"Just because you think it takes "special equipment" doesn't make it so. Just about any computer can listen in on WiFi traffic easily, with no special equipment and just a couple of mouse clicks. "
And like almost all of the people here who have argued with me, you failed to get the point.
It is one thing to detect or even record the signal and the packets. It is quite another to determine the contents of those packets and turn those contents into something intelligible.
The first part is easy. But it is also mostly useless by itself. If you want to get to the real communication content, there is a whole lot more work (and yes, special equipment) involved.
"Open WiFi is the same as open walkie-talkies, but with shorter range and data."
No, it isn't. You can connect to my open wifi router, but you still can't hear what *I* am saying, without special equipment. You can get the signals, and record the packets, but knowing what I am saying on my Skype call, or seeing the video I am watching, are very different things.
"This ruling just said it is not explicitly barred as wiretapping."
I know. But I think the judge was wrong. He did not distinguish between the signal and its content.
Telephone analogy: courts have ruled that a "pen register" -- detecting when a telephone call was made, and its source and destination -- is not the same as a wiretap because it does not actually intercept the communication. Therefore the standards of evidence to get a pen register are a lot looser. You still need a judge's permission, and evidence, but not as much as for "probable cause", which you need for a tap.
In the same respect: detecting and recording packets can tell you the source and destination IP addresses... but by itself, it doesn't interpret the content of the communication. That requires more sophisticated tools. And, I argue, should have more stringent protection.
Another example: I can build a device that will let me hear conversations going on within someone's home, from half a mile to a mile away. Without any physical presence in the home or radio transmitters. (In fact they are relatively easy to make.) Should the use of it be legal? It makes use of physical phenomena that are publicly available to anybody. Even so, it is illegal for law enforcement to use one without a warrant.
But that brings us back to the kind of situation that many legal people label "perverse": the law allowing citizens to engage in forms of surveillance that are illegal for law enforcement.
Still, as I see it, that's better than the other way around.
"Equipment and knowledge no more sophisticated than required for pointing a camera at an open window and pressing the 'record' button."
Which in most U.S. states would be illegal, which is kind of the point here.
But no. Most everyone in this thread has been failing to distinguish between the recording of packets, and actually determining what the contents of those packets represent.
You can get the signal. You can get the packets. But from there, to figure out who I was talking to on Skype, or what video I was watching, requires more sophisticated knowledge and equipment.
"No, it is not nor was it EVER illegal to receive an in-the-clear satellite broadcast if you didn't subscribe. This is why "pay" channels were scrambled early on (hello HBO)."
My mistake. It is illegal to pirate the signal, but not to receive it.
Ham radio, however, is a completely different matter of regulation and law. It is hardly relevant.
"My Mac with factory installed software can dump entire communication streams which I use regularly to debug networking problems."
Great. So dump my traffic. But that still won't get you anywhere. Using just those tools, tell me what web page I was visiting.
You can't.
At the very most, you might tell what IP address I was receiving packets from. But that still doesn't give you the meaningful content of the communication. Especially if it were audio or video.
That is to say: you can detect and record packets, sure. But you can do that until the cows come home and still not be able to see what web page I am visiting, without more specialized tools and the knowledge to use them.
You (like so many others in this thread) are confusing the idea of receiving signals from my wifi, with actually intercepting and understanding my own communications via wifi. Those are two different things.
My wifi is open. You could connect to my router. You could record the packets that come from it even without connecting to it.
But actually making sense of the content is a completely different matter. Without special software, at the very least, you can't see what web page I am browsing, or listen in to my Skype calls.
"The difference here is that the wires are private property, and tapping them requires attaching something to them (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this Slashdot...this would surprise me)."
That is true, but that is not "the reason" that tapping telephones is illegal. It is illegal because it is an invasion of privacy. If it were not an invasion of privacy (the worse crime), I am sure you could get them on some kind of trespassing charge. But that's completely beside the point.
"If I were to put a user-friendly app on the apple and android app stores so that anyone (the "probably 98% of the community" you mention) could have a neatly tabulated output of the content of nearby WEP-protected traffic, what effect does that have on law enforcement from your described perspective?"
You already have that, if you have a Mac. Open a command shell and type in "Kismet".
And it has no bearing on my point at all. It might record, but by itself it doesn't decrypt anything or decipher the contents of the packets.
"What you're claiming is like claiming that someone has an expectation of privacy in public if they speak a different language compared to the national norm, it takes deliberate effort to intercept that discussion as well."
No, it isn't. What you people are failing to get, is that in order to understand a wifi communication, as opposed to just detecting the signal, you need the right equipment and technical knowledge, and time.
To understand a conversation in a foreign language, you only need to understand the language.
I invite you to stand outside my house and listen, with no more than a cell phone or laptop with factory software, to my wifi signals all you want. You won't get very far.
"By your logic, if someone has a public conversation in Chinese, it should be illegal to listen to them since proficiency in the Chinese language is "special knowledge".
Not even. Not the same thing at all. You only need someone who understands Chinese. You don't need special equipment or TECHNICAL knowledge.
"If you chose to send your personal information via Wi-Fi, cell phone, or other radio signal, you are sending that information as far as the signal will carry it to whomever is in range. If you were having a loud argument in your apartment, would you expect your neighbors to not listen in?"
You are making the same mistake that other poster did. You are conflating the signal itself with the communication content of that signal.
If someone shouted audible wifi packets through my wall, I could hear them but I would still not understand them. Deciphering the actual communication content of those packets would take special equipment, technical knowledge, and deliberate effort.
"If you want to argue that ~88% is a "good bit LESS than 95%", then you are or course welcome."
No, thanks to your reference, I have solid evidence that a good bit less than of 95% of "the experts" (less than 90% actually) support AGW theory -- and that is any AGW, not just CO2.
But even that wasn't my argument. I'm sticking to my original argument: it's not "nearly all". I am not -- and have not been -- arguing any more than that.
"From this statement, I can only gauge that you are too incompetent to judge your own incompetence."
MY incompetence??? Hahahaha! It is to laugh. First you insult me, then you try to support your insult by citing a survey that did not support your position -- getting your statistics quite wrong -- then when you are shown you are wrong you deny that statistical analyses (which is what surveys are all about) use estimates of sampling error, or confidence levels? Haha. That is, quite literally, Statistics 101 material.
"The signal is in public space. This is why satellite providers ENCRYPT their signals."
That is only HALF of the issue here. No, that is not why they encrypt their signals. Not directly, anyway.
If a satellite company does not intend for a channel to be public (i.e., it is supposed to be subscription-only), then it is illegal to intercept that channel and watch it if you haven't paid. Even if they are NOT encrypted.
They encrypt their signals because they found that the law was not enough, and people "stole" their transmissions anyway. But the point here is that it is illegal, okay? Keep that in mind.
Please explain why open, unencrypted satellite transmissions should be considered "private" under the law, if my own transmissions are not.
"Err, no, it requires much more knowledge, intent and work to tap a phone line. To "invade your privacy" over wi-fi all you need is a run-of-the-mill adapter and "Automatically connect to public networks" setting."
That's not even remotely true. My wifi is open, but my network is not.
Anybody can connect to my wifi and get on the Internet. But they can't get into the computers in my home from there.
So your case is very different. If I left my hard drives on an open network that anybody could access just by connecting, I would not have any "reasonable expectation of privacy" either. But that's not what this is about. This is about intercepting internet communications over wifi. In other words, see what web pages I was browsing, and so on. That's another matter entirely, and it does require certain equipment and software. You can't just do it with typical factory laptops or cellphones with typical factory software.
"Following your reasoning, it's legal to sit behind someone talking, but it's illegal to listen and understand."
You can't just connect to my wifi, and see what I am doing on the internet. It doesn't work that way. Even if you do connect to my wifi, you have to actively work to get at that information, using special equipment and software. So no, it's not like just sitting next to someone and listening. It's a lot more like sitting some distance away, but hiding a microphone on one of them.
Compared to the tools needed to listen to somebody's internet traffic, the tools for tapping regular telephones are ridiculously simple. I can show you how to do it with a couple of alligator clips, a $0.25 capacitor from Radio Shack, and a $2.00 transistor radio.
"The fact that you said this: Statistically, if the group they cited is 95%, it is almost certain that the broader domain of experts is a good bit LESS than 95%."
Yes. If you insist on citing Doran (my original comment was limited to the statement on Skeptical Science, not the Doran paper), then your own reference says so. Do you understand elementary math, or not?
"Doran (2009) found approx. than 95%, not less. Others have found more. But that's just splitting hairs"
No, they didn't, and no, it isn't. You are playing the "no true Scotsman" game again.
They say the highest-percentage group, i.e., the climatologists who are active publishers on the subject, came out at 97.4%. Granted.
BUT THAT IS NOT ALL THE "DOMAIN EXPERTS"!!! That is only a small subset of them.
The next highest group, the "active publishers" on the subject, more numerous than the first, came out at only about 90%. Add just those two groups alone -- still not anywhere near "all" the experts -- and your overall percentage is already below 95%, and it only drops from there as you add people who may not be as actively involved but who are still "experts" in the field. It says so, right in the paper, and you can see it in that graph. It's right in your face.
The only way you can get that 97% figure -- again as I have already pointed out -- is to play the "no true Scotsman" game and exclude many of those same "domain experts" mentioned in the original paper cited by OP.
And not only that, but again, Doran was not about just "CO2-based" warming either, which is what most people mean when they say or write "AGW". It includes other anthropogenic causes like land-use changes.
So yeah. Very simple mathematics shows that even the Doran study claims the percentage of "experts" who say AGW is true falls well below 95% on average. If you include climatologists their average drops below 90%. For ANY anthropogenic warming, not just CO2!
QED. If you want to believe your own reference, that is. My point is made.
"And anybody who does any work in the social sciences would read a poll of 95% (or even 85%) as "nearly all", 'cause that is just the nature of polls."
No, they wouldn't. If they are doing scientific studies, they carefully measure and calibrate their samples, estimate the sampling error and uncertainty, and gauge from that. They don't just pull a percentage out of the air and call it good.
But that's still beside the point. Repeat: according to that very paper you cited (Doran), in order to get anywhere near that 95% figure, you have to exclude most of the people who would be considered experts, and take just a specific subset. That is the "no true Scotsman" game, in full glory.
"If you actually read the study that produces the 95% figure (Doran 2009), you'll see what the broader domain of experts say -- all the way down to those on the blogsphere."
What makes you think I haven't read it? You don't pay attention very well, do you?
I have already pointed out that Doran is a straw-man argument, IF you are talking about CO2-based warming (what most people mean when they refer to AGW). The questions they asked do not specifically relate to CO2-based warming. Rather (example: "Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?"), it encompasses such things as land-use change, which many scientists consider to be a greater factor than CO2.
Nobody is debating here (at least I am not) whether "global warming" has been taking place. But if you're talking about CO2-based warming, that page on Skeptical Science is, indeed, a joke when it comes to valid arguments. It's not incorrect, but it easily gives people the wrong impression.
And that was all I was arguing. I do not intend to get into a debate here with you about climate science in general. I was talking about specific instances of misleading comments, on a specific blog page. (And the one about Peiser is a real doozy. As a statement of "science", it should be taken out and shot. It is pure yellow journalism.)
"As such, I fully appreciate the many ways ignorance protects itself."
Again, you read to much into what I wrote. I am very familiar with the topic and I have read a great many of the studies and papers. Keep in mind that the "cognitive bubble" works both ways. There is denial on both sides of the argument. BUT... as I stated before, that is a very different argument than the one I was actually making. I was simply criticizing a blog page for being misleading. That is all.
But so YOU are arguing then, by implication, that less than 95% is "nearly all"? Because that's the only argument you have made here so far, against anything I actually wrote (as opposed to what certain others assumed I meant), that might have some validity. But yes, I would argue that less than 95% is not "nearly all". Hard to say for sure. It would be helpful to know the margins of error.
"If you want privacy, you must at least close your door or even your curtains."
That's a very good analogy. Because in order to intercept someone's wifi communications, you need the technical knowledge and equipment, and to make a deliberate effort to do so. And you call that "public".
By the very same logic, I can say that I could use my special knowledge and some lockpicks, and pick your door lock in only a couple of minutes.
Should I then consider your living room to be "public"?
"*Lending* someone a cell phone is not that same thing, since you don't have to lend anyone wifi equipment."
You are lending them the use of it. You are *allowing* them to use it. You are splitting hairs here that are so fine they may not exist.
"Wifi is readily available outside the home. I can stand in the public street and pick up most signals."
No, you are still missing the point. The signal is readily available... but the contents of those signals are not readily available. It takes special knowledge and equipment to intercept those signals. Sure, those things are: an adapter that can be put into monitor mode, and some sniffing software. Easy to get if you know what you're doing. But the whole point here is that you have to know what you are doing. As simple as it may be to YOU, this is "technical" knowledge that the average citizen does not possess. It is the "average citizen" standard we must go by, not YOUR technical knowledge.
"Sitting in that public space and LISTENING to it is, as far as I'm concerned (and I'm a paranoid libertarian), considered in plain view."
You can listen to it all you like, and it would be unintelligible gibberish. You need additional knowledge and at least the right software to actually intercept the content. That is the whole point.
It actually takes far less knowledge and far simpler equipment to tap a land-line telephone than to intercept wifi content. So by your logic, it should be legal to tap telephones. After all, the wires are right there in public. You can see them on the poles and running to the houses, with your own eyes. No electronics needed.
The point that you have not seemed to get is that it takes deliberate effort to perform such an interception. Someone just walking past with a standard wifi adapter and standard software (probably 98% of the community) would NOT be able to do that. They would have to have particular knowledge and equipment, and make a deliberate effort to do it. Just as someone walking past your house would need to make a deliberate effort to tap your telephone.
"A cop can stand in the street and if you have a huge window and no curtains, if he can see a bag of pot on the table in plain view he can grab it."
Not in this state he couldn't. That is... he could, if he were just walking by and glancing in. But if he were standing there, staring through my window, watching what I do, that is illegal "surveillance" in this state and he (or anyone else who did it) can be prosecuted for it.
Again, the difference is whether it is something that you might just casually pick up as you stroll by, versus a deliberate effort you put forth in order to determine my activities. The latter is generally accepted by society to be wrongful and harmful, unless it is done by law enforcement under authority of a judicial warrant.
"Well, I checked skeptical science, and their "basic" version is: "97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming.". Gee, are you going to argue that 98% is nearly all, and 97% isn't."
The link that was given previously said 95%. Go read it.
And no, I did not argue that 98% is nearly all, and 97% is not. What I argued was that given the criteria stated in the link to Skeptical Science that I was referring to, then the "domain of experts" is quite a bit larger than their narrow sample. Statistically, if the group they cited is 95%, it is almost certain that the broader domain of experts is a good bit LESS than 95%.
"And if you go to wikepedia's page on scientific opinion on climate change, you will find *more* studies."
I am not interested in more studies. Get a f*cking clue here, dude. I am not arguing with you about climate science. What I was criticizing were THE PARTICULAR STATEMENTS MADE BY THE PARTICULAR PEOPLE TO WHOM I WAS REFERRING.
If you want to get in a general argument about climate science, go elsewhere. That isn't what I was arguing and I am not interested in arguing about it at this time.
Our law is supposed to be based on actions and beliefs of the theoretical reasonable, common man (person). Those with technical knowledge beyond the norm are not the standard to judge by.
Because it takes knowledge, equipment, and effort beyond the "common" to intercept the contents of wifi traffic, or a cell phone call, or a land telephone call, we have good reason to expect those communications to be private.
"That don't need a warrant. I've had a few of my letters & packages opened and resealed. Once the item leaves your hand it's no longer protected from government spying."
Yes, they do. Whether they actually get one is another matter (we know the government has broken the law at times), but legally they need either a warrant or probable cause.
"I understand what you're saying about the 4th Amendment, but I can easily imagine a gov't agent back in the 1700s following a couple of people and listening as they have a discussion in public."
You still aren't getting it. When you have a conversation in public there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. Anyone can hear you. When you have a telephone conversation, however, it takes special effort and equipment to listen to your conversation. So it is rather reasonable to expect your conversation to be private. Whether it is a cell phone or land line. (All cell phone traffic is "encapsulated" in packets even when it is not encrypted).
And so is WiFi traffic. While your WiFi might be open, and so it is easy for anyone to detect it or use it (anybody can see you using your cell phone, or borrow it if you let them), actually determining the contents of the communication (i.e., both sides of the "conversation") is another matter. Even your typical sniffer won't do that. It might record those contents but making sense of it takes further work.
So, what it boils down to is that telephone calls and internet traffic are not like public conversations. It takes special effort and tools to intercept those communications. That leads straight to a "reasonable expectation of privacy".
Further, there are already Federal laws against law enforcement using any electronic means to determine any activity in your household that is not readily visible from the outside. Internet use would certainly fall into that category of activity. So this judge's ruling would likely lead to a perverse (but not unheard of) situation in which a regular citizen could intercept communications legally but law enforcement could not.
Slashdot Mirror
"Just because you think it takes "special equipment" doesn't make it so. Just about any computer can listen in on WiFi traffic easily, with no special equipment and just a couple of mouse clicks. "
And like almost all of the people here who have argued with me, you failed to get the point.
It is one thing to detect or even record the signal and the packets. It is quite another to determine the contents of those packets and turn those contents into something intelligible.
The first part is easy. But it is also mostly useless by itself. If you want to get to the real communication content, there is a whole lot more work (and yes, special equipment) involved.
"Open WiFi is the same as open walkie-talkies, but with shorter range and data."
No, it isn't. You can connect to my open wifi router, but you still can't hear what *I* am saying, without special equipment. You can get the signals, and record the packets, but knowing what I am saying on my Skype call, or seeing the video I am watching, are very different things.
"This ruling just said it is not explicitly barred as wiretapping."
I know. But I think the judge was wrong. He did not distinguish between the signal and its content.
Telephone analogy: courts have ruled that a "pen register" -- detecting when a telephone call was made, and its source and destination -- is not the same as a wiretap because it does not actually intercept the communication. Therefore the standards of evidence to get a pen register are a lot looser. You still need a judge's permission, and evidence, but not as much as for "probable cause", which you need for a tap.
In the same respect: detecting and recording packets can tell you the source and destination IP addresses... but by itself, it doesn't interpret the content of the communication. That requires more sophisticated tools. And, I argue, should have more stringent protection.
Another example: I can build a device that will let me hear conversations going on within someone's home, from half a mile to a mile away. Without any physical presence in the home or radio transmitters. (In fact they are relatively easy to make.) Should the use of it be legal? It makes use of physical phenomena that are publicly available to anybody. Even so, it is illegal for law enforcement to use one without a warrant.
But that brings us back to the kind of situation that many legal people label "perverse": the law allowing citizens to engage in forms of surveillance that are illegal for law enforcement.
Still, as I see it, that's better than the other way around.
"Equipment and knowledge no more sophisticated than required for pointing a camera at an open window and pressing the 'record' button."
Which in most U.S. states would be illegal, which is kind of the point here.
But no. Most everyone in this thread has been failing to distinguish between the recording of packets, and actually determining what the contents of those packets represent.
You can get the signal. You can get the packets. But from there, to figure out who I was talking to on Skype, or what video I was watching, requires more sophisticated knowledge and equipment.
"No, it is not nor was it EVER illegal to receive an in-the-clear satellite broadcast if you didn't subscribe. This is why "pay" channels were scrambled early on (hello HBO)."
My mistake. It is illegal to pirate the signal, but not to receive it.
Ham radio, however, is a completely different matter of regulation and law. It is hardly relevant.
"My Mac with factory installed software can dump entire communication streams which I use regularly to debug networking problems."
Great. So dump my traffic. But that still won't get you anywhere. Using just those tools, tell me what web page I was visiting.
You can't.
At the very most, you might tell what IP address I was receiving packets from. But that still doesn't give you the meaningful content of the communication. Especially if it were audio or video.
"All you need."
NO, it isn't.
That is to say: you can detect and record packets, sure. But you can do that until the cows come home and still not be able to see what web page I am visiting, without more specialized tools and the knowledge to use them.
Not even close.
You (like so many others in this thread) are confusing the idea of receiving signals from my wifi, with actually intercepting and understanding my own communications via wifi. Those are two different things.
My wifi is open. You could connect to my router. You could record the packets that come from it even without connecting to it.
But actually making sense of the content is a completely different matter. Without special software, at the very least, you can't see what web page I am browsing, or listen in to my Skype calls.
"The difference here is that the wires are private property, and tapping them requires attaching something to them (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this Slashdot...this would surprise me)."
That is true, but that is not "the reason" that tapping telephones is illegal. It is illegal because it is an invasion of privacy. If it were not an invasion of privacy (the worse crime), I am sure you could get them on some kind of trespassing charge. But that's completely beside the point.
"If I were to put a user-friendly app on the apple and android app stores so that anyone (the "probably 98% of the community" you mention) could have a neatly tabulated output of the content of nearby WEP-protected traffic, what effect does that have on law enforcement from your described perspective?"
You already have that, if you have a Mac. Open a command shell and type in "Kismet".
And it has no bearing on my point at all. It might record, but by itself it doesn't decrypt anything or decipher the contents of the packets.
"What you're claiming is like claiming that someone has an expectation of privacy in public if they speak a different language compared to the national norm, it takes deliberate effort to intercept that discussion as well."
No, it isn't. What you people are failing to get, is that in order to understand a wifi communication, as opposed to just detecting the signal, you need the right equipment and technical knowledge, and time.
To understand a conversation in a foreign language, you only need to understand the language.
I invite you to stand outside my house and listen, with no more than a cell phone or laptop with factory software, to my wifi signals all you want. You won't get very far.
"By your logic, if someone has a public conversation in Chinese, it should be illegal to listen to them since proficiency in the Chinese language is "special knowledge".
Not even. Not the same thing at all. You only need someone who understands Chinese. You don't need special equipment or TECHNICAL knowledge.
"If you chose to send your personal information via Wi-Fi, cell phone, or other radio signal, you are sending that information as far as the signal will carry it to whomever is in range. If you were having a loud argument in your apartment, would you expect your neighbors to not listen in?"
You are making the same mistake that other poster did. You are conflating the signal itself with the communication content of that signal.
If someone shouted audible wifi packets through my wall, I could hear them but I would still not understand them. Deciphering the actual communication content of those packets would take special equipment, technical knowledge, and deliberate effort.
"If you want to argue that ~88% is a "good bit LESS than 95%", then you are or course welcome."
No, thanks to your reference, I have solid evidence that a good bit less than of 95% of "the experts" (less than 90% actually) support AGW theory -- and that is any AGW, not just CO2.
But even that wasn't my argument. I'm sticking to my original argument: it's not "nearly all". I am not -- and have not been -- arguing any more than that.
"From this statement, I can only gauge that you are too incompetent to judge your own incompetence."
MY incompetence??? Hahahaha! It is to laugh. First you insult me, then you try to support your insult by citing a survey that did not support your position -- getting your statistics quite wrong -- then when you are shown you are wrong you deny that statistical analyses (which is what surveys are all about) use estimates of sampling error, or confidence levels? Haha. That is, quite literally, Statistics 101 material.
Then you fall back on more insults?
Hahahahahaha!!!
I am done here.
"The signal is in public space. This is why satellite providers ENCRYPT their signals."
That is only HALF of the issue here. No, that is not why they encrypt their signals. Not directly, anyway.
If a satellite company does not intend for a channel to be public (i.e., it is supposed to be subscription-only), then it is illegal to intercept that channel and watch it if you haven't paid. Even if they are NOT encrypted.
They encrypt their signals because they found that the law was not enough, and people "stole" their transmissions anyway. But the point here is that it is illegal, okay? Keep that in mind.
Please explain why open, unencrypted satellite transmissions should be considered "private" under the law, if my own transmissions are not.
"Err, no, it requires much more knowledge, intent and work to tap a phone line. To "invade your privacy" over wi-fi all you need is a run-of-the-mill adapter and "Automatically connect to public networks" setting."
That's not even remotely true. My wifi is open, but my network is not.
Anybody can connect to my wifi and get on the Internet. But they can't get into the computers in my home from there.
So your case is very different. If I left my hard drives on an open network that anybody could access just by connecting, I would not have any "reasonable expectation of privacy" either. But that's not what this is about. This is about intercepting internet communications over wifi. In other words, see what web pages I was browsing, and so on. That's another matter entirely, and it does require certain equipment and software. You can't just do it with typical factory laptops or cellphones with typical factory software.
"Following your reasoning, it's legal to sit behind someone talking, but it's illegal to listen and understand."
You can't just connect to my wifi, and see what I am doing on the internet. It doesn't work that way. Even if you do connect to my wifi, you have to actively work to get at that information, using special equipment and software. So no, it's not like just sitting next to someone and listening. It's a lot more like sitting some distance away, but hiding a microphone on one of them.
Compared to the tools needed to listen to somebody's internet traffic, the tools for tapping regular telephones are ridiculously simple. I can show you how to do it with a couple of alligator clips, a $0.25 capacitor from Radio Shack, and a $2.00 transistor radio.
"The fact that you said this: Statistically, if the group they cited is 95%, it is almost certain that the broader domain of experts is a good bit LESS than 95%."
Yes. If you insist on citing Doran (my original comment was limited to the statement on Skeptical Science, not the Doran paper), then your own reference says so. Do you understand elementary math, or not?
"Doran (2009) found approx. than 95%, not less. Others have found more. But that's just splitting hairs"
No, they didn't, and no, it isn't. You are playing the "no true Scotsman" game again.
Let's take a look at their graph, and look at their own figures, shall we?
They say the highest-percentage group, i.e., the climatologists who are active publishers on the subject, came out at 97.4%. Granted.
BUT THAT IS NOT ALL THE "DOMAIN EXPERTS"!!! That is only a small subset of them.
The next highest group, the "active publishers" on the subject, more numerous than the first, came out at only about 90%. Add just those two groups alone -- still not anywhere near "all" the experts -- and your overall percentage is already below 95%, and it only drops from there as you add people who may not be as actively involved but who are still "experts" in the field. It says so, right in the paper, and you can see it in that graph. It's right in your face.
The only way you can get that 97% figure -- again as I have already pointed out -- is to play the "no true Scotsman" game and exclude many of those same "domain experts" mentioned in the original paper cited by OP.
And not only that, but again, Doran was not about just "CO2-based" warming either, which is what most people mean when they say or write "AGW". It includes other anthropogenic causes like land-use changes.
So yeah. Very simple mathematics shows that even the Doran study claims the percentage of "experts" who say AGW is true falls well below 95% on average. If you include climatologists their average drops below 90%. For ANY anthropogenic warming, not just CO2!
QED. If you want to believe your own reference, that is. My point is made.
"And anybody who does any work in the social sciences would read a poll of 95% (or even 85%) as "nearly all", 'cause that is just the nature of polls."
No, they wouldn't. If they are doing scientific studies, they carefully measure and calibrate their samples, estimate the sampling error and uncertainty, and gauge from that. They don't just pull a percentage out of the air and call it good.
But that's still beside the point. Repeat: according to that very paper you cited (Doran), in order to get anywhere near that 95% figure, you have to exclude most of the people who would be considered experts, and take just a specific subset. That is the "no true Scotsman" game, in full glory.
"If you actually read the study that produces the 95% figure (Doran 2009), you'll see what the broader domain of experts say -- all the way down to those on the blogsphere."
What makes you think I haven't read it? You don't pay attention very well, do you?
I have already pointed out that Doran is a straw-man argument, IF you are talking about CO2-based warming (what most people mean when they refer to AGW). The questions they asked do not specifically relate to CO2-based warming. Rather (example: "Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?"), it encompasses such things as land-use change, which many scientists consider to be a greater factor than CO2.
Nobody is debating here (at least I am not) whether "global warming" has been taking place. But if you're talking about CO2-based warming, that page on Skeptical Science is, indeed, a joke when it comes to valid arguments. It's not incorrect, but it easily gives people the wrong impression.
And that was all I was arguing. I do not intend to get into a debate here with you about climate science in general. I was talking about specific instances of misleading comments, on a specific blog page. (And the one about Peiser is a real doozy. As a statement of "science", it should be taken out and shot. It is pure yellow journalism.)
"As such, I fully appreciate the many ways ignorance protects itself."
Again, you read to much into what I wrote. I am very familiar with the topic and I have read a great many of the studies and papers. Keep in mind that the "cognitive bubble" works both ways. There is denial on both sides of the argument. BUT... as I stated before, that is a very different argument than the one I was actually making. I was simply criticizing a blog page for being misleading. That is all.
But so YOU are arguing then, by implication, that less than 95% is "nearly all"? Because that's the only argument you have made here so far, against anything I actually wrote (as opposed to what certain others assumed I meant), that might have some validity. But yes, I would argue that less than 95% is not "nearly all". Hard to say for sure. It would be helpful to know the margins of error.
"If you want privacy, you must at least close your door or even your curtains."
That's a very good analogy. Because in order to intercept someone's wifi communications, you need the technical knowledge and equipment, and to make a deliberate effort to do so. And you call that "public".
By the very same logic, I can say that I could use my special knowledge and some lockpicks, and pick your door lock in only a couple of minutes.
Should I then consider your living room to be "public"?
"*Lending* someone a cell phone is not that same thing, since you don't have to lend anyone wifi equipment."
You are lending them the use of it. You are *allowing* them to use it. You are splitting hairs here that are so fine they may not exist.
"Wifi is readily available outside the home. I can stand in the public street and pick up most signals."
No, you are still missing the point. The signal is readily available... but the contents of those signals are not readily available. It takes special knowledge and equipment to intercept those signals. Sure, those things are: an adapter that can be put into monitor mode, and some sniffing software. Easy to get if you know what you're doing. But the whole point here is that you have to know what you are doing. As simple as it may be to YOU, this is "technical" knowledge that the average citizen does not possess. It is the "average citizen" standard we must go by, not YOUR technical knowledge.
"Sitting in that public space and LISTENING to it is, as far as I'm concerned (and I'm a paranoid libertarian), considered in plain view."
You can listen to it all you like, and it would be unintelligible gibberish. You need additional knowledge and at least the right software to actually intercept the content. That is the whole point.
It actually takes far less knowledge and far simpler equipment to tap a land-line telephone than to intercept wifi content. So by your logic, it should be legal to tap telephones. After all, the wires are right there in public. You can see them on the poles and running to the houses, with your own eyes. No electronics needed.
The point that you have not seemed to get is that it takes deliberate effort to perform such an interception. Someone just walking past with a standard wifi adapter and standard software (probably 98% of the community) would NOT be able to do that. They would have to have particular knowledge and equipment, and make a deliberate effort to do it. Just as someone walking past your house would need to make a deliberate effort to tap your telephone.
"A cop can stand in the street and if you have a huge window and no curtains, if he can see a bag of pot on the table in plain view he can grab it."
Not in this state he couldn't. That is... he could, if he were just walking by and glancing in. But if he were standing there, staring through my window, watching what I do, that is illegal "surveillance" in this state and he (or anyone else who did it) can be prosecuted for it.
Again, the difference is whether it is something that you might just casually pick up as you stroll by, versus a deliberate effort you put forth in order to determine my activities. The latter is generally accepted by society to be wrongful and harmful, unless it is done by law enforcement under authority of a judicial warrant.
"Well, I checked skeptical science, and their "basic" version is: "97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming.". Gee, are you going to argue that 98% is nearly all, and 97% isn't."
The link that was given previously said 95%. Go read it.
And no, I did not argue that 98% is nearly all, and 97% is not. What I argued was that given the criteria stated in the link to Skeptical Science that I was referring to, then the "domain of experts" is quite a bit larger than their narrow sample. Statistically, if the group they cited is 95%, it is almost certain that the broader domain of experts is a good bit LESS than 95%.
"And if you go to wikepedia's page on scientific opinion on climate change, you will find *more* studies."
I am not interested in more studies. Get a f*cking clue here, dude. I am not arguing with you about climate science. What I was criticizing were THE PARTICULAR STATEMENTS MADE BY THE PARTICULAR PEOPLE TO WHOM I WAS REFERRING.
If you want to get in a general argument about climate science, go elsewhere. That isn't what I was arguing and I am not interested in arguing about it at this time.
To maybe be clearer:
Access to my open wifi is intended to be public. My own communications that go through it are not intended to be public.
I think the judge erred in not distinguishing between the signals themselves and the communication content of those signals.
This.
Our law is supposed to be based on actions and beliefs of the theoretical reasonable, common man (person). Those with technical knowledge beyond the norm are not the standard to judge by.
Because it takes knowledge, equipment, and effort beyond the "common" to intercept the contents of wifi traffic, or a cell phone call, or a land telephone call, we have good reason to expect those communications to be private.
"That don't need a warrant. I've had a few of my letters & packages opened and resealed. Once the item leaves your hand it's no longer protected from government spying."
Yes, they do. Whether they actually get one is another matter (we know the government has broken the law at times), but legally they need either a warrant or probable cause.
"I understand what you're saying about the 4th Amendment, but I can easily imagine a gov't agent back in the 1700s following a couple of people and listening as they have a discussion in public."
You still aren't getting it. When you have a conversation in public there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. Anyone can hear you. When you have a telephone conversation, however, it takes special effort and equipment to listen to your conversation. So it is rather reasonable to expect your conversation to be private. Whether it is a cell phone or land line. (All cell phone traffic is "encapsulated" in packets even when it is not encrypted).
And so is WiFi traffic. While your WiFi might be open, and so it is easy for anyone to detect it or use it (anybody can see you using your cell phone, or borrow it if you let them), actually determining the contents of the communication (i.e., both sides of the "conversation") is another matter. Even your typical sniffer won't do that. It might record those contents but making sense of it takes further work.
So, what it boils down to is that telephone calls and internet traffic are not like public conversations. It takes special effort and tools to intercept those communications. That leads straight to a "reasonable expectation of privacy".
Further, there are already Federal laws against law enforcement using any electronic means to determine any activity in your household that is not readily visible from the outside. Internet use would certainly fall into that category of activity. So this judge's ruling would likely lead to a perverse (but not unheard of) situation in which a regular citizen could intercept communications legally but law enforcement could not.
"What? No, it isn't!"
Yes, it is. A majority is not even close to the same thing as "nearly all". Majority might be true, but "nearly all" is not.