IE6 was the last time MS produced a fair browser rather than a poor "web app" delivery platform. Frankly, anything which doesn't work on IE6 probably doesn't need doing at all - I'm sure the content can be delivered without all the fancy effects.
If you're supplying me an app, choose or spec a client-server protocol / set of remote APIs and write a natively compiled client or one in a VM created for a well-engineered language and built to integrate properly with the native environment. That insidious free market will even be able to create competing front-ends so you get to deliver your services with the user's preferred presentation.
So I was thinking earlier about which artists from each continent will stick in my mind when I look back to music at the beginning of the century. When I contemplated of African music, Ladysmith Black Mambazo came to mind; when I thought of American music, I couldn't get Britney out of my head.
On-topic, since I dislike football and love bees, I actually sat through one whole televised football match just to hear the vuvuzela and enjoy the mental image of a swarm of angry workers greeting the crowd. Unbarbed, of course - I wouldn't want them to waste the ultimate sacrifice on footballers.
News aggregation services like Google News are bound to come out looking more "honest" when viewed from this perspective.
Really? Search for something non-contentious like, say, "Iraq". Almost all top reports are from the usual well-known list of mainstream news agencies and publishers (often Murdoch / government owned) - plus, of course, al "fill them with ex-Western media guys and let them carry on so we can pretend we don't have a news monopoly" Jazeera.
"Honest" would be links to stories from people who haven't been filtered through a million layers of military and foreign office smokescreening, e.g. reports from *shock* Iraqi and other more local journalists.
Google is essentially one big algorithm to reinforce existing human biases, and this applies to both web page sorting and news sorting methods.
Stop using your credit card as a credit line, and start using it as a way to get up to 56 days extra interest on your money plus (often statutory) protections on purchases.
Collective bargaining should only be legal if there's some good that comes from it that outweighs its downsides.
So, let me repeat the question: What part of the bargaining do you think should be outlawed - the bit where employees are allowed to express their views? The bit where people are allowed to not work if they so choose?
The workers should not have the power to undermine the will of the voters as a whole.
The will of the voter is to not impose slavery and to not restrict speech (well, OK, it's the will of a Democratic Republic). This means that a man cannot be compelled to work for a particular employer (no slavery), which means he is welcome to chat with his colleagues about what conditions are acceptable (freedom of speech) and together decide not to work (no slavery) if his employer does not provide those conditions.
If the employer is willing to hire me as non-union then the union should not be allowed to deny me my right to freely associate with and enter into contract with the employer.
OK, you enter into that contract freely with the employer.
And the union freely decides to instruct its members to strike.
And the employer has no employees except you.
And the employer / employer's department cannot do any work.
And the employer dismisses remaining employees.
And you're back where you started: without a salary.
Just because you're a slut to your employer who will tread on his colleague for a lift up the greasy pole, it doesn't mean the majority of the workforce is.
If you don't like unions then you don't like freedom of association, and if you don't like freedom of association then you're in the wrong country.
I see we have a useful idiot. The correct solution to your whine about being underpaid is to demand more pay, not to enviously demand that others doing a similar job are paid less.
Or maybe you think you're so much brighter than people who are paid more than you - in which case go apply for their job.
paying government union workers more than market rate
The market rate is the lowest rate that (i) a suitable worker is prepared to accept; (ii) an employer is prepared to pay.
Why should public service unions be legal, again?
Are you actually asking, "Why should collective bargaining be legal"? What part of the bargaining do you think should be outlawed - the bit where employees are allowed to express their views? The bit where people are allowed to not work if they so choose? Which Eastern nation are you modelling your "only some unions should be legal" assertion on?
If you need to relate to past stories then they should be about how Apple restricts developers/users and not the tenacious ramblings of Dvorak and his ilk. Your "and then Apple will die!!!" strawmen add nothing.
Is Apple showing any signs of dying? No. Does Apple tend toward restricting developers in a way considered stifling by many developers? Yes. Is TFA unlikely speculation? Possibly, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth thinking about.
I thought you Aussies were laid-back, laissez-faire sort of people? Not in the pure capitalism sense, but in the "you mind your business, I'll mind mine and we'll chill together" sense? Why the sudden conservative turn?
He has balls. Bigger balls than your balls and bigger balls than my balls. I guess the point I'm trying to put across is that he has big balls.
So, even if he fails, he has shown that one man is able to wander around the world in a particular way credibly announcing he has sensitive government information without being David Kelly'd. Sure, he has to be white and rich, but that's better than nothing. If there's one thing we can learn from Assange, it's that we're mostly a bunch of fucking cowards not to stand up to Goliath, and we are getting the government we deserve. So, that's two things. Two things we can learn.
If I ask to borrow your lawnmower, I probably mean that I want to use it right now rather than every 15 minutes for the next three months. Which does Apple allow?
Do the right thing: for every app you write, upload user location data every 15 minutes for three months. After that quarter, publish the movements of your users to a site with an innocuous name like, say, www.findoutwhethermyiphoneusingpartnerisacheatingbastard.com. Even if you didn't upload other identifying data, it would be very easy to filter on individuals by listing a few places you know they visit. Indeed, I'm sure any intelligence service worth its secret budget tracks people who may be carrying unregistered mobiles by simply searching a database of movements for records showing presence at (1) fairly precise locations at any sighted times; (2) the most expected typical locations around other times.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the thing with the antenna is a radio.
But it has taken humans far wiser than the average rocket scientist to understand how radio works, in particular to discern its propagation and reception properties.
why in the world would you think there is any more challenge for others to connect and see everything you send?
Because this might only apply to the first computer you pair with, or within the first n units of time of (first?) switching on your device.
Because after you've registered one device, an ownership key might be applied which is somehow also on other machines you have in the house (e.g. hash of your house address when you registered each machine).
Because the house AC power circuit might act as an authentication mechanism to ensure that you're in the same house.
Because the house outer walls might usually be made of something which blocks the signal.
When someone says, "You're dumb for not inferring that something works the way I've learnt that it works," they're almost always guilty of a lack of imagination.
(because the value of the company is lowered, and therefore its stock price)
The stock price of a company is determined by demand for stocks, and there's no a priori reason for demand to be related to "value". When a corporation pays dividends, as BP does, the profits of a company may affect the demand for stocks. But in the case of, say, Apple, it's nothing more than enough investors saying "it looks like Apple's doing well, let's buy some Apple", and the only reason Apple appearing to do well improves stock price is that more people say the same thing.
The assumption that stock price is a formula derived from variables somehow representing company value is what leads to false confidence in the stock market.
Shareholders are protected from personal liability (beyond their investment in the company)
Awful, isn't it? Big business is not about risk/reward but about government protection/reward.
in the case of information you have broadcast in the clear, they have no such reason.
You're being deliberately obtuse. How about assuming that all information transmitted by an individual over radio waves is private unless he makes an explicit pro-active indication otherwise? Assume this whether information is the infrared pattern which can be used to infer your masturbating furiously in the bathroom from across the street or the conversation your competitor is having with his business partner over unsecured wifi.
Explicit indications codified in UK law include where the user of a service has agreed to his transmissions being for public consumption as part of a licence application process, and as such is fully aware in advance that he has no expectation of privacy. This would apply, for example, to commercial and amateur radio broadcasts. WiFi's frequencies may or may not be considered here as implicitly for public consumption, depending on your jurisdiction - either way, it's very different from service users who have agreed by signing some application.
In either case, this merely determines whether the law finds it reasonable for you to intently listen in; whether you can do anything with what you hear is another matter. We move on to the more relevant law:
Sure, keeping copies of packets they sniffed from your network is a bit creepy if they did it on purpose, but the mere fact of having done it is not itself an indication of wrongdoing
Yes it is. Storing a nation's worth of private data produced by others is wrong. Hearing it accidentally is fine. Pruriently listening in to something juicy is rude, and possibly illegal, but it is unlikely to be in the public interest to prosecute or possible to prove intent (you may then argue that no law against it should exist, and this is a fair matter for debate). But processing the data - which includes electronic storage, analysis or redistribution - without the data subject's consent is reasonably a matter for law enforcement.
Every UK (EU) business has to be aware of data protection laws and must ensure that data - especially sensitive data, which has surely been collected as part of Google's faux pas - is not processed illegally. "But we're good guys!" is not a defence. In general, "I was breaking the law but not with bad intentions," is no defence - except in the case not applicable here that "intent" is part of the particular law. (But then you're not breaking it unless intent can be proven!)
FWIW, it may even be illegal in the UK to listen in without permission to signals not from the Broadcast Service (i.e. commercial licensed radio), the Amateur Service and utility stations (e.g. navigation/weather). From the Wireless Telegraphy Act (1949), Section 5:
Any person who: [...] (b) otherwise than under the authority of the Postmaster General or in the course of his duty as a servant of the Crown, either-- (i) uses any wireless telegraphy apparatus with intent to obtain information as to the contents, sender or addressee of any message (whether sent by means of wireless telegraphy or not) which neither the person using the apparatus nor any person on whose behalf he is acting is authorised by the Postmaster General to receive; or (ii) except in the course of legal proceedings or for the purpose of any report thereof, discloses any information as to the contents, sender or addressee of any such message, being information which would not have come to his knowledge but for the use of wireless telegraphy apparatus by him or by another person, shall be guilty of an offence under this Act.
I'm not sure anyone's ever been prosecuted for (i), probably because it's difficult to define/discern what someone's "intent" is unless they also do (ii). Note this is an entirely separate and much older law than data protection laws, and it is necessary to discern when blanket permission is already given by the "Postmaster General" - e.g. there is explicitly no expectation of privacy on the Amateur Service and every amateur licensee should have learnt this.
Everyone knows that the radio signals they use reach farther than their house
Do they? Does everyone know the nature of radio? Is it self-evident that encryption means more than joining your laptop with your base station? IOW, why should it even be obvious that the laws of physics permit someone to pick up someone else's payload - maybe there's something about radio which means you have to pair the receiver/transmitter in a particular way? We know this isn't so, but you lack imagination to imply that it's obvious - you need to either understand some principles of radio or to be told.
And, FWIW, I understand e-m to undergraduate physics level and have a full amateur radio licence, yet I'm still baffled by the varying reception behaviour in this old house. Propagation is a fascinating and non-trivial topic, whether it refers to hearing someone in Australia on shortwave or the wind carrying snippets of a conversation on the other side of the park.
Meanwhile, everyone who's seen a cop show knows that "you can see people move in the undergrowth in the dark with a red light of some sort".
Yeah, when you start doing a Jobs and making software execution policies purely based on language / API rather than some administrative principle, you're either a petty bureaucrat or have some ulterior motive. The correct place to do business is elsewhere, and developers should avoid tying themselves to your rules.
For example, Google ostensibly blamed IE6 for its data leak and its moving away from Windows is nothing but PR. But what it should be (and is, I'm sure!) doing is looking at its gateway boxes to find out why the leak wasn't picked up before it left Google's network. A client PC is always going to get compromised if someone tries hard enough, but the same does not apply to transparent traffic sniffers at the border.
The obvious difference being I radiate infrared light incidentally.
What does "incidentally" mean? It is not your intention to broadcast infrared outside your property for others to pick up? Well, guess what, it's not Joe Public's intention to broadcast his wifi data outside his property for others to pick up either. It's just incidental to the science behind radio.
I can't stop from doing so
A sufficiently thick wall of the appropriate material would do the job.
and unless I have some scientific background, chances are I don't even know that I'm doing so.
And unless you have some technical background, chances are you don't know much about what that flashing wireless router is doing either.
It is very different from me making an active attempt to make a radio broadcast using specialized equipment.
Since Joe Public isn't making an active attempt to make a radio broadcast, I'm not sure of the relevance.
If you don't see the difference between these two scenerios, then thank god you arn't in politics or law.
That is an entirely stupid analogy, since people have obvious reasons to expect privacy when behind their own walls. On the other hand, no one broadcasting unscrambled and unencrypted radio has any reason to expect privacy.
We're comparing people sending out unencrypted infra-red e-m waves while behind their own walls to people sending out unencrypted microwave e-m waves while behind their own walls. Unless wavelength is philosophically important in your argument, I'd say the analogy is fairly sound.
If you want privacy, even WEP is enough to be legally sufficient
In what rational way can a transmission be of "legally sufficient" format for no-one to be allowed to snoop? This sounds like a daft DMCA-style confounding of social and technical problems. My reasonable expectation is that you don't follow me around surreptitiously recording everything I've said and then using it for personal gain, and, depending on your jurisdiction (the US included when it comes to certain radio transmissions), the law is in agreement.
Now I'd be a little naive to expect no-one to idly listen to something I'm transmitting in the the clear, and the law would be draconian to make it illegal to hear me. But hearing data and wilfully processing data for personal gain are completely different things. The UK (and EU) Data Protection Acts seem to understand this very well and speak of various rights and responsibilities in terms of how data can be "processed", not whether it can be "heard".
Slashdot Mirror
IE6 was the last time MS produced a fair browser rather than a poor "web app" delivery platform. Frankly, anything which doesn't work on IE6 probably doesn't need doing at all - I'm sure the content can be delivered without all the fancy effects.
If you're supplying me an app, choose or spec a client-server protocol / set of remote APIs and write a natively compiled client or one in a VM created for a well-engineered language and built to integrate properly with the native environment. That insidious free market will even be able to create competing front-ends so you get to deliver your services with the user's preferred presentation.
So I was thinking earlier about which artists from each continent will stick in my mind when I look back to music at the beginning of the century. When I contemplated of African music, Ladysmith Black Mambazo came to mind; when I thought of American music, I couldn't get Britney out of my head.
On-topic, since I dislike football and love bees, I actually sat through one whole televised football match just to hear the vuvuzela and enjoy the mental image of a swarm of angry workers greeting the crowd. Unbarbed, of course - I wouldn't want them to waste the ultimate sacrifice on footballers.
News aggregation services like Google News are bound to come out looking more "honest" when viewed from this perspective.
Really? Search for something non-contentious like, say, "Iraq". Almost all top reports are from the usual well-known list of mainstream news agencies and publishers (often Murdoch / government owned) - plus, of course, al "fill them with ex-Western media guys and let them carry on so we can pretend we don't have a news monopoly" Jazeera.
"Honest" would be links to stories from people who haven't been filtered through a million layers of military and foreign office smokescreening, e.g. reports from *shock* Iraqi and other more local journalists.
Google is essentially one big algorithm to reinforce existing human biases, and this applies to both web page sorting and news sorting methods.
Stop using your credit card as a credit line, and start using it as a way to get up to 56 days extra interest on your money plus (often statutory) protections on purchases.
There's not a lot of evidence that it does any good in the modern world
There's tremendous evidence that union workers are better off in today's Western world. There's also a lot of evidence that unionization does not undermine competitiveness (see how high unionization rates are outside the US?).
Collective bargaining should only be legal if there's some good that comes from it that outweighs its downsides.
So, let me repeat the question: What part of the bargaining do you think should be outlawed - the bit where employees are allowed to express their views? The bit where people are allowed to not work if they so choose?
The workers should not have the power to undermine the will of the voters as a whole.
The will of the voter is to not impose slavery and to not restrict speech (well, OK, it's the will of a Democratic Republic). This means that a man cannot be compelled to work for a particular employer (no slavery), which means he is welcome to chat with his colleagues about what conditions are acceptable (freedom of speech) and together decide not to work (no slavery) if his employer does not provide those conditions.
If the employer is willing to hire me as non-union then the union should not be allowed to deny me my right to freely associate with and enter into contract with the employer.
OK, you enter into that contract freely with the employer.
And the union freely decides to instruct its members to strike.
And the employer has no employees except you.
And the employer / employer's department cannot do any work.
And the employer dismisses remaining employees.
And you're back where you started: without a salary.
Just because you're a slut to your employer who will tread on his colleague for a lift up the greasy pole, it doesn't mean the majority of the workforce is.
If you don't like unions then you don't like freedom of association, and if you don't like freedom of association then you're in the wrong country.
I see we have a useful idiot. The correct solution to your whine about being underpaid is to demand more pay, not to enviously demand that others doing a similar job are paid less.
Or maybe you think you're so much brighter than people who are paid more than you - in which case go apply for their job.
paying government union workers more than market rate
The market rate is the lowest rate that
(i) a suitable worker is prepared to accept;
(ii) an employer is prepared to pay.
Why should public service unions be legal, again?
Are you actually asking, "Why should collective bargaining be legal"? What part of the bargaining do you think should be outlawed - the bit where employees are allowed to express their views? The bit where people are allowed to not work if they so choose? Which Eastern nation are you modelling your "only some unions should be legal" assertion on?
If you need to relate to past stories then they should be about how Apple restricts developers/users and not the tenacious ramblings of Dvorak and his ilk. Your "and then Apple will die!!!" strawmen add nothing.
Is Apple showing any signs of dying? No.
Does Apple tend toward restricting developers in a way considered stifling by many developers? Yes.
Is TFA unlikely speculation? Possibly, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth thinking about.
Hey... Churchill! could you... SAVE... me money ON... my... governance?
Anyway, less jaw-jaw, more work-work...
Which shows the lengths to which they're prepared to go...
This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put...
I thought you Aussies were laid-back, laissez-faire sort of people? Not in the pure capitalism sense, but in the "you mind your business, I'll mind mine and we'll chill together" sense? Why the sudden conservative turn?
Which shows the lengths they're prepared to go to...
He has balls. Bigger balls than your balls and bigger balls than my balls. I guess the point I'm trying to put across is that he has big balls.
So, even if he fails, he has shown that one man is able to wander around the world in a particular way credibly announcing he has sensitive government information without being David Kelly'd. Sure, he has to be white and rich, but that's better than nothing. If there's one thing we can learn from Assange, it's that we're mostly a bunch of fucking cowards not to stand up to Goliath, and we are getting the government we deserve. So, that's two things. Two things we can learn.
If I ask to borrow your lawnmower, I probably mean that I want to use it right now rather than every 15 minutes for the next three months. Which does Apple allow?
Do the right thing: for every app you write, upload user location data every 15 minutes for three months. After that quarter, publish the movements of your users to a site with an innocuous name like, say, www.findoutwhethermyiphoneusingpartnerisacheatingbastard.com. Even if you didn't upload other identifying data, it would be very easy to filter on individuals by listing a few places you know they visit. Indeed, I'm sure any intelligence service worth its secret budget tracks people who may be carrying unregistered mobiles by simply searching a database of movements for records showing presence at (1) fairly precise locations at any sighted times; (2) the most expected typical locations around other times.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the thing with the antenna is a radio.
But it has taken humans far wiser than the average rocket scientist to understand how radio works, in particular to discern its propagation and reception properties.
why in the world would you think there is any more challenge for others to connect and see everything you send?
Because this might only apply to the first computer you pair with, or within the first n units of time of (first?) switching on your device.
Because after you've registered one device, an ownership key might be applied which is somehow also on other machines you have in the house (e.g. hash of your house address when you registered each machine).
Because the house AC power circuit might act as an authentication mechanism to ensure that you're in the same house.
Because the house outer walls might usually be made of something which blocks the signal.
When someone says, "You're dumb for not inferring that something works the way I've learnt that it works," they're almost always guilty of a lack of imagination.
OOI, do you regard ROT13 as an encryption method, or merely a new encoding method for characters?
Australia is currently spearheading innovation in Western censorship and control. Think of it like MSDN for governments.
(because the value of the company is lowered, and therefore its stock price)
The stock price of a company is determined by demand for stocks, and there's no a priori reason for demand to be related to "value". When a corporation pays dividends, as BP does, the profits of a company may affect the demand for stocks. But in the case of, say, Apple, it's nothing more than enough investors saying "it looks like Apple's doing well, let's buy some Apple", and the only reason Apple appearing to do well improves stock price is that more people say the same thing.
The assumption that stock price is a formula derived from variables somehow representing company value is what leads to false confidence in the stock market.
Shareholders are protected from personal liability (beyond their investment in the company)
Awful, isn't it? Big business is not about risk/reward but about government protection/reward.
in the case of information you have broadcast in the clear, they have no such reason.
You're being deliberately obtuse. How about assuming that all information transmitted by an individual over radio waves is private unless he makes an explicit pro-active indication otherwise? Assume this whether information is the infrared pattern which can be used to infer your masturbating furiously in the bathroom from across the street or the conversation your competitor is having with his business partner over unsecured wifi.
Explicit indications codified in UK law include where the user of a service has agreed to his transmissions being for public consumption as part of a licence application process, and as such is fully aware in advance that he has no expectation of privacy. This would apply, for example, to commercial and amateur radio broadcasts. WiFi's frequencies may or may not be considered here as implicitly for public consumption, depending on your jurisdiction - either way, it's very different from service users who have agreed by signing some application.
In either case, this merely determines whether the law finds it reasonable for you to intently listen in; whether you can do anything with what you hear is another matter. We move on to the more relevant law:
Sure, keeping copies of packets they sniffed from your network is a bit creepy if they did it on purpose, but the mere fact of having done it is not itself an indication of wrongdoing
Yes it is. Storing a nation's worth of private data produced by others is wrong. Hearing it accidentally is fine. Pruriently listening in to something juicy is rude, and possibly illegal, but it is unlikely to be in the public interest to prosecute or possible to prove intent (you may then argue that no law against it should exist, and this is a fair matter for debate). But processing the data - which includes electronic storage, analysis or redistribution - without the data subject's consent is reasonably a matter for law enforcement.
Every UK (EU) business has to be aware of data protection laws and must ensure that data - especially sensitive data, which has surely been collected as part of Google's faux pas - is not processed illegally. "But we're good guys!" is not a defence. In general, "I was breaking the law but not with bad intentions," is no defence - except in the case not applicable here that "intent" is part of the particular law. (But then you're not breaking it unless intent can be proven!)
If you have no expectation of privacy, why should it matter whether Google uploaded the data to a public site or merely collected and catalogued it?
But if there is an expectation of privacy, the point is that they processed the data rather than discarding it. US privacy law is practically non-existent but the EU has a substantial framework which is reflected in the laws of member states.
FWIW, it may even be illegal in the UK to listen in without permission to signals not from the Broadcast Service (i.e. commercial licensed radio), the Amateur Service and utility stations (e.g. navigation/weather). From the Wireless Telegraphy Act (1949), Section 5:
Any person who: [...]
(b) otherwise than under the authority of the Postmaster General or in the course of his duty as a servant of the Crown, either--
(i) uses any wireless telegraphy apparatus with intent to obtain information as to the contents, sender or addressee of any message (whether sent by means of wireless telegraphy or not) which neither the person using the apparatus nor any person on whose behalf he is acting is authorised by the Postmaster General to receive; or
(ii) except in the course of legal proceedings or for the purpose of any report thereof, discloses any information as to the contents, sender or addressee of any such message, being information which would not have come to his knowledge but for the use of wireless telegraphy apparatus by him or by another person, shall be guilty of an offence under this Act.
I'm not sure anyone's ever been prosecuted for (i), probably because it's difficult to define/discern what someone's "intent" is unless they also do (ii). Note this is an entirely separate and much older law than data protection laws, and it is necessary to discern when blanket permission is already given by the "Postmaster General" - e.g. there is explicitly no expectation of privacy on the Amateur Service and every amateur licensee should have learnt this.
Everyone knows that the radio signals they use reach farther than their house
Do they? Does everyone know the nature of radio? Is it self-evident that encryption means more than joining your laptop with your base station? IOW, why should it even be obvious that the laws of physics permit someone to pick up someone else's payload - maybe there's something about radio which means you have to pair the receiver/transmitter in a particular way? We know this isn't so, but you lack imagination to imply that it's obvious - you need to either understand some principles of radio or to be told.
And, FWIW, I understand e-m to undergraduate physics level and have a full amateur radio licence, yet I'm still baffled by the varying reception behaviour in this old house. Propagation is a fascinating and non-trivial topic, whether it refers to hearing someone in Australia on shortwave or the wind carrying snippets of a conversation on the other side of the park.
Meanwhile, everyone who's seen a cop show knows that "you can see people move in the undergrowth in the dark with a red light of some sort".
Yeah, when you start doing a Jobs and making software execution policies purely based on language / API rather than some administrative principle, you're either a petty bureaucrat or have some ulterior motive. The correct place to do business is elsewhere, and developers should avoid tying themselves to your rules.
For example, Google ostensibly blamed IE6 for its data leak and its moving away from Windows is nothing but PR. But what it should be (and is, I'm sure!) doing is looking at its gateway boxes to find out why the leak wasn't picked up before it left Google's network. A client PC is always going to get compromised if someone tries hard enough, but the same does not apply to transparent traffic sniffers at the border.
The obvious difference being I radiate infrared light incidentally.
What does "incidentally" mean? It is not your intention to broadcast infrared outside your property for others to pick up? Well, guess what, it's not Joe Public's intention to broadcast his wifi data outside his property for others to pick up either. It's just incidental to the science behind radio.
I can't stop from doing so
A sufficiently thick wall of the appropriate material would do the job.
and unless I have some scientific background, chances are I don't even know that I'm doing so.
And unless you have some technical background, chances are you don't know much about what that flashing wireless router is doing either.
It is very different from me making an active attempt to make a radio broadcast using specialized equipment.
Since Joe Public isn't making an active attempt to make a radio broadcast, I'm not sure of the relevance.
If you don't see the difference between these two scenerios, then thank god you arn't in politics or law.
Assuming? :-)
That is an entirely stupid analogy, since people have obvious reasons to expect privacy when behind their own walls. On the other hand, no one broadcasting unscrambled and unencrypted radio has any reason to expect privacy.
We're comparing people sending out unencrypted infra-red e-m waves while behind their own walls to people sending out unencrypted microwave e-m waves while behind their own walls. Unless wavelength is philosophically important in your argument, I'd say the analogy is fairly sound.
If you want privacy, even WEP is enough to be legally sufficient
In what rational way can a transmission be of "legally sufficient" format for no-one to be allowed to snoop? This sounds like a daft DMCA-style confounding of social and technical problems. My reasonable expectation is that you don't follow me around surreptitiously recording everything I've said and then using it for personal gain, and, depending on your jurisdiction (the US included when it comes to certain radio transmissions), the law is in agreement.
Now I'd be a little naive to expect no-one to idly listen to something I'm transmitting in the the clear, and the law would be draconian to make it illegal to hear me. But hearing data and wilfully processing data for personal gain are completely different things. The UK (and EU) Data Protection Acts seem to understand this very well and speak of various rights and responsibilities in terms of how data can be "processed", not whether it can be "heard".