No they aren't, because those easily-accessible resources (the ones that you named) are practically NEVER intentionally made available for public use.
Neither are APs, despite what a lot of ethically-challenged individuals will insist on Slashdot.
APs on the other hand often are intentionally made available for public use (just look at the posts in this thread for evidence of that) so it is reasonable to think that an AP configured for public use was intentionally made available for public use.
No, it's not. A handful of technologically-aware individuals on a site like Slashdot indicating their leave their WAPs open is *not* a reasonable way to extrapolate to society at large.
Most WAPs ship out of the box in an unsecured fashion. Insisting that because the massive majority of technically ignorant individuals do not change this default setting implies they are inviting you to use their internet connection is drawing a very long bow indeed. Further, drawing that long bow is the only way you can make an assertion like "APs on the other hand often are intentionally made available for public use".
Completely different situation. To gain access to those things I must physically enter and alter your private property.
I think you'll find hooking into someone's WAP and internet connection alters how they work as well. Or, at least, I don't know of any that have infinite bandwidth (to say nothing of the security implications of attaching another computer to someone else's network or liability implications of using their network to commit a crime).
Of course I should ask permission to do that. Furthermore, gas and electricity are metered. My use would directly translate into money out of the owner's pocket.
Most internet connections are metered.
And a typical home phone line cannot be used for more than one call at the same time.
So would you have a problem using their phone line when they aren't ?
And furthermore, I have in fact done some of the exact things you're describing (with permission) with my neighbors in college.
Yes. Notice the "with permission" part. If you cannot understand how this *fundamentally* changes the situation, it's pretty obvious I'm wasting my time in this discussion.
The reality is that Linux on the desktop, whethr you consider it "ready" yet or not, has been improving at a far faster rate than Windows has. Just compare Windows98 and the contemporary releases of Linux (around Redhat 5.2 I think, back when they were still using Afterstep as the default environment) and then compare Vista to Ubuntu 7.10: any gaps have narrowed dramatically.
Well, duh, it's easy to make big improvements when you have big improvements that need making.
Give linux another couple of years to make comparative gains and things may look inteesting when it comes time for businesses to look at OS upgrades -- do you move to Windows 7, or Linux? Both will probably represent almost equally large changes and require as much retraining as each other, and by that point Linux may well be a very good desktop option.
Assuming that the rate of change will remain as high would be pretty foolish.
Combine that with the fact that Linux (via wine) might actually be as good as Windows 7 at running your old win32 software (given Vistas difficulties with such things) and Microsoft may have a potential revolt on their hands.
It won't need to be as good running win32 software, it will need to be as good running win64 and.NET software.
1. If a dialog box pops up, you can't move or resize the parent window. WHY ISN'T THIS FIXED YET?
Application problem.
2. It's slow and bloated, even on modern hardware.
False. It's quite usable even on 3 year old laptops.
3. Its user interface is inconsistent. (OK, KDE and Gnome are pretty bad this way, too, but OS-X isn't, for instance.)
Its user interface is no more inconsistent than other platforms like OS X.
4. DRM.
Irrelevant.
5. Intrusive security model.
I assume by "Security model" you mean UAC. It is the same as Linux and OS X.
6. Requires re-training of end-users, which is expensive. (Had to add this one, as it's always used as a "reason" to not move to Linux or OpenOffice.)
UI is still fundamentally the same as Windows 95, from 12 years ago. Anyone who needs "retraining" for Vista would likely need "retraining" if you changed the colour scheme. There are frequently bigger differences between point releases of the same Linux distro than there is between different versions of Windows.
7. Invasive anti-piracy model.
Typing in a serial number and clicking through a dialog is not "invasive" - especially since a significant proportion users will never even need to do that.
8. DRM.
Irrelevant.
9. No compelling reason to upgrade from XP.
Opinion. I can think of several Vista features that would compel me to upgrade to Vista.
The DRM and protected path nonsense is pretty radical, and of significant negative value to anyone who actually uses the platform.
DRM does nothing unless your media is DRM-encumbered - and if your content *is* DRM-encumbered, Vista doesn't do anything any other player capable of displaying it would do.
Or, in other words, DRM cannot - by definition - be having any negative impact to using Vista, let alone a "significant" one.
And with that you get all the DRM that forces DVDs to lower resolution, slows everything down, and keeps you from even being able to enjoy some of the things you legitimately paid for? No thanks.
No, it doesn't. You are either a) stupid or b) lying.
Um no. The presentation was tested, then made just fine twice. The third film in the series it decided to ask permission to let Java do something.. right in the middle of a running presentation. To make matters worse, we were not running a browser or any other java application. It was a pop-up plain and simple. It was not network intiated. At the time, there was no LAN connection.
Your first targets to blame should be Java and the DVD player. Only after you have eliminated them (eg: does the DVD player stop whenever it loses focus ?), does it become reasonable to look at the OS as a potential culprit.
I don't know why this guy is marked as a troll, but from a business perspective Vista does not offer anything to security or productivity that WinXP can't provide already provide with the proper patches.
I have just recently discovered that Vista lets you do a "switch user" while part of a domain. To me, at least, as a systems admin, that's a significant new feature that's nearly worth upgrading for on its own.
On a more Joe Average level, I would consider UAC a significant feature that justifies the Vista upgrade. Less so in a managed-system business environment (but even there, valuable if you have a userbase that "needs" local Administrator access to the machines) than home user environment, however. I'd also consider the builtin search to be a "killer feature" - neither Google's nor Microsoft's offering on Windows XP is as good IMHO.
Asking permission with a notification icon is one thing on a dual monitor set up. Stopping the running movie is not acceptable behavior.
Vista didn't stop your DVD player, something else caused it to stop itself.
Try running your DVD player on one monitor, then changing the focus to something else on the other monitor. What happens to the movie ? Many DVD player programs will stop the running movie if they are no longer the focussed application. If this happens, it is the fault of the DVD player - the developers are incorrectly assuming that if it doesn't have focus, the movie is being obstructed by something, so they stop the playing so you don't miss any of the movie.
Yes, that's not what mail is for. I personally get ruffled the wrong way when I see people generate insane overhead by latching binaries to mails instead of using sensible ways of transfer (like uploading to some server and sending the FTP link via mail), but that's how mail is being used.
This is not a sensible way of transferring files and their associated metadata (which is the important part). It requires additional resources (in the shape of a functioning FTP or webserver), access to said server by the sender (plus software to facilitate transferring the date to it), an understanding of the concept by both parties and, finally, makes it difficult to the receiver to be reasonably sure the file and its reference (the email) will always be together (anyone who has ever come back to an email with an outdated HTTP link in it should understand this).
The *reason* everyone uses email for file transfers, is because the other methods suck. If you want people to stop using email as a binary filing cabinet, come up with an easier way for them to do it.
I never understood people who say they don't get spam on gmail. Since I don't use it except as a backup, I've never given my address to anyone save for my web host and yet, here is all this spam.
In the gmail account I use for "signing up to things" - for everything from online forums to torrent sites - I see maybe two spam mails into the inbox a month, if that.
The G3 iMac was derided for not having a floppy drive. Sounds pretty ridiculous now, doesn't it?
The G3 iMac was derided for not having a _replacement_ for a floppy drive. Had apple shipped them with CD writers (not even CDRWs), there would have been no complaints. But at the time, it made getting information off an iMac difficult without buying more hardware - not an insignificant issue for a computer with a significant customer based expected to be in the education market (either schools or students).
You can indeed not charge someone with trespass if it was not obvious to him that he was on private property and not welcome. If your house has an entrance like an art gallery or a shop, and people wander in, you can tell them to leave and then they have to leave, but you can't charge them with trespass just because they came into your house.
On the other hand, I'm sure if you discover someone hunting animals on your unfenced property (that just happened to be between two other fenced properties), you'd have a pretty good case.
If I am interactively using my computer at that time, I probably would, because I am a polite person. I would also tell them to enable encryption so that their network is secure and my computer could avoid their network in the future.
Why would you stop ? You've already spent numerous posts telling me that you consider an unsecured WAP to be explicitly giving you permission to connect and use any services you can find through it. Are you now saying that an unsecured WAP *could* have a network on the other side of it that the owner did not intend to share with the public ?
The people neglecting the social contract are the people who don't bother to turn on encryption or other access control features, and then complain that strangers are accessing their open networks.
Really ? Which part of that "social contract" says I need to proactively stop people taking my stuff ? Why shouldn't they do that because - oh, I don't know - not taking people's stuff is the right thing to do ?
Apparently the "social contract" where you live dictates that people who leave their doors unlocked, or people who don't fence their yards, or don't cover everything with "no entry" or "do not take" signs are "neglecting" it. Well, all I can say is I'm fucking glad I don't live there.
If you know anyone over 60, I'm sure they'll be able to remember the days when people didn't lock their doors and parked their cars with the keys in the ignition (heck, if they're from the country they're probably still living them). Ask them how they'd have felt about driving away in one of those cars or walking into one of those houses without explicit permission. Then you'll know how you *should* feel about using someone else's property without their permission.
People like you, who insist that technically open does not mean legally open, are doing the uninformed users a great disservice, because this "pretend" legal security removes the incentive to actually secure private networks.
Mate, "technically open" pretty much never means "legally open", and if you think I'm the only person "insisting" that you're in for a world of hurt (and gaol time) in the future - because the legal system (along with most people) agrees with me.
Besides, listening to unencrypted radio transmissions is legal in many places, also with good reason.
"Listening to unencrypted radio transmissions" is a very different thing to accessing a network through someone's unsecured WAP.
Automatic connections are a legitimate application of wireless network technology.
This is not something I disagree with.
I am not obligated to use wireless networks that way, but it is not reasonable to forbid it, because that would not do the people whom you're trying to protect any good. You're in a public space, so you have to be cooperative. Pretending to provide an open access network when you're doing no such thing is not cooperative.
An unsecured WAP is in no way "providing an open access network". You could make the argument it's proving open access to the WAP itself, but certainly nothing further can be reasonably assumed about the services accessible through that WAP.
The SSID is a free form string of 1-32 characters and its name defines its meaning. As far as the standard is concerned, it has no access control purpose (that's why even encrypted networks broadcast it in the clear). You can offer an encrypted network that is open to the public, but the standard includes no provisions that could enable automatic connections in that case. If you put information in the SSID that can help people figure out how to connect anyway, that's fine. In the normal case of an unencrypted public access network, requiring a human to read the SSID is not necessary because the computer already has sufficient information. Requiring manual intervention limits the usefulness of the technology in an unnecessary way and achieves nothing that enabling encryption wouldn't achieve more easily and thoroughly.
Your technical explanation of how wifi works does not carry much weight in an argument about intent. It doesn't with me (and I already know how it works) and it _certainly_ won't with a judge and/or jury if you get dragged into court for "stealing wifi". The technical aspects of how your computer connects to a network plays a very quiet second fiddle to the intent of the person who owns the network and, to a lesser extent, your intent in connecting to it (or not immediately disconnecting).
*How* your computer connects to a network is a completely independent and irrelevant factor to the intent of the person providing said network. As is trivially demonstrated by the example of an encrypted network with the password in the SSID.
"Stealing wifi" is not an issue of technical explanations, it is an issue of intent. If someone else has a network they don't want to be public and you access it without their permission, then you're in the wrong - no matter how easy it might be for you to do so. Just like you're in the wrong if you jump in someone's unlocked car and take it for a joyride.
Can you quote the part of the relevant standard that describes how allowing a computer to connect to an unsecured HTTP server implies consent to access any or all services available via that HTTP server?
No. But since I'm not trying to argue the technical description of how HTTP works is a valid way to determine the intent of the person who setup the server or published content to it, I see no reason why I should have to.
The simple truth is that the only way to have a private wireless network is to encrypt it. Legislation which hides that fact is irresponsible and has further unacceptable side effects.
Would you similarly argue you can only have someone charged with trespassing if you have a fence ?
Ask yourself this: if you were using someone's unsecured WAP and they asked you to stop, would you ?
That's perhaps impolite, not "dishonest". The law cited requires dishonesty (lying, cracking a password, etc), not impoliteness.
So someone taking your car out in the middle of the night without asking, that's just "impolite" ? How about if they use it in a ram raid ?
My "feeling" that you should not look at me does not give me the right to demand you not do so.
Indeed. Primarily because me looking at you neither costs you money nor impedes your ability to continue doing whatever you might be doing.
And analogies with "property" fail because there is no degradation (usually) of the owner's service (if there is, go ahead and charge the leech with denial of service).
In most of the world, internet access is metered by volume (either directly or indirectly). Even in the rest of it, it's almost certainly subject to some sort of flat fee. By using someone else's internet you are either a) directly costing them money or b) using a product or service they have paid for without their direct consent.
Your argument is ridiculous, it pretty much wouldn't happen with anything else. You wouldn't walk into someone's unlocked house and make yourself lunch in their kitchen. You wouldn't climb up the pole outside their house to hang a wire off their electricity feed. You wouldn't take their car joyriding because it was parked in the street with the keys in it. But apparently because it's teh intarwebs, all semblence of respect and common sense gets thrown out the window because most people are ignorant about technology and you see an opportunity to take advantage of that ignorance for your own selfish gain. People like *you* are why all those special "internet laws" about things like this (which I'm sure you complain loudly about) get passed.
Further, the signal being used is being transmitted into public space, not limited to the owner's property.
Utterly irrelevant. That doesn't mean you have to use it.
If you want an analogy, I'm reading a newspaper by the light from yout porch light, while sitting on a bench in the street. You don't like it? Put a shade on your light.
Not a good analogy. Your usage of "my light" has no impact - real or potential - on my ability to use it.
Yes, I understand that many, perhaps most, open WAP points are so by default. Nevertheless, if NO HARM IS DONE, [...]
How do you know that no harm is done ? Have you asked ? If harm could even possibly be done, on what moral basis are you deciding it's ok without consulting the person who could potentially be harmed ?
[...] and there is no way to distinguish WAPs open by choice from those open by neglect, [...]
There are, however, several very obvious ways someone who has setup a WAP for public access can indicate that. Without that indication, _assuming_ that it is meant for public access is no more reasonable than assuming because your neighbour left his car parked unlocked and with the keys in the ignition, it's ok for you to take it for a joyride.
[...] I feel no moral qualms, and I really wish someone would take it to court to argue the legal case. The very few cases cited have all, I think, been settled by a guilty plea and thus no argument of the merits. Just because a defendant was intimidated into taking a plea does not prove anything.
Somehow I doubt you'd like the answer, because the judge (and/or jury) aren't going to be interested in how technically easy it is to connect to someone's wifi, they're going to be interested in the intent of the person who setup the WAP.
I live in Hong Kong. Here broadband is cheap and ubiquitous. There is a monthly fee, but no data cap. When wandering around with my laptop and Netstumbler I find perhaps half the access points open. But recently travelling in Australia I was rather inconvenienced to find that there are hardly any open WAPs. There most Internet services have a very low monthly cap, perhaps 2 GB of data. Conse
So how does all of that work out when in comes to a webserver. There is a good change that http://example.com/ is on some sort of metered connection. Is it reasonable to assume you are allowed to use it, or do you never click on a link without calling the owner of a server first? And if it is reasonable to assume you can access an other computer over the public internet, why is it unreasonable you can access a wireless network over public airwaves?
The sole purpose of a webserver is to publish content (such content can have restricted access, but examples of that are very much the exception to the rule). The sole purpose of a WAP is *not* to share an internet connection with anyone who happens to be driving by, nor is it reasonable to assume that someone wants you to piggyback off their WAP any more than it is reasonable to assume they want you to piggyback off their electricity, gas, water, satellite TV or telephone "just because you can".
But when it screams 'I'm here!' all the time and answer 'Go right ahead' when you ask if you can use it, than that comunicates an permission to use it.
It, maybe (to the extent of being issued an IP, at least). The resources accessible through it, definitely not.
If you don't want that, don't broadcast your network, answer no to a request to use it, ignore the request at all if you like. But when the answer is 'Yes, and here is your ipadress', that is what we call 'permission'.
No, it's not, any more than leaving you car unlocked with the keys in it is giving "permission" for someone to take it.
And, unlike social rules, the procedure for granting or refusing access is clear, well defined, properly documented and an official industry standard.
Really ? Please quote the relevant part of the standard where having an unsecured WAP implied consent to use services accessible through it. I'll be happy to wait.
Let me put it this way. You will have a very easy time convincing a judge and/or jury that someone publishing a website is doing so with the knowledge that it will be open and accessible to others because a) that's what the common understanding of the pupose of a website is and b) it's pretty much impossible publish a website "accidentally". You will have a very difficult time convincing a judge and/or jury that an unsecured WAP is an advertisement and implied consent for free internet access based on the principle it gave you an IP address because a) that's not what most people want to do with their WAPs and b) because it's _very_ easy to ignorantly setup an unsecured WAP. Further, no amount of arguing "but look how easy it is" (which is essentially all you're doing) is going to change their mind. Neither is arguing "it's just like putting up a website", when typically the intent behind doing that is completely different.
When you can walk around your neighbourhood and a majority of people are happy to let you hook up to their power, gas, water, electricity and phoneline without paying them anything, I'll be willing to consider it a reasonable assumption that they're willing to let you hook up to their internet connection as well. But certainly not before.
The older you get, the more you understand the value of your own labour and the more benefits you have to show from it. Hence, when older, you're far more likely to care about the government taking it from you and people like you.
I believe the root of the problem is that the social norm here is not really defined.
Sure it is. All you need to do is replace "unsecured WAP" with just about any other good or service people pay for. Power, gas, electricity, telephone, satellite TV. How many of these would you _assume_ you can "piggyback" off your neighbours (or anyone else), without asking ?
If you walked into a cafe for a meal, would you then assume that you could walk into the kitchen and prepare the meal yourself ? If you walked up to a bar for a drink, would you assume that means you can walk behind it and fix your own drink ? If your cordless phone locked onto your neighbour's base station, would you assume that means it's ok to call your brother-in-law in Africa through their line ?
Among non-techies, it's harder to tell whether the openness is intentional or due to ignorance. Hence we get into this debate about what constitutes evidence of intent, or whether we should default to assuming intent or ignorance, etc.
It is _irrelevant_ whether the WAP is left unsecured due to intent or ignorance. The point is an internet connection, like most things they pay for, is not something most people will be happy with you using if you don't contribute in some way to its upkeep. To paraphrase, the fact that there is a question, means there is no question. You should be erring on the side of politeness and caution, and not use an open WAP you can't ascertain isn't meant for public access. This would apply in just about any other situation where you have access to a good or service that someone else has paid for - why would an unsecured WAP any different ?
Further, most people _know_ this, which is why you get all these technical and pedantic arguments about the "how", trying to justify behaviour - the "what" and "why" - they know to be, at the very least, questionable.
As I said elsewhere, the real tragedy is that it now apparently takes legislation to "suggest" people don't act disrespectfully and selfishly.
The problem with electricity, gas, water, or the telephone is that they're metered. But if you're talking about something that's un-metered, like my front garden which has an open configuration. I have people eating their lunches in my front garden rather frequently. In one unusual case, I even had a woman sun-bathing there. I don't mind it really, as long as they clean up after themselves.
In most parts of the world, internet access is still "metered" - so an assumption it isn't is not reasonable for most. However, even if it were not, there is almost still a fixed monthly access fee - and even _that_ doesn't cover the liability issues for someone using a unsecured WAP to commit crimes.
You're arguing (incorrectly) that unsecured WAPs "damage" the network frequency they use because there's no way they can indicate whether or not they are insecured due to ignorance or intent. That's a stretch. More importantly, it's incorrect, because it's quite easy for an unsecured WAP to indicate that it is there for public usage.
Automatic connections are only possible if the computer can decide whether a network is open or not. That requires that you can trust that open really means open. To a computer, "Free" is as meaningless an SSID as "linksys" or "keepout".
Guess what ? Just like guns don't kill people without human intervention, computers don't use networks without someone to direct them. Just because your computer automatically connects to a WAP when you pop the lid open, does not mean you are obligated to use that connection. Nothing at all stops you from disconnecting.
The SSID is not the place to state your intentions, the encryption dialog is.
Why not ? Why is the SSID the wrong place ? What if someone wants to offer an encrypted network - for security reasons - that is still open to the public ? According to you, that's impossible, since encryption and public access are mutually exclusive.
By not using the available standard-compliant means for declaring networks private, you're depriving others of unambiguous automatic access to intentionally public networks.
No, you're not. Unambiguous intent is quite easy to communicate through other means like the SSID or public announcements. Can you quote the part of the relevant standard that describes how allowing a computer to connect to an unsecured WAP implies consent to access any or all services available via that WAP ?
Exactly. An unsecured router that is broadcasting its SSID is advertising a free service.
No, it's advertising it exists. It's saying *nothing* about the services you may be able to access via a connection to it. Just like that car sitting on the side of the road unlocked with the keys in isn't implicitly saying you're allowed to take it joyriding. Or how your cordless phone that can connect with your neighbour's base station isn't implicitly saying you can make international phone calls on their account.
At least on my router, you can turn the SSID broadcast off. You can't invite someone to your house and then claim that they were trespassing.
You can, however, charge someone for trespassing if they take a shortcut across your unfenced yard.
So it's "illegal" if it's "dishonest". How is it "dishonest" to connect to an open wifi point?
Because you are using a resource someone else has bought and paid for without their explicit - nor reasonably assumed - permission.
If you doubt the latter, walk around your neighbourhood and find out how many people will let you piggyback off their electricity, gas, water or telephone connections. I'd be willing to bet that number is pretty close to zero. For real laughs, tell them you're already doing it and see how they react.
Now you can come up with all sorts of pedantic technical arguments about why an open access point is implicitly granting permission for you to use it (as could I). But a judge (and/or jury) isn't going to care about that, because his interest is in the "why", not the "how". The judge is (quite rightfully, IMHO) almost certainly going to work under the assumption that unless otherwise indicated, a WAP is only meant for the use of the person who owns it and others they have explicitly allowed - because that's exactly how most people feel about every other piece of property they own (or service they have paid for).
I know exactly how a WAP works. I open mine up for public access (with a suitable indication via the SSID). But I certainly don't assume that every unsecured WAP I stumble across is there for me to use because that would not be reasonable.
If by setting up a Web server I'm tacitly permitting inbound traffic, then surely setting up an unprotected wifi access point is the same, as far as the law is concerned?
Highly doubtful. You can make a quite reasonable argument that people who make the effort to put up a website to share information with others have implicitly made the decision that information should be public.
You can not make the reasonable argument that people who have powered up a WAP that ships from the factory in a default unsecured configuration, are inviting you to share their internet connection (sans some indication to the contrary, like a SSID of "Free Internet").
"I'm here" on its own does not in any way equate to "come on in".
Its only the same if there's a sign on the bar that says "help yourself".
No, it's not. "I'm here" is not the same as "come on in". Or do you walk behind bars and start fixing yourself drinks if they don't specifically have "staff only" signs ?
You aren't disrespecting their privacy and property any more than you would have been if they had, mistakenly or intentaionally, left an "open house" sign on their front lawn (or anything along those lines inviting the public in) and you started exploring the property.
Once again, "I'm here" is not the same as "come on in". An unsecured WAP is like an unlocked door, it is *not* like an "open house" sign.
Slashdot Mirror
No they aren't, because those easily-accessible resources (the ones that you named) are practically NEVER intentionally made available for public use.
Neither are APs, despite what a lot of ethically-challenged individuals will insist on Slashdot.
APs on the other hand often are intentionally made available for public use (just look at the posts in this thread for evidence of that) so it is reasonable to think that an AP configured for public use was intentionally made available for public use.
No, it's not. A handful of technologically-aware individuals on a site like Slashdot indicating their leave their WAPs open is *not* a reasonable way to extrapolate to society at large.
Most WAPs ship out of the box in an unsecured fashion. Insisting that because the massive majority of technically ignorant individuals do not change this default setting implies they are inviting you to use their internet connection is drawing a very long bow indeed. Further, drawing that long bow is the only way you can make an assertion like "APs on the other hand often are intentionally made available for public use".
Completely different situation. To gain access to those things I must physically enter and alter your private property.
I think you'll find hooking into someone's WAP and internet connection alters how they work as well. Or, at least, I don't know of any that have infinite bandwidth (to say nothing of the security implications of attaching another computer to someone else's network or liability implications of using their network to commit a crime).
Of course I should ask permission to do that. Furthermore, gas and electricity are metered. My use would directly translate into money out of the owner's pocket.
Most internet connections are metered.
And a typical home phone line cannot be used for more than one call at the same time.
So would you have a problem using their phone line when they aren't ?
And furthermore, I have in fact done some of the exact things you're describing (with permission) with my neighbors in college.
Yes. Notice the "with permission" part. If you cannot understand how this *fundamentally* changes the situation, it's pretty obvious I'm wasting my time in this discussion.
The reality is that Linux on the desktop, whethr you consider it "ready" yet or not, has been improving at a far faster rate than Windows has. Just compare Windows98 and the contemporary releases of Linux (around Redhat 5.2 I think, back when they were still using Afterstep as the default environment) and then compare Vista to Ubuntu 7.10: any gaps have narrowed dramatically.
Well, duh, it's easy to make big improvements when you have big improvements that need making.
Give linux another couple of years to make comparative gains and things may look inteesting when it comes time for businesses to look at OS upgrades -- do you move to Windows 7, or Linux? Both will probably represent almost equally large changes and require as much retraining as each other, and by that point Linux may well be a very good desktop option.
Assuming that the rate of change will remain as high would be pretty foolish.
Combine that with the fact that Linux (via wine) might actually be as good as Windows 7 at running your old win32 software (given Vistas difficulties with such things) and Microsoft may have a potential revolt on their hands.
It won't need to be as good running win32 software, it will need to be as good running win64 and .NET software.
0. DRM throughout the system.
Irrelevant.
1. If a dialog box pops up, you can't move or resize the parent window. WHY ISN'T THIS FIXED YET?
Application problem.
2. It's slow and bloated, even on modern hardware.
False. It's quite usable even on 3 year old laptops.
3. Its user interface is inconsistent. (OK, KDE and Gnome are pretty bad this way, too, but OS-X isn't, for instance.)
Its user interface is no more inconsistent than other platforms like OS X.
4. DRM.
Irrelevant.
5. Intrusive security model.
I assume by "Security model" you mean UAC. It is the same as Linux and OS X.
6. Requires re-training of end-users, which is expensive. (Had to add this one, as it's always used as a "reason" to not move to Linux or OpenOffice.)
UI is still fundamentally the same as Windows 95, from 12 years ago. Anyone who needs "retraining" for Vista would likely need "retraining" if you changed the colour scheme. There are frequently bigger differences between point releases of the same Linux distro than there is between different versions of Windows.
7. Invasive anti-piracy model.
Typing in a serial number and clicking through a dialog is not "invasive" - especially since a significant proportion users will never even need to do that.
8. DRM.
Irrelevant.
9. No compelling reason to upgrade from XP.
Opinion. I can think of several Vista features that would compel me to upgrade to Vista.
The DRM and protected path nonsense is pretty radical, and of significant negative value to anyone who actually uses the platform.
DRM does nothing unless your media is DRM-encumbered - and if your content *is* DRM-encumbered, Vista doesn't do anything any other player capable of displaying it would do.
Or, in other words, DRM cannot - by definition - be having any negative impact to using Vista, let alone a "significant" one.
And with that you get all the DRM that forces DVDs to lower resolution, slows everything down, and keeps you from even being able to enjoy some of the things you legitimately paid for? No thanks.
No, it doesn't. You are either a) stupid or b) lying.
Um no. The presentation was tested, then made just fine twice. The third film in the series it decided to ask permission to let Java do something.. right in the middle of a running presentation. To make matters worse, we were not running a browser or any other java application. It was a pop-up plain and simple. It was not network intiated. At the time, there was no LAN connection.
Your first targets to blame should be Java and the DVD player. Only after you have eliminated them (eg: does the DVD player stop whenever it loses focus ?), does it become reasonable to look at the OS as a potential culprit.
I don't know why this guy is marked as a troll, but from a business perspective Vista does not offer anything to security or productivity that WinXP can't provide already provide with the proper patches.
I have just recently discovered that Vista lets you do a "switch user" while part of a domain. To me, at least, as a systems admin, that's a significant new feature that's nearly worth upgrading for on its own.
On a more Joe Average level, I would consider UAC a significant feature that justifies the Vista upgrade. Less so in a managed-system business environment (but even there, valuable if you have a userbase that "needs" local Administrator access to the machines) than home user environment, however. I'd also consider the builtin search to be a "killer feature" - neither Google's nor Microsoft's offering on Windows XP is as good IMHO.
PS Microsoft still supplies their Java VM updated, it is still 10x faster than Suns and doesn't have inherit problems by violating NT security.
Where can this be found ?
Asking permission with a notification icon is one thing on a dual monitor set up. Stopping the running movie is not acceptable behavior.
Vista didn't stop your DVD player, something else caused it to stop itself.
Try running your DVD player on one monitor, then changing the focus to something else on the other monitor. What happens to the movie ? Many DVD player programs will stop the running movie if they are no longer the focussed application. If this happens, it is the fault of the DVD player - the developers are incorrectly assuming that if it doesn't have focus, the movie is being obstructed by something, so they stop the playing so you don't miss any of the movie.
Yes, that's not what mail is for. I personally get ruffled the wrong way when I see people generate insane overhead by latching binaries to mails instead of using sensible ways of transfer (like uploading to some server and sending the FTP link via mail), but that's how mail is being used.
This is not a sensible way of transferring files and their associated metadata (which is the important part). It requires additional resources (in the shape of a functioning FTP or webserver), access to said server by the sender (plus software to facilitate transferring the date to it), an understanding of the concept by both parties and, finally, makes it difficult to the receiver to be reasonably sure the file and its reference (the email) will always be together (anyone who has ever come back to an email with an outdated HTTP link in it should understand this).
The *reason* everyone uses email for file transfers, is because the other methods suck. If you want people to stop using email as a binary filing cabinet, come up with an easier way for them to do it.
I never understood people who say they don't get spam on gmail. Since I don't use it except as a backup, I've never given my address to anyone save for my web host and yet, here is all this spam.
In the gmail account I use for "signing up to things" - for everything from online forums to torrent sites - I see maybe two spam mails into the inbox a month, if that.
The G3 iMac was derided for not having a floppy drive. Sounds pretty ridiculous now, doesn't it?
The G3 iMac was derided for not having a _replacement_ for a floppy drive. Had apple shipped them with CD writers (not even CDRWs), there would have been no complaints. But at the time, it made getting information off an iMac difficult without buying more hardware - not an insignificant issue for a computer with a significant customer based expected to be in the education market (either schools or students).
You can indeed not charge someone with trespass if it was not obvious to him that he was on private property and not welcome. If your house has an entrance like an art gallery or a shop, and people wander in, you can tell them to leave and then they have to leave, but you can't charge them with trespass just because they came into your house.
On the other hand, I'm sure if you discover someone hunting animals on your unfenced property (that just happened to be between two other fenced properties), you'd have a pretty good case.
If I am interactively using my computer at that time, I probably would, because I am a polite person. I would also tell them to enable encryption so that their network is secure and my computer could avoid their network in the future.
Why would you stop ? You've already spent numerous posts telling me that you consider an unsecured WAP to be explicitly giving you permission to connect and use any services you can find through it. Are you now saying that an unsecured WAP *could* have a network on the other side of it that the owner did not intend to share with the public ?
The people neglecting the social contract are the people who don't bother to turn on encryption or other access control features, and then complain that strangers are accessing their open networks.
Really ? Which part of that "social contract" says I need to proactively stop people taking my stuff ? Why shouldn't they do that because - oh, I don't know - not taking people's stuff is the right thing to do ?
Apparently the "social contract" where you live dictates that people who leave their doors unlocked, or people who don't fence their yards, or don't cover everything with "no entry" or "do not take" signs are "neglecting" it. Well, all I can say is I'm fucking glad I don't live there.
If you know anyone over 60, I'm sure they'll be able to remember the days when people didn't lock their doors and parked their cars with the keys in the ignition (heck, if they're from the country they're probably still living them). Ask them how they'd have felt about driving away in one of those cars or walking into one of those houses without explicit permission. Then you'll know how you *should* feel about using someone else's property without their permission.
People like you, who insist that technically open does not mean legally open, are doing the uninformed users a great disservice, because this "pretend" legal security removes the incentive to actually secure private networks.
Mate, "technically open" pretty much never means "legally open", and if you think I'm the only person "insisting" that you're in for a world of hurt (and gaol time) in the future - because the legal system (along with most people) agrees with me.
Besides, listening to unencrypted radio transmissions is legal in many places, also with good reason.
"Listening to unencrypted radio transmissions" is a very different thing to accessing a network through someone's unsecured WAP.
Automatic connections are a legitimate application of wireless network technology.
This is not something I disagree with.
I am not obligated to use wireless networks that way, but it is not reasonable to forbid it, because that would not do the people whom you're trying to protect any good. You're in a public space, so you have to be cooperative. Pretending to provide an open access network when you're doing no such thing is not cooperative.
An unsecured WAP is in no way "providing an open access network". You could make the argument it's proving open access to the WAP itself, but certainly nothing further can be reasonably assumed about the services accessible through that WAP.
The SSID is a free form string of 1-32 characters and its name defines its meaning. As far as the standard is concerned, it has no access control purpose (that's why even encrypted networks broadcast it in the clear). You can offer an encrypted network that is open to the public, but the standard includes no provisions that could enable automatic connections in that case. If you put information in the SSID that can help people figure out how to connect anyway, that's fine. In the normal case of an unencrypted public access network, requiring a human to read the SSID is not necessary because the computer already has sufficient information. Requiring manual intervention limits the usefulness of the technology in an unnecessary way and achieves nothing that enabling encryption wouldn't achieve more easily and thoroughly.
Your technical explanation of how wifi works does not carry much weight in an argument about intent. It doesn't with me (and I already know how it works) and it _certainly_ won't with a judge and/or jury if you get dragged into court for "stealing wifi". The technical aspects of how your computer connects to a network plays a very quiet second fiddle to the intent of the person who owns the network and, to a lesser extent, your intent in connecting to it (or not immediately disconnecting).
*How* your computer connects to a network is a completely independent and irrelevant factor to the intent of the person providing said network. As is trivially demonstrated by the example of an encrypted network with the password in the SSID.
"Stealing wifi" is not an issue of technical explanations, it is an issue of intent. If someone else has a network they don't want to be public and you access it without their permission, then you're in the wrong - no matter how easy it might be for you to do so. Just like you're in the wrong if you jump in someone's unlocked car and take it for a joyride.
Can you quote the part of the relevant standard that describes how allowing a computer to connect to an unsecured HTTP server implies consent to access any or all services available via that HTTP server?
No. But since I'm not trying to argue the technical description of how HTTP works is a valid way to determine the intent of the person who setup the server or published content to it, I see no reason why I should have to.
The simple truth is that the only way to have a private wireless network is to encrypt it. Legislation which hides that fact is irresponsible and has further unacceptable side effects.
Would you similarly argue you can only have someone charged with trespassing if you have a fence ?
Ask yourself this: if you were using someone's unsecured WAP and they asked you to stop, would you ?
That's perhaps impolite, not "dishonest". The law cited requires dishonesty (lying, cracking a password, etc), not impoliteness.
So someone taking your car out in the middle of the night without asking, that's just "impolite" ? How about if they use it in a ram raid ?
My "feeling" that you should not look at me does not give me the right to demand you not do so.
Indeed. Primarily because me looking at you neither costs you money nor impedes your ability to continue doing whatever you might be doing.
And analogies with "property" fail because there is no degradation (usually) of the owner's service (if there is, go ahead and charge the leech with denial of service).
In most of the world, internet access is metered by volume (either directly or indirectly). Even in the rest of it, it's almost certainly subject to some sort of flat fee. By using someone else's internet you are either a) directly costing them money or b) using a product or service they have paid for without their direct consent.
Your argument is ridiculous, it pretty much wouldn't happen with anything else. You wouldn't walk into someone's unlocked house and make yourself lunch in their kitchen. You wouldn't climb up the pole outside their house to hang a wire off their electricity feed. You wouldn't take their car joyriding because it was parked in the street with the keys in it. But apparently because it's teh intarwebs, all semblence of respect and common sense gets thrown out the window because most people are ignorant about technology and you see an opportunity to take advantage of that ignorance for your own selfish gain. People like *you* are why all those special "internet laws" about things like this (which I'm sure you complain loudly about) get passed.
Further, the signal being used is being transmitted into public space, not limited to the owner's property.
Utterly irrelevant. That doesn't mean you have to use it.
If you want an analogy, I'm reading a newspaper by the light from yout porch light, while sitting on a bench in the street. You don't like it? Put a shade on your light.
Not a good analogy. Your usage of "my light" has no impact - real or potential - on my ability to use it.
Yes, I understand that many, perhaps most, open WAP points are so by default. Nevertheless, if NO HARM IS DONE, [...]
How do you know that no harm is done ? Have you asked ? If harm could even possibly be done, on what moral basis are you deciding it's ok without consulting the person who could potentially be harmed ?
[...] and there is no way to distinguish WAPs open by choice from those open by neglect, [...]
There are, however, several very obvious ways someone who has setup a WAP for public access can indicate that. Without that indication, _assuming_ that it is meant for public access is no more reasonable than assuming because your neighbour left his car parked unlocked and with the keys in the ignition, it's ok for you to take it for a joyride.
[...] I feel no moral qualms, and I really wish someone would take it to court to argue the legal case. The very few cases cited have all, I think, been settled by a guilty plea and thus no argument of the merits. Just because a defendant was intimidated into taking a plea does not prove anything.
Somehow I doubt you'd like the answer, because the judge (and/or jury) aren't going to be interested in how technically easy it is to connect to someone's wifi, they're going to be interested in the intent of the person who setup the WAP.
I live in Hong Kong. Here broadband is cheap and ubiquitous. There is a monthly fee, but no data cap. When wandering around with my laptop and Netstumbler I find perhaps half the access points open. But recently travelling in Australia I was rather inconvenienced to find that there are hardly any open WAPs. There most Internet services have a very low monthly cap, perhaps 2 GB of data. Conse
So how does all of that work out when in comes to a webserver. There is a good change that http://example.com/ is on some sort of metered connection. Is it reasonable to assume you are allowed to use it, or do you never click on a link without calling the owner of a server first? And if it is reasonable to assume you can access an other computer over the public internet, why is it unreasonable you can access a wireless network over public airwaves?
The sole purpose of a webserver is to publish content (such content can have restricted access, but examples of that are very much the exception to the rule). The sole purpose of a WAP is *not* to share an internet connection with anyone who happens to be driving by, nor is it reasonable to assume that someone wants you to piggyback off their WAP any more than it is reasonable to assume they want you to piggyback off their electricity, gas, water, satellite TV or telephone "just because you can".
But when it screams 'I'm here!' all the time and answer 'Go right ahead' when you ask if you can use it, than that comunicates an permission to use it.
It, maybe (to the extent of being issued an IP, at least). The resources accessible through it, definitely not.
If you don't want that, don't broadcast your network, answer no to a request to use it, ignore the request at all if you like. But when the answer is 'Yes, and here is your ipadress', that is what we call 'permission'.
No, it's not, any more than leaving you car unlocked with the keys in it is giving "permission" for someone to take it.
And, unlike social rules, the procedure for granting or refusing access is clear, well defined, properly documented and an official industry standard.
Really ? Please quote the relevant part of the standard where having an unsecured WAP implied consent to use services accessible through it. I'll be happy to wait.
Let me put it this way. You will have a very easy time convincing a judge and/or jury that someone publishing a website is doing so with the knowledge that it will be open and accessible to others because a) that's what the common understanding of the pupose of a website is and b) it's pretty much impossible publish a website "accidentally". You will have a very difficult time convincing a judge and/or jury that an unsecured WAP is an advertisement and implied consent for free internet access based on the principle it gave you an IP address because a) that's not what most people want to do with their WAPs and b) because it's _very_ easy to ignorantly setup an unsecured WAP. Further, no amount of arguing "but look how easy it is" (which is essentially all you're doing) is going to change their mind. Neither is arguing "it's just like putting up a website", when typically the intent behind doing that is completely different.
When you can walk around your neighbourhood and a majority of people are happy to let you hook up to their power, gas, water, electricity and phoneline without paying them anything, I'll be willing to consider it a reasonable assumption that they're willing to let you hook up to their internet connection as well. But certainly not before.
Funny, because I've always interpreted it as:
The older you get, the more you understand the value of your own labour and the more benefits you have to show from it. Hence, when older, you're far more likely to care about the government taking it from you and people like you.
I believe the root of the problem is that the social norm here is not really defined.
Sure it is. All you need to do is replace "unsecured WAP" with just about any other good or service people pay for. Power, gas, electricity, telephone, satellite TV. How many of these would you _assume_ you can "piggyback" off your neighbours (or anyone else), without asking ?
If you walked into a cafe for a meal, would you then assume that you could walk into the kitchen and prepare the meal yourself ? If you walked up to a bar for a drink, would you assume that means you can walk behind it and fix your own drink ? If your cordless phone locked onto your neighbour's base station, would you assume that means it's ok to call your brother-in-law in Africa through their line ?
Among non-techies, it's harder to tell whether the openness is intentional or due to ignorance. Hence we get into this debate about what constitutes evidence of intent, or whether we should default to assuming intent or ignorance, etc.
It is _irrelevant_ whether the WAP is left unsecured due to intent or ignorance. The point is an internet connection, like most things they pay for, is not something most people will be happy with you using if you don't contribute in some way to its upkeep. To paraphrase, the fact that there is a question, means there is no question. You should be erring on the side of politeness and caution, and not use an open WAP you can't ascertain isn't meant for public access. This would apply in just about any other situation where you have access to a good or service that someone else has paid for - why would an unsecured WAP any different ?
Further, most people _know_ this, which is why you get all these technical and pedantic arguments about the "how", trying to justify behaviour - the "what" and "why" - they know to be, at the very least, questionable.
As I said elsewhere, the real tragedy is that it now apparently takes legislation to "suggest" people don't act disrespectfully and selfishly.
The problem with electricity, gas, water, or the telephone is that they're metered. But if you're talking about something that's un-metered, like my front garden which has an open configuration. I have people eating their lunches in my front garden rather frequently. In one unusual case, I even had a woman sun-bathing there. I don't mind it really, as long as they clean up after themselves.
In most parts of the world, internet access is still "metered" - so an assumption it isn't is not reasonable for most. However, even if it were not, there is almost still a fixed monthly access fee - and even _that_ doesn't cover the liability issues for someone using a unsecured WAP to commit crimes.
I'm not stretching anything.
You're arguing (incorrectly) that unsecured WAPs "damage" the network frequency they use because there's no way they can indicate whether or not they are insecured due to ignorance or intent. That's a stretch. More importantly, it's incorrect, because it's quite easy for an unsecured WAP to indicate that it is there for public usage.
Automatic connections are only possible if the computer can decide whether a network is open or not. That requires that you can trust that open really means open. To a computer, "Free" is as meaningless an SSID as "linksys" or "keepout".
Guess what ? Just like guns don't kill people without human intervention, computers don't use networks without someone to direct them. Just because your computer automatically connects to a WAP when you pop the lid open, does not mean you are obligated to use that connection. Nothing at all stops you from disconnecting.
The SSID is not the place to state your intentions, the encryption dialog is.
Why not ? Why is the SSID the wrong place ? What if someone wants to offer an encrypted network - for security reasons - that is still open to the public ? According to you, that's impossible, since encryption and public access are mutually exclusive.
By not using the available standard-compliant means for declaring networks private, you're depriving others of unambiguous automatic access to intentionally public networks.
No, you're not. Unambiguous intent is quite easy to communicate through other means like the SSID or public announcements. Can you quote the part of the relevant standard that describes how allowing a computer to connect to an unsecured WAP implies consent to access any or all services available via that WAP ?
Exactly. An unsecured router that is broadcasting its SSID is advertising a free service.
No, it's advertising it exists. It's saying *nothing* about the services you may be able to access via a connection to it. Just like that car sitting on the side of the road unlocked with the keys in isn't implicitly saying you're allowed to take it joyriding. Or how your cordless phone that can connect with your neighbour's base station isn't implicitly saying you can make international phone calls on their account.
At least on my router, you can turn the SSID broadcast off. You can't invite someone to your house and then claim that they were trespassing.
You can, however, charge someone for trespassing if they take a shortcut across your unfenced yard.
So it's "illegal" if it's "dishonest". How is it "dishonest" to connect to an open wifi point?
Because you are using a resource someone else has bought and paid for without their explicit - nor reasonably assumed - permission.
If you doubt the latter, walk around your neighbourhood and find out how many people will let you piggyback off their electricity, gas, water or telephone connections. I'd be willing to bet that number is pretty close to zero. For real laughs, tell them you're already doing it and see how they react.
Now you can come up with all sorts of pedantic technical arguments about why an open access point is implicitly granting permission for you to use it (as could I). But a judge (and/or jury) isn't going to care about that, because his interest is in the "why", not the "how". The judge is (quite rightfully, IMHO) almost certainly going to work under the assumption that unless otherwise indicated, a WAP is only meant for the use of the person who owns it and others they have explicitly allowed - because that's exactly how most people feel about every other piece of property they own (or service they have paid for).
I know exactly how a WAP works. I open mine up for public access (with a suitable indication via the SSID). But I certainly don't assume that every unsecured WAP I stumble across is there for me to use because that would not be reasonable.
If by setting up a Web server I'm tacitly permitting inbound traffic, then surely setting up an unprotected wifi access point is the same, as far as the law is concerned?
Highly doubtful. You can make a quite reasonable argument that people who make the effort to put up a website to share information with others have implicitly made the decision that information should be public.
You can not make the reasonable argument that people who have powered up a WAP that ships from the factory in a default unsecured configuration, are inviting you to share their internet connection (sans some indication to the contrary, like a SSID of "Free Internet").
"I'm here" on its own does not in any way equate to "come on in".
Its only the same if there's a sign on the bar that says "help yourself".
No, it's not. "I'm here" is not the same as "come on in". Or do you walk behind bars and start fixing yourself drinks if they don't specifically have "staff only" signs ?
You aren't disrespecting their privacy and property any more than you would have been if they had, mistakenly or intentaionally, left an "open house" sign on their front lawn (or anything along those lines inviting the public in) and you started exploring the property.
Once again, "I'm here" is not the same as "come on in". An unsecured WAP is like an unlocked door, it is *not* like an "open house" sign.