in the CPAN FAQ: "Most, though not all, modules on CPAN are licensed under the GNU Public License (GPL)..." Not the ones people actually use. The first thing I check before using a CPAN library is what it's license. Almost all are dual, like perl itself. If it is GPL only, I avoid like the plague.
GPL'ing libraries used by "high level" languages like Perl, PHP or Python should be punishable by death. What a cruel joke.
And before I get a snippy retort about "if you dont like it, dont use it", guess what, I dont contribute to any GPL projects. I'll use a GPL product only if I'm 100% sure I'll never need to touch the source code. If there is any chance I might want to tweak the code, it is BSD or the like.
"You are a leech" you might say. Yeah, well, guess which projects get any patches or improvements I might make? Hint: it ain't GPL projects. GPL'd software is about as useful as closed-source alternatives, only usually of much lower quality.
Sweet, my very own twitter comment! I feel so special!
Tell me good sir why it is important if the monitoring software was easy to bypass? All that needs to happen for the criminal to go back to jail is proof they bypassed it in the first place regardless of what they did on the bypassed connection.
By the way, I've had far more Linux boxes hacked than I've had Windows boxes. In fact, in the last ten years I've had about seven breakins on linux and exactly one "break in" on windows (though I'd define it more as getting botted, not broken in). Take that as you will.
Clearly you haven't considered the case were the extra-terrestrial life isn't using Free Software (tm). RMS would probably show up at the alien prime ministers door and demand a meeting. I mean, alien software should be Free(tm) man, Free(tm). It is unethical for alien programmers to implement space ship software for alien money.... Course, the counter-troll is to assume that by definition, an advanced civilization has to be using Free Software (tm). Clearly if they were using Non-Free Software (tm), they'd never be able to fly over to earth in the first place.... And the counter-counter troll is to ask why they always crash into our planet if their alien Free Software (tm) was so good.
And I'm glad my taxdollars aren't paying to port the software to every asshat's pet OS on the planet. Contrary to "free as in freedom" or whatever, it costs real cash money to port the software. That cash comes from my wallet.
You want a convict to use your pet OS so bad, why dont you port it for us?
At least here in Washington State, the city elects a "cable franchise" that is granted access to use the city's cable infrastructure. The city has an oversight board composed of citizens whose task is to make sure the cable company isn't screwing people.
If you wanna change the system, at least here in Washington, your best bet is to lobby your city government.
I would like to take this minute to extend my middle finger to both the FCC and every single person who works or owns stock in the cable and media industry. You people created a mess with this HDTV stuff and you all should be ashamed of yourself.
At the present time, I *CANNOT* purchase a device that allows me to record shows I currently record in Hi-Def using my SageTV. Worse, I cannot even prove that last claim because there is no definitive list of channels the my local cable company broadcasts in the clear. Even worse is that there is no promise that the cable company will suddenly flip the switch and deny my access to any given channel.
You will note that as a customer and a citizen of my region, I am willing and able to purchase:
$1,500 for a LCD Hi-Def TV
$1,000 in computer upgrades
Up to $10/mo more in cable fee's
It is with great regret and much pain that I announce today that I will not be spending that money. Unless I can record my favorite shows on the History Channel or Discovery Channel in hi-def, I will never purchase or upgrade my existing television equipment. I will never upgrade my cable plan and should the cable plan I subscribe to become unavailable, I shall cancel the plan and throw my equipment out the window. I can only hope the City, who selects our fine cable company (Comcast), will send a garbage truck to pick it up. Please have it noted this is not a "protest" or a "boycott" but a simple economic decision. It is not worth investing in new television equipment unless I can reliably insure that I can record my favorite shows in Hi-Def.
As a citizen of my region and customer of of my cable company this is my only demand:
Allow my computer to record unmolested hi-def content that has the same quality and capability as those who lease cable owned set-top-boxes or those who own Tivo's
Let it be known, as an advocate of home-brew systems, this shall be my plan:
Create a community website that lists what channels are currently in the clear for a region
Provide a user friendly guide to understanding "hi-def" including terms like "QAM" and "5c"
Provide a user friendly guide to constructing systems that can record and play back hi-def content.
Provide resources for citizens to lobby their cable company and local government.
I shall hope by providing a platform for such discourse, we as a community and pressure our government and cable industry to provide us the same access to our favorite shows as those who currently enjoy them.
but they do decrease usability and increase support costs. I think it really boils down to 802.11b/g/* isn't very usable to begin with and this is the true source the problem. Every client has a shitty implementation as a result - they all just suck in different ways:-)
But it would make more sense for "unauthorized" to be defined such that the user is only in violation if they actually break a security layer. Sadly, I dont think the problem is with the law but the security layer and the device itself. This is a tech problem, not a legal problem.
The device and the protocol needs to improve so these kinds of cases don't happen. They need to be designed such that it would be impossible to to access a network without prior *human* authorization. And it needs to work the minute you plug into the wall when you take it out of the box from Target.
What do you mean "connects by default" unless you mean is just connects without asking? Are you saying it shouldn't even show unsecured networks in the list without checking some hidden box somewhere?
Every Vista machine I have got connects only to unsecured networks by default You are trolling, but in case anybody believes this and thus doesn't try Vista...
Vista gives you a nice fat warning before you connect to any kind of insecure wireless network. You must first click "yes" before it connects. Post SP2, XP did this as well. XP did not, however, let you modify your file & printer sharing, your media sharing, and some other stuff based on the access point.
Now, unless I'm missing something, OS X (at least "jaguar" or whatever) will be more than happy to connect to any old unsecured network without telling you. In fact, in my observation it sometimes likes to connect to my neighbors unsecure network over my own secure one seemingly at random and without even telling me it just hopped over. If anybody should be raked in the coals over poorly implemented WiFi, it is Apple.
It isn't the cops job to find that stuff out before they arrest you. In the US, the cop just needs reasonable suspicion to arrest you. Just because you are arrested doesn't mean you are guilty you know. That is what we have courts for.
- The undesired user did not cross physically into the owners property
- The undesired user likely did not deprive the owner of use of his resource
- The owner made no steps to prevent the undesired user from using his resource
Good ones, even if a bit abstract.
Your weakest defense would be "did not physically cross into the owners property". As a prosecutor, I'd argue that the physical location of the suspect does not matter. Assuming there was little case-law for unsecured wireless access, I'd probably be able to connect the act of connecting to the access point using case law surrounding almost any of the analogies you see here on slashdot but I'd probably really go for case involving other types of computer crimes. Bottom line, I could probably demonstrate to a judge that the fact that you did not cross into my physical property is irrelevant. If I nail this bullet point, I'm 75% done with my case.
The undesired user likely did not deprive the owner of use of his resource This kind of argument doesn't matter as far as guilt - you either commited a crime or you didn't. It sure as hell matters for sentencing though. "Your honor, in the entire year my client has been connecting to this access point, he only used $15 worth of bandwidth". Unless the defendant did something besides browse slashdot, which probably would translate into other more severe charges besides just "trespass", any reasonable judge would have a hard time giving him anything more than a small fine.
The owner made no steps to prevent the undesired user from using his resource This only matters in a civil case where you are the owner of the access point and you are suing the guy who jacked your internet. In a civil case were the defendant could show the owner knew the risks he was taking, it might get the defendant off the hook. If the owner did *not* know the risks, the case would get more interesting and beyond what I could predict since I'm not a laywer.
Maybe my company name is Free Heh... now you are getting hard core. What if the name of the access point was that of a well known ISP in your area? Heh, face it, we are on the same page. No point in going further down the typical slashdot path of debating semantics.
I wonder if there is even a demand for a protocol that has such a flag. Heck, isn't there 802.11n or something now? Does that protocol have any more meta data than b or g? In another thread like this one, somebody said something like this about coffee shops. We'd need the protocol to have a flag for "customer use only" too:-)
Honestly, I'd say the best bet might be a textual agreement that the access point owner can write. Make the client confirm it before connecting. Assume that not having any agreement is "private use only"
He has every right to use anything on a public right of way. What about the water from the fire hydrant? Can he use that? Some times stop signs get hit by a car and fall over. Since the stop sign is no longer connected to anything and it is on public land, I assume that it is okay to bring home and put on his wall, right? I mean, since the city clearly hasn't fixed it yet, obviously it is fine to take right?
Sometimes they put an electrical outlet inside of an unlocked door on street light bases. Can the cop write a legally ticket a street musician who uses it without a permit?
In fact he should probably sue the owner of the wireless router as to why his signal was leaking out to a public right of way. Go ahead and try. Anybody can sue for anything. Doesn't mean you will win or even have a case.
If the law is going to ignore the pollution of public land by the owner of the wifi router the least the wifi router owner can do is share the resource I assume you'll be defining "pollution" when you go to the courtroom stand, right?
She'd get hauled into court, pay a hopefully small fine and than go home to write a really, really, really nasty letter to all kinds of assholes yelling at them for letting Apple configure a laptop in a way that by default had her breaking the law. Maybe some law guy takes up her case and they sue Apple computer for selling her a laptop that had her breaking the law without her knowledge. Hopefully Apple "thinks different" and writes the next version of their software to keep their customers in check with the law.
The law is the law, yo. You break it, you pay. That doesn't mean you can't go after the guys who sold you the product (doesn't mean you'd win either).
If this poor sod used DHCP......valid contract I don't see a signature on that "contract", flyingfsck, do you? I don't even remember you asking me verbally, let alone in writing. Seems to me there is no "valid contract" after all...
I agree, the router isn't able to do what I want. The hypothetical "me" wants to set an unsecured network because I have a lot of people who visit and it is always a pain in the ass to set them up.
Having a "public access" bit would be useful depending only on the implementation. Maybe extend it the protocol to have the client agree to some kind of terms and conditions. At minimum make it part of the spec that the client *must* acknowledge they are connecting to a private network. Sure they could hack around that in the client, but they just shot themselves in the foot.
Even still, I suspect all you'd need to do in modern day 802.11b/g is just name your access point "FreeWiFi" and you'd be set from a legal standpoint. Worst case the defense attorney would have you on the stand so you could tell the judge your intent.
leaving my door unlocked does not invalidate my contents insurance So having a clause like that in a contract would be invalid?
I just like it more black and white It isn't really that hard for a judge to determine what "FreeWifi", "ConnectHere" or "Internet libre" mean. As long as the intent is pretty clear. "FreeAccess" is very different than "sallyapartment" after all.
The cop might still arrest the Mr. Laptop (and depending on the situation, they could very well be a dick) but no judge would sentence somebody connecting to an access point when the defendant's lawyer brings you, the owner, to the stand and and you say "yes your honor, I really don't care who connects to this access point".
I truly feel for those disadvantaged neighbors of mine who may not be able to afford bandwidth Huh? Do they have the phone? Do they have cable? Maybe they dont want high-speed internet.
setting up city provided wi-fi throughout disadvantaged neighborhoods to help fight this new sociological issue HEADLINE: Child uses taxpayer funded internet to download porn! Mr. No-Tax: You mean my tax dollars are paying for kids to download porn!?!?! This is an outrage!!! Crying Lady: This is an outrage!! Won't somebody please think of the children!!
Not my problem the FCC is a bunch of idiots. You are still stealing my internet. Besides, even if it was a licensed band like cell phone bands or clearwire, you'd still be stealing my internet.
dishonestly obtain free internet access I don't like to secure it because it is a pain when I have clients over. I didn't say you could use my internet, did I?
However, it becomes a very hard argument if an unauthorized user connects to a securable but unsecured access point, then gets a DHCP response with a default route, and then the default router passes traffic. The host network computers act in every meaningful way as if the intruder is allowed, so why should the unauthorized user assume differently? Prosecutor: Did you, peacefinder, connect to the access point named 'dungeon' and proceed to post to Slashdot? peacefinder: Yes Ma'am Prosecutor: Are you aware that you were trespassing on Mr. Smith's access point? peacefinder: Yes, but your honor, their router gave me an IP address, how was I to know? Prosecutor: So you were aware that connecting to an access point regardless of it being secure is criminal tresspass, yes? peacefinder: Yes, but your honor... blah blah blah Prosecutor: I rest my case.
Now, make the access point name be "FreeInternet" and see what happens.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the TCP/IP stack is a rewrite. Assuming this bug is somewhere in the TCP/IP stack, this is a prime example of why you should *not* rewrite.
GPL'ing libraries used by "high level" languages like Perl, PHP or Python should be punishable by death. What a cruel joke.
And before I get a snippy retort about "if you dont like it, dont use it", guess what, I dont contribute to any GPL projects. I'll use a GPL product only if I'm 100% sure I'll never need to touch the source code. If there is any chance I might want to tweak the code, it is BSD or the like.
"You are a leech" you might say. Yeah, well, guess which projects get any patches or improvements I might make? Hint: it ain't GPL projects. GPL'd software is about as useful as closed-source alternatives, only usually of much lower quality.
Sweet, my very own twitter comment! I feel so special!
Tell me good sir why it is important if the monitoring software was easy to bypass? All that needs to happen for the criminal to go back to jail is proof they bypassed it in the first place regardless of what they did on the bypassed connection.
By the way, I've had far more Linux boxes hacked than I've had Windows boxes. In fact, in the last ten years I've had about seven breakins on linux and exactly one "break in" on windows (though I'd define it more as getting botted, not broken in). Take that as you will.
Clearly you haven't considered the case were the extra-terrestrial life isn't using Free Software (tm). RMS would probably show up at the alien prime ministers door and demand a meeting. I mean, alien software should be Free(tm) man, Free(tm). It is unethical for alien programmers to implement space ship software for alien money. ... Course, the counter-troll is to assume that by definition, an advanced civilization has to be using Free Software (tm). Clearly if they were using Non-Free Software (tm), they'd never be able to fly over to earth in the first place. ... And the counter-counter troll is to ask why they always crash into our planet if their alien Free Software (tm) was so good.
And I'm glad my taxdollars aren't paying to port the software to every asshat's pet OS on the planet. Contrary to "free as in freedom" or whatever, it costs real cash money to port the software. That cash comes from my wallet.
You want a convict to use your pet OS so bad, why dont you port it for us?
At least here in Washington State, the city elects a "cable franchise" that is granted access to use the city's cable infrastructure. The city has an oversight board composed of citizens whose task is to make sure the cable company isn't screwing people.
If you wanna change the system, at least here in Washington, your best bet is to lobby your city government.
At the present time, I *CANNOT* purchase a device that allows me to record shows I currently record in Hi-Def using my SageTV. Worse, I cannot even prove that last claim because there is no definitive list of channels the my local cable company broadcasts in the clear. Even worse is that there is no promise that the cable company will suddenly flip the switch and deny my access to any given channel.
You will note that as a customer and a citizen of my region, I am willing and able to purchase:
It is with great regret and much pain that I announce today that I will not be spending that money. Unless I can record my favorite shows on the History Channel or Discovery Channel in hi-def, I will never purchase or upgrade my existing television equipment. I will never upgrade my cable plan and should the cable plan I subscribe to become unavailable, I shall cancel the plan and throw my equipment out the window. I can only hope the City, who selects our fine cable company (Comcast), will send a garbage truck to pick it up. Please have it noted this is not a "protest" or a "boycott" but a simple economic decision. It is not worth investing in new television equipment unless I can reliably insure that I can record my favorite shows in Hi-Def.
As a citizen of my region and customer of of my cable company this is my only demand:
Allow my computer to record unmolested hi-def content that has the same quality and capability as those who lease cable owned set-top-boxes or those who own Tivo's
Let it be known, as an advocate of home-brew systems, this shall be my plan:
I shall hope by providing a platform for such discourse, we as a community and pressure our government and cable industry to provide us the same access to our favorite shows as those who currently enjoy them.
Thank You.
The device and the protocol needs to improve so these kinds of cases don't happen. They need to be designed such that it would be impossible to to access a network without prior *human* authorization. And it needs to work the minute you plug into the wall when you take it out of the box from Target.
What do you mean "connects by default" unless you mean is just connects without asking? Are you saying it shouldn't even show unsecured networks in the list without checking some hidden box somewhere?
Only one of those two you listed do the right thing. Guess which one it is?
Vista gives you a nice fat warning before you connect to any kind of insecure wireless network. You must first click "yes" before it connects. Post SP2, XP did this as well. XP did not, however, let you modify your file & printer sharing, your media sharing, and some other stuff based on the access point.
Now, unless I'm missing something, OS X (at least "jaguar" or whatever) will be more than happy to connect to any old unsecured network without telling you. In fact, in my observation it sometimes likes to connect to my neighbors unsecure network over my own secure one seemingly at random and without even telling me it just hopped over. If anybody should be raked in the coals over poorly implemented WiFi, it is Apple.
It isn't the cops job to find that stuff out before they arrest you. In the US, the cop just needs reasonable suspicion to arrest you. Just because you are arrested doesn't mean you are guilty you know. That is what we have courts for.
Those damn developers, they always forget to install the Faraday cage don't they?
Good ones, even if a bit abstract.
Your weakest defense would be "did not physically cross into the owners property". As a prosecutor, I'd argue that the physical location of the suspect does not matter. Assuming there was little case-law for unsecured wireless access, I'd probably be able to connect the act of connecting to the access point using case law surrounding almost any of the analogies you see here on slashdot but I'd probably really go for case involving other types of computer crimes. Bottom line, I could probably demonstrate to a judge that the fact that you did not cross into my physical property is irrelevant. If I nail this bullet point, I'm 75% done with my case.
The undesired user likely did not deprive the owner of use of his resource This kind of argument doesn't matter as far as guilt - you either commited a crime or you didn't. It sure as hell matters for sentencing though. "Your honor, in the entire year my client has been connecting to this access point, he only used $15 worth of bandwidth". Unless the defendant did something besides browse slashdot, which probably would translate into other more severe charges besides just "trespass", any reasonable judge would have a hard time giving him anything more than a small fine.
The owner made no steps to prevent the undesired user from using his resource This only matters in a civil case where you are the owner of the access point and you are suing the guy who jacked your internet. In a civil case were the defendant could show the owner knew the risks he was taking, it might get the defendant off the hook. If the owner did *not* know the risks, the case would get more interesting and beyond what I could predict since I'm not a laywer.
I wonder if there is even a demand for a protocol that has such a flag. Heck, isn't there 802.11n or something now? Does that protocol have any more meta data than b or g? In another thread like this one, somebody said something like this about coffee shops. We'd need the protocol to have a flag for "customer use only" too
Honestly, I'd say the best bet might be a textual agreement that the access point owner can write. Make the client confirm it before connecting. Assume that not having any agreement is "private use only"
Some times stop signs get hit by a car and fall over. Since the stop sign is no longer connected to anything and it is on public land, I assume that it is okay to bring home and put on his wall, right? I mean, since the city clearly hasn't fixed it yet, obviously it is fine to take right?
Sometimes they put an electrical outlet inside of an unlocked door on street light bases. Can the cop write a legally ticket a street musician who uses it without a permit?
In fact he should probably sue the owner of the wireless router as to why his signal was leaking out to a public right of way. Go ahead and try. Anybody can sue for anything. Doesn't mean you will win or even have a case.
If the law is going to ignore the pollution of public land by the owner of the wifi router the least the wifi router owner can do is share the resource I assume you'll be defining "pollution" when you go to the courtroom stand, right?
She'd get hauled into court, pay a hopefully small fine and than go home to write a really, really, really nasty letter to all kinds of assholes yelling at them for letting Apple configure a laptop in a way that by default had her breaking the law. Maybe some law guy takes up her case and they sue Apple computer for selling her a laptop that had her breaking the law without her knowledge. Hopefully Apple "thinks different" and writes the next version of their software to keep their customers in check with the law.
The law is the law, yo. You break it, you pay. That doesn't mean you can't go after the guys who sold you the product (doesn't mean you'd win either).
Having a "public access" bit would be useful depending only on the implementation. Maybe extend it the protocol to have the client agree to some kind of terms and conditions. At minimum make it part of the spec that the client *must* acknowledge they are connecting to a private network. Sure they could hack around that in the client, but they just shot themselves in the foot.
Even still, I suspect all you'd need to do in modern day 802.11b/g is just name your access point "FreeWiFi" and you'd be set from a legal standpoint. Worst case the defense attorney would have you on the stand so you could tell the judge your intent.
leaving my door unlocked does not invalidate my contents insurance So having a clause like that in a contract would be invalid?
Mr. No-Tax: You mean my tax dollars are paying for kids to download porn!?!?! This is an outrage!!!
Crying Lady: This is an outrage!! Won't somebody please think of the children!!
Not my problem the FCC is a bunch of idiots. You are still stealing my internet. Besides, even if it was a licensed band like cell phone bands or clearwire, you'd still be stealing my internet.
peacefinder: Yes Ma'am
Prosecutor: Are you aware that you were trespassing on Mr. Smith's access point?
peacefinder: Yes, but your honor, their router gave me an IP address, how was I to know?
Prosecutor: So you were aware that connecting to an access point regardless of it being secure is criminal tresspass, yes?
peacefinder: Yes, but your honor... blah blah blah
Prosecutor: I rest my case.
Now, make the access point name be "FreeInternet" and see what happens.