The library is certainly free to put policies like this in place since it is their network, and even enforce such policies.
Yes. The problem is they haven't and they didn't. There were no signs explaining such a policy and no library-enforced rules. The policeman was not acting under orders from the head librarian to go out in the land and stop any and all bandwidth-stealing priests that may be roaming the nearby countryside. Strawman.
Is it the police's job to enforce public library rules? Do you expect uniformed policemen to knock on your door, asking for that overdue library book? BTW, there's nothing in the Nantucket Atheneum Internet Access Policy about restricting public WiFi AP use to the interior of the library.
Enter the library.
So why did they place a convenient bench just outside the library? Would it be OK to read a library book while sitting on that bench? Does the placement of the bench constitute entrapment?
Point is: it isn't a public access point. It belongs to the library.
Yes it is. And it's still safely sitting there, on its little shelf inside the library, happily blinking its little lights and routing its little packets. He didn't take it, you know. He simply used it. Just like one might use the bench outside, sit on a chair inside the library or - God forbid! - read a magazine inside the library without checking it out first. We really need to stomp out these heinous crimes against humanity!
The library has the right to restrict access if that means they can keep the program going.
Yes, they do. That's probably why their other AP was encrypted. I don't have a problem with that. But this AP wasn't encrypted. It was an open, public hotspot. Besides, even after he stopped using it, the cop still rousted him from the bench where he was sitting. In a public area. By your analogies, he could be accused of stealing the bench unless he carried it inside the library before sitting on it.
Well, I don't see the owner of these apples so I might as well eat one.
And here's another flawed analogy: What if the store puts out a box of apples and the sign "Unsellable old apples, minor cosmetic flaws, please help yourself". Might as well steal one. You really can't compare apples and bandwidth.
Oh, and for your precious rules, check out http://www.ala.org/ . They should know, they wrote the book on the subject.
Well, the GP's premise was "there are lots of hotspots where the owner wants to provide internet access to public areas outside of buildings". And your response was basically "you assume the owner doesn't want to provide access" and added a few irrelevant analogies. I claim they are irrelevant to both the specific example as outlined in TFA and also to the more general example "where the owner wants to provide internet access".
Now, in the case where the owner DOES NOT want to provide internet access, it is fairly easy for him/her/it to refrain from doing so. If I don't want to slip and lie face down in a pool of mud, I simply walk around them. If I don't want to provide a public WiFi hotspot, I turn encryption on.
If I want the public to sit on my bench, I put it in the park. If I don't want the public to sit on my bench, I put it in my back yard. It's not up to the public to magically read my mind or to stay off all benches everywhere; it's up to me to place the bench and any relevant signs so the public can deduce my intentions.
Had he shown the cop he was not using the library's system, no thing.
I'm not sure how to parse that sentence, but he did show the cop he was not using the library's system.
I see no problem with having "patrons" use the wifi inside where the librarians can oversee as is their job.
So how do you "oversee" a WiFi connection? Watch the logs roll by? Detail one surveillance librarian-bot to every patron to look over their shoulder? Walk around and listen for the tell-tale moans of someone surfing www.kinkyceline.com? BTW, I believe it's illegal in most states for the library (or anyone else except the FBI) to monitor your library activity and loaning habits. One example of those laws are statutes 41-8-9 and 41-9-0 of the Alabama Code which protect the confidentiality of library users.
Furthermore, here's some reading for y'all:
Libraries are a traditional forum for the open exchange of information. Attempts to restrict access to library materials violate the basic tenets of the Library Bill of Rights.
Restricted Access to Library Materials
Privacy is essential to the exercise of free speech, free thought, and free association. The courts have established a First Amendment right to receive information in a publicly funded library. Further, the courts have upheld the right to privacy based on the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. Many states provide guarantees of privacy in their constitutions and statute law. Numerous decisions in case law have defined and extended rights to privacy.
Privacy
Users should not be restricted or denied access for expressing or receiving constitutionally protected speech. Users' access should not be changed without due process, including, but not limited to, formal notice and a means of appeal.
Although electronic systems may include distinct property rights and security concerns, such elements may not be employed as a subterfuge to deny users' access to information. Users have the right to be free of unreasonable limitations or conditions set by libraries, librarians, system administrators, vendors, network service providers, or others. Contracts, agreements, and licenses entered into by libraries on behalf of their users should not violate this right. Users also have a right to information, training and assistance necessary to operate the hardware and software provided by the library.
you assume that the tables outside a restaraunt are only for the shops patrons
And you assume the public bench and public WiFi in a public place outside your local public library are available to the public, especially if said public happens to have a library card. What's different from being outside the library and inside it in this regard? Your analogies are both faulty and misleading, unless you seriously want to claim that it's illegal to walk into a public library and sit down on one of their chairs.
It's not that strange that he was *asked* not to use the service outside the library, they probably wan't to keep better track of who's using it (even just for statistics).
Since when is it in the job description of the Police Department to help carry out statistical surveys for the local library? If the librarians want more statistics, they can simply log more traffic.
BTW, how do you propose keeping all users indoors may help with their statistics? Is it so the librarians can look them over and make notes like "suspicious-looking priest in black with glasses and TiBook" in their little statistical notebooks?
Encrypting wouldn't help much as they would have to give out the key anyway it being a public access point
Yeees. Go on. Keep thinking, you're on to something here. What if it ceases to be a public access point when you turn encryption on? Since the library already had an encrypted AP too, it seems to me this one was intentionally left public and open. Hell, he even had a library card so if they had encrypted the signal and made the AP available for known users only, he would most likely have had access to the key. It would be interesting to see the incident report.
BTW, he's notalone being questioned by police about his horrible crimes and terrorist activities.
It's roughly two really small cars or one biggun. A Volvo 240 (the new yardstick for measuring asteroids, since I happen to have one handy) is just over 5 meters long. So if it helps, think of it as a large Volvo hurtling towards us from outer space at thousands of kilometers per hour (I'll save the detailed kph comparisons for later, but a standard Volvo 240 normally tops out at between 160 and 210kph depending on the engine).
Calculating how many Volvos there are in one Rhode Island is left as an exercise for the reader.
I think that IntelliTxt could work well for publications that have no pretense of objectivity or don't draw a strong distinction between advertising and editorial copy.
Yep, voting with your wallet that way works, not the other way (by boycotting). I would have (based on past experience) taken the CDs and then bought the game anyway, possibly when it's discounted a bit. Then again, I'm probably not a typical gamer in that I play very few games, but instead play them for extended periods of time. StarCraft lasted me three years as did Counter-Strike[1] and BF1942 is going on its second.
[1] I just (yesterday, in fact) downloaded Steam and re-visited de_dust2 and de_prodigy. Man, that was fun. I even started on Half-Life which I have a legal copy of, but never played back then - I just got it to play CS. Valve did a good job with Steam.
I have voted in all elections I have been eligible for, except one in my youth. This includes the latest election for the European parliament, but sadly, I wasn't eligible to vote in Dade County a few years ago. I think that's the only time and place where my vote actually would have counted (had it been counted).:-/
But statistically, your bet is right on the money.
If you don't agree with what they're doing simply don't buy their product.
And then watch the game publishers claim their sales go down due to piracy, bringing about even more safeguards and laws to prevent it. If this rat race keeps up, pretty soon the costs for producing music, movies and games will be a tax that everyone has to pay because everyone has to keep consuming new stuff to make the system work...
The "voting with your wallet" method is being circumvented by lobbying.
Slashdot Mirror
If you'd read TFA, you'd know that he was.
Yes. The problem is they haven't and they didn't. There were no signs explaining such a policy and no library-enforced rules. The policeman was not acting under orders from the head librarian to go out in the land and stop any and all bandwidth-stealing priests that may be roaming the nearby countryside. Strawman.
Well, he should have hung around the arcade then, because the library was closed. :-P
"Our reference book collection is complemented by online databases and free Internet access for our patrons." From the Nantucket Atheneum Website.
"Helping police with their inquiries" is a gray zone, I suspect. :-)
Is it the police's job to enforce public library rules? Do you expect uniformed policemen to knock on your door, asking for that overdue library book? BTW, there's nothing in the Nantucket Atheneum Internet Access Policy about restricting public WiFi AP use to the interior of the library.
Enter the library.
So why did they place a convenient bench just outside the library? Would it be OK to read a library book while sitting on that bench? Does the placement of the bench constitute entrapment?
Point is: it isn't a public access point. It belongs to the library.
Yes it is. And it's still safely sitting there, on its little shelf inside the library, happily blinking its little lights and routing its little packets. He didn't take it, you know. He simply used it. Just like one might use the bench outside, sit on a chair inside the library or - God forbid! - read a magazine inside the library without checking it out first. We really need to stomp out these heinous crimes against humanity!
The library has the right to restrict access if that means they can keep the program going.
Yes, they do. That's probably why their other AP was encrypted. I don't have a problem with that. But this AP wasn't encrypted. It was an open, public hotspot. Besides, even after he stopped using it, the cop still rousted him from the bench where he was sitting. In a public area. By your analogies, he could be accused of stealing the bench unless he carried it inside the library before sitting on it.
Well, I don't see the owner of these apples so I might as well eat one.
And here's another flawed analogy: What if the store puts out a box of apples and the sign "Unsellable old apples, minor cosmetic flaws, please help yourself". Might as well steal one. You really can't compare apples and bandwidth.
Oh, and for your precious rules, check out http://www.ala.org/ . They should know, they wrote the book on the subject.
Now, in the case where the owner DOES NOT want to provide internet access, it is fairly easy for him/her/it to refrain from doing so. If I don't want to slip and lie face down in a pool of mud, I simply walk around them. If I don't want to provide a public WiFi hotspot, I turn encryption on.
If I want the public to sit on my bench, I put it in the park. If I don't want the public to sit on my bench, I put it in my back yard. It's not up to the public to magically read my mind or to stay off all benches everywhere; it's up to me to place the bench and any relevant signs so the public can deduce my intentions.
I'm not sure how to parse that sentence, but he did show the cop he was not using the library's system.
I see no problem with having "patrons" use the wifi inside where the librarians can oversee as is their job.
So how do you "oversee" a WiFi connection? Watch the logs roll by? Detail one surveillance librarian-bot to every patron to look over their shoulder? Walk around and listen for the tell-tale moans of someone surfing www.kinkyceline.com? BTW, I believe it's illegal in most states for the library (or anyone else except the FBI) to monitor your library activity and loaning habits. One example of those laws are statutes 41-8-9 and 41-9-0 of the Alabama Code which protect the confidentiality of library users.
Furthermore, here's some reading for y'all:
Alse check out LibraryLaw.com for some Patriot Act perspective.
And you assume the public bench and public WiFi in a public place outside your local public library are available to the public, especially if said public happens to have a library card. What's different from being outside the library and inside it in this regard? Your analogies are both faulty and misleading, unless you seriously want to claim that it's illegal to walk into a public library and sit down on one of their chairs.
Since when is it in the job description of the Police Department to help carry out statistical surveys for the local library? If the librarians want more statistics, they can simply log more traffic.
BTW, how do you propose keeping all users indoors may help with their statistics? Is it so the librarians can look them over and make notes like "suspicious-looking priest in black with glasses and TiBook" in their little statistical notebooks?
Encrypting wouldn't help much as they would have to give out the key anyway it being a public access point
Yeees. Go on. Keep thinking, you're on to something here. What if it ceases to be a public access point when you turn encryption on? Since the library already had an encrypted AP too, it seems to me this one was intentionally left public and open. Hell, he even had a library card so if they had encrypted the signal and made the AP available for known users only, he would most likely have had access to the key. It would be interesting to see the incident report.
BTW, he's not alone being questioned by police about his horrible crimes and terrorist activities.
And a flashlight that can be held in one hand while you hold a gun in the other.
Calculating how many Volvos there are in one Rhode Island is left as an exercise for the reader.
Finally a nice colour scheme in a section. Thanks!
Well, apparently 20 minutes is all it takes.
(Yes, I noticed the pun and for the record it did make me smile. Come back when you've defined a LONGBOOLEAN in Modula-2 and we'll talk. :-)
And finally a partner link. What did it take to figure that one out, three years or so?
What, you think there's a purpose behind Slashdot stories? *gasp*
Look out Slashdot, here we come!
I didn't even know lab tests could get cancer... Lab rats, yes. Tests, no.
[1] I just (yesterday, in fact) downloaded Steam and re-visited de_dust2 and de_prodigy. Man, that was fun. I even started on Half-Life which I have a legal copy of, but never played back then - I just got it to play CS. Valve did a good job with Steam.
But statistically, your bet is right on the money.
And then watch the game publishers claim their sales go down due to piracy, bringing about even more safeguards and laws to prevent it. If this rat race keeps up, pretty soon the costs for producing music, movies and games will be a tax that everyone has to pay because everyone has to keep consuming new stuff to make the system work...
The "voting with your wallet" method is being circumvented by lobbying.
I noticed. :-) I suppose we should be grateful that he/she/it missed the Big One.
Now off to find the 9999999 poster...
In the immortal words of ObviousGuy: "I don't get it."