegedly sharing The_Hobbit_An_Unexpected_Journey_4K_xvid_LEAKED_plus_soundtrack.rar
having recently gotten my internet shut off without warning for going over my usage limit (after having the account for 4 years), i don't see how this is going to work.
The ISPs have given us a limit, usually about 250gb, and honestly, that isn't enough. I'm not going to share my precious bandwidth with others, considering I've already been disconnected from 1 of the 2 ISP I can subscribe to in Seattle. Yes, much like politics, I get 2 choices. Centurylink and Comcast. And now I have only 1 choice.
While I am all for sharing wifi with the world, the EFF has to wake the fuck up. I did send them info about what happen to me, but didn't hear anything (didn't expect to), but now they are trying to promote sharing wifi? I feel like that slapped me in the face.
Be seeing you...
obviously it may not be a good idea for people with caps, but there are many who don't, or simply don't have a use for so much.
here's how to do it with openwrt...
https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=34092
that's with the web interfaece, you can also do it with text file editing...
http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/recipes/guest-wlan
the guest network is alone from the internal wpa protected network.
wondershaper is available to limit the guests' bandwidth if necessary.
think about it, esp. in a crowded apartment building, everyone broadcasting a wifi signal will raise the noise floor, share your broadband may actually help you in the search for a better signal.
I'd love to do so. I've played with the thought many times. Why not just an open wifi. I have reasons to do so, like friends bringing a smartphone. Like other strangers, just looking for map directions or whatever they do online. Personally i'd love to if other private parties in our city did as well - as currently open wifi is only available near our library (during opening hours) and a single pub.
However. Legal obligations and practice, make me responsible what happens over my internet connection. So, to get a reasonable plausible deniability on that, i'd have to go to real investments like, for example, by sharing a FON spot. If FON was a pure software-based solution, i'd done so already. However, it requires hardware. That i'd have to pay for, admittingly, it's not much. But on the other hand, i do not need 2 wifi stations at my home. Or have a 3rd party in control over my connection.
If there was a _simple_ way of logging. Like, a prefab solution, preferably installable on my wifi dsl modeml/router, i'd do so to. But, to run my own server, surging 200W, just for the sake of providing free wifi services, with all more or less obliged logging just to warrant myself from legal stuff.. That's a bit too far stretched. Not in the last place because of electricity and mainterance costs.
So, i totally agree with the EFF. I'd really love to. I'm also all ears for a wifi 'mesh' network, etc. But the legal practice is that i'm responsible whatever goes over my internet connection. Wether being 'illegal' downloads, illegal porn or illegal messanging, current laws in my current country, and probably laws all over the world, tell me this is a very bad idea. Sooner or later it'll get me into trouble. Which makes generousity having a high price.
Concluding. It's both a legal and a software issue. If there was a reasonable easy software solution that would allow me to do so, i would. I hate telco's and their mobile rates. I totally believe that if i, and everyone, would just open wifi the world would be a nicer online place. But i admit. I'm just a coward.
A glitch a day keeps the bugs away.
They are catching up with the European freifunk movement developments, as simple as that. Basically connection sharing is a matter of choice and convenience. When you apply mesh networking you move towards a situation where networks are independent from ISPs. In the aftermath of US hurricane Katrina also some US wireless mesh services provided backup networks. With mesh networking the internet becomes what is was supposed to be, a peer to peer communication service without the need of intermediaries and telcos. We will probably see the same debate after Sandy to get internet up and running again. Mesh networks are better defended against single points of failure.
The MPAA/RIAA will fight that like hell. They probably already have a law for that just waiting to be lobbied through congress. In France, they managed Sarkozy's governement to pass HADOPI, which include a 1500 euros fine for unsecured WiFi access. Of course this is just unaplicable, and nobody has been convicted yet despite country-wide law violations, but still, they have a weapon.
Stop worrying about what you're neighbor is surfing. Push all of your open gateway traffic transparently through Tor. A little bit of ipf/pf/iptables juju, some redsocks thrown in to act as a transparent proxy... Anyone can use your guest network for DNS and TCP traffic (sorry, no UDP) and if they go hanging out at questionable sites, who cares.
Let random strangers use your Internet? Once again I'm reminded how Americans live in a completely different Internet from the rest of the planet.
Here in Australia/NZ, we have monthly data usage caps. If you go over your 10 or 20 GB per month... absoutely nothing happens to your Internet speed, except you get a nice extra bill at the end of the month. $1 per gigabyte, usually.
Yes, I'm going to open up my WiFi point for everyone to download terabytes of illegal torrents which I have to pay for. That'll work.
I don't understand. The USA invented the idea of privatised "user pays" services, and is pushing it on the rest of the world with your trade treaties. Yet when it comes to paying for Internet transfer you use, you're all a bunch of freeloading socialists. :)
I wouldn't mind except that you guys write the software we buy, and the software you write keeps wanting to send megabytes of data to the Cloud servers you host in NYC and San Francisco. It's all free for you, but every byte your apps send cost us. Ten times more, if we're on a smartphone.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
I don't have any WiFi - maybe i should dangle a few network cables out my window...
I was surprised last year when I first saw an article from EFF suggesting that we open our wifi networks. I did see some reason to support what they were suggesting, but I was also anxious about opening up my LAN, weak as wireless encryption may actually be. Since then, I bought a new wireless router, which does make it easy to offer separate WLANs with configurable levels of access to each other. I see TLS being used more widely. I've learned a bit about VPNs, and set up OpenVPN on my router. And, I read the article others have mentioned in this thread, that Bruce Schneier, who both knows more than I do and has more to worry about, doesn't bother securing his wireless, since it's really not the security vulnerability that it's made out to be.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wireles.html
But most important, I worry that a lot of the structure of IT, and especially IT security, tends to foster an individualistic and cautious outlook that needs the balance of the considerations of fostering community. Of course, offering security advice is a service to the community, but it's worth arguing for something that explicitly supports an open community, now and then.
The other side is that people have to trust enough to connect to an unknown wifi point, which is a potential security threat.
It also involves not encrypting your traffic which leaves you super-vulnerable to sniffers.
We envision a world where sharing one's Internet connection is the norm,' said EFF Activist Adi Kamdar, in a press release. 'A world of open wireless would encourage privacy, promote innovation, and benefit the public good, giving us network access whenever we need it.
The person sharing their connection has to NOT be concerned with being successfully sued. Some judges realize that IP != person, others do not.
I lived with roommates, and it was somewhat of a concern that the "owner" of the internet account will be the one responsible for anything that may get tied to that IP address.
Yeah, they should not adapt that policy until IPv6 has completely replaced IPv4. At least once that has happened, then IPs can be used to uniquely ID every device, not every router, and the search can be narrowed down to all the people who have used that device. Which, unless it's a PC in a library or a kiosk, would typically be a handful.
okay, you've stated something, but I'm not sure what your point is?
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Although not open as such, BT in the UK have a system whereby their broadband customers run a second access point that's separate to their internal network. Any other broadband customer who opts in to the sharing scheme can use those access points, as well as BT openzone. The idea is that when you're out and about you get free wi-fi from other BT customers in return for sharing your own. Other people's use of your broadband does not come off of your allowance, but you have limits on how much you can use of theirs (to stop you using the public side of your own connection to get unlimited usage!)
Great in theory. Sucks in practice. You either have to keep searching for access points and go through a browser based logon to access them, or download an app that does it automatically. The app is useless, and fails to prioritise your own internal wi-fi when you're at home, connecting instead to the public facing one.
I've tried it, and wandering around my town I found plenty of access points, but only successfully connected to a small handful - or at least, I connected but failed to get internet access.
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
This includes the front office. Which they used for sharing, and that includes file sharing - which poses a risk, in this day and age, for cancelling all internet service for the front office, something they rely on.
Personally, I need to have a notice eating at my mail like I need a hole in my head. It might push security by the openness, but I don't need to be spending too long setting this stuff up - I have homework.
This sig no verb.
Its not permuted based on the terms of use by your ISP to share your connection. Otherwise we would just share our cable with 6 or so homes next to us. heck I'd just run ethernet if the wifi was inadequate. You would need the government telling ISPs that they can't limit that kind of use.
I work for a small ISP that needs that small monthly fee to provide service to many homes. If you share our $19 a month we would die off and you would be at the mercy of comcast who would certainly raise there prices if they want to. An option may be various layers of mesh networking owned by the people who pay a shared fee for a backbone. Otherwise operators need to get paid for that expensive last mile connection to homes.
Here in the Netherlands a large cable TV and Internet service provider called Ziggo is doing a pilot program with turning everybody's home cable modem into a public wireless access point. They plan on rolling this out to their entire service area. Of course the public traffic is kept completely separated from the cable modem owner's private Internet connection, and Ziggo say that it won't affect their connection speed. I don't know whether the public Internet access offered this way is actually free (I suspect not, you'll probably have to pay Ziggo). More information: http://www.speedguide.net/news/companies-to-provide-wireless-internet-access-by-4933.
This is a STUPID idea ... particularly when governments around the world are installing hardware and software to SPY on people. Being able to lock them out is a necessity to you keeping your privacy unless you want a TYRANNICAL WORLD of 1984 (Orwell's famous classic book and movie) to be a reality or maybe V for Vendetta !
Rethink what you are proposing folks. Its not about having something to hide. Its about keeping your FREEDOMS and your PRIVACY from PRYING EYES !
I pay for the bandwidth. I will determine who uses it. Also there are security and privacy problems with opening up a private network to the general public. I never even set up WI-fi here until I could set up a list of allowed mac addresses.
sounds like they want to test the next venture into the legal system, at everyone else's expense.
ever since Doctorow joined the EFF, it's become the Electronic Fuckface Foundation.
So isn't this just advocating for the "Linus" model on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FON?
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
Or for the lazy: http://lartc.org/wondershaper/
Slick script that sets up all your QoS rules for you to prioritize interactive traffic over bulk traffic, makes it easy to limit bandwidth used by a "guest network" interface to an arbitrary limits to leave some headroom for your gear , etc. etc.
Some examples:
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/use-bandwidth-shapers-wondershaper-or-trickle-to-limit-internet-connection-speed.html
Not only are there security ramifications of opening your network like that; but there are also legal ramifications as well. Do I really want to be sued or have my house raided by the police/FBI because my jackass neighbor or some random person decided to use torrent or look at subversive material on my connection? No.
The cell phone lobbyist.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Why can't these things be from the top down?
I don't make very much money. Why do I (and people like me) have to be the ones who foot the bill for this kind of idea?
If some group of people want internet to be free for everyone, then they should lobby the government and the ISPs, not private citizens!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Are you kidding? It makes no sense whatsoever for an ISP to terminate a customer's account because he hit their arbitrary bandwidth limit! At worst they should disable his account until the next billing period. A better option would be to charge an overage fee, like any other ISP with half a brain. A better option still would be to throttle the connection until the next billing period. We're talking about computers here. There's absolutely no reason their system can't automatically handle this in a reasonable way.
Imagine if the water department told you that you could only use 500 gallons a month, and if you went over it once, they'd shut off your water supply forever. Imagine if the electric company told you that you had to monitor your own meter, and that if you used over 200 KWh in a month, they'd never sell you electricity again. And of course, imagine that in both cases, the meters had functions that could automatically throttle or disable the pipe if the limit was reached, and reset when the next billing period started. But they refused to use those functions and instead lay in waiting for the opportunity to close your account forever, like guerilla tour guides waiting in the jungle to ambush the paying customers they just led in.
This is like giving the customer a rope, already tied into a noose, placing it over his neck, tying the other end to the ceiling, and then telling him, "Here's the rope you ordered. But don't walk too far away from this spot or you'll hang yourself. And if you do that, we'll shoot you."
What we're seeing here is why ISPs need regulation. Where monopolies or duopolies exist, customers are no longer valuable to companies. These companies would rather throw away customers than invest in their capacity, because that would reduce quarterly profits.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."