A natural right in the context of human rights? I don't know what that means. There are human-granted rights. There are no nature-granted rights. If tommorow our society decides you don't have the right to live, then you don't have the right to live unless you have an army of robots to defend yourself with. Nature isn't going to strike the police who come for you down with lightning bolts or diseases.
There is no such thing as a natural/biological right to anything. The whole concept of a right is a human thing. The only reason anyone has any rights at all is because they can defend them or rely on other people to defend them.
I say GIVE US CHOICE - and stop forcing *your* choice of unsafe lightduty POS SUzuki vehicles on those of us who live out in the country.
I say take responsibility for your choices. Drive whatever the hell you want as long as you do something with the extra pollution you're creating other than dumping it into my air.
Add an obscure security hole to your software which only works if it detects it is "his" version. When he releases a new version with this in it, anonymously announce it to various security mailing lists. He won't have the skill to fix it on his own very quickly. Repeat a few times if necessary.
Of course, there will be a lot of collateral damage to his users who probably just didn't know any better...
A web server looks at the file extension, maps it to a MIME type, and sends the file.
Oh, and what file does the web server look at for an extension when there is no file because the content was generated on the fly, as many web sites are now?
This is good, because the web server just pulled the MIME type out of its ass. Who can best decide, a server with an old MIME database or a client with all the latest players installed?
Who can best decide: a server, which is maintained by someone who knows what content they're serving, or a client who has never seen the content before in its life?
Voting to restrict abortion, voting to assure the right to an abortion, and voting to remove the federal government from the matter entirely are three completely different things.
A vote to penalize abortion is not conducive to removing the government from the matter entirely. It would have been more conducive to his libertarian philosophy to vote "no".
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".
I don't know what you're talking about. Where I live, the vast majority of APs I see whenever I take a look these days are encrypted. Clearly they are not set up by some "majority of technically ignorant individuals" since the vast majority have used at least enough security to indicate that they didn't want to make an open AP.
Wide open APs are few enough to reasonably think that a significant number are that way intentionally.
I think you'll find hooking into someone's WAP and internet connection alters how they work as well.
Re-read what I said. I never said using an AP had no effect on it whatsoever.
Most internet connections are metered.
Where? In the US that is unheard of now. Maybe AOL dialup or something, but nobody is going to be using that in conjunction with an AP.
So would you have a problem using their phone line when they aren't ?
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.
Like I said, completely different situation for reasons I already explained. It doesn't make sense to compare an open AP to the rest of those things.
Slashdot advertises its accessibility elsewhere on the net. There is a Slashdot button on the Google toolbar. It stories appear on Google's news page.
Slashdot is not broadcasting a signal with a range outside the home of under 100 feet.
You may have noticed that I post as westlake and not as an AC. I have an account here. I played by the rules. There is a real - traceable - email address on file.
That's nice. But I'm still wondering, at what point did you actually communicate with an owner rather than communicate with a machine acting on the owner's behalf to be sure that you could do all this?
How do you know those advertisements weren't mistakenly left on a server after being canceled? How do you know the program that emailed you your account information wasn't failing to recognize people who the owners might not want to have accounts? Google doesn't personally ask before crawling a website.
The problem is that the Geek isn't the Judge. The problem is that the Geek isn't on the Jury.
The guy on the Jury is paying Time-Warner $150 a month for cable TV, Internet and phone service for himself and his family. To him it is a trespass, and to him the wardriver is a thief. Plain and simple.
That's right. The Arrogant Sociopath who cannot admit that he is at fault for miscommunicating his intentions and remaining ignorant about the machines he operates could wind up on the jury or become a judge. That is very much a problem.
It's like if you bought that house and it had written on the front door "open house" in binary
Right, like all those APs which can project a hologram in visible light throughout every point in their range which says in large text in every language spoken by humans "open" or "private"... rather than having to say so in binary.
If I'm using a resource that is advertised for public use, that is not theft. Not morally anyway. Legally it depends on the jurisdiction, if the issue has even been hashed out there at all.
Certainly they are. There is an easily-accessible resource bought and paid for by others you want to use, but aren't prepared to pay for yourself, so you're _assuming_ you can because it's something you want.
No they aren't, because those easily-accessible resources (the ones that you named) are practically NEVER intentionally made available for public use. Therefore, if you see a car idling unattended it would not be reasonable to think that it was left for your use.
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.
Feel free to perform an experiment. Ask your neighbours whether or not they'd mind if you piggyback onto their pay TV, or telephone line, or electricity, gas and water supplies.
Completely different situation. To gain access to those things I must physically enter and alter your private property. 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. And a typical home phone line cannot be used for more than one call at the same time.
And furthermore, I have in fact done some of the exact things you're describing (with permission) with my neighbors in college.
What's wrong with it is that you are using bandwidth they paid for, without their permission.
They configured their equipment to grant permission on their behalf. They have done so through ignorance or error, but that certainly doesn't mean someone who uses it is in the wrong.
Doubly so because you almost certainly know that most (if not all) WAPs ship in such a configuration from the factory and a significant proportion of people have no concept securing one, let alone know how to do it.
Irrelevant. If the owner of the network is incompetent, that is not my fault or problem. If through their ignorance they mistakenly configured their equipment to advertise itself and provide network access to me then I've done nothing wrong by accepting their invitation.
If you saw a car in the street with unlocked doors and the key in the ignition, would you assume it was there for random people to take joyriding ? How about if you saw someone's wallet on the ground ? Is your assumption they left it there for you to spend the money yourself ?
Those analogies aren't valid. There aren't really any real life situations where a car or a wallet is left intentionally for public use. There are actual situations where wifi is left for public use intentionally.
Exactly the same way walking up to a bar for a drink is different from going behind it to make your own.
Its only the same if there's a sign on the bar that says "help yourself".
It shouldn't take legislation for you to respect other people's property and privacy.
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.
The key difference between a "PC" and all those gadgets is opennness. You can easily start writing code for a PC without anyone else's approval, vendor resistance, expensive/proprietary SDKs, etc...
Some gadgets are more open than others, but for the most part they generally aren't. Especially if you count game consoles, home entertainment stuff and cell phones
Why not just put your writing on a web site of your own? Google & friends will still see it. I never rely solely on wikipedia to find information on anything.
Slashdot Mirror
A natural right in the context of human rights? I don't know what that means. There are human-granted rights. There are no nature-granted rights. If tommorow our society decides you don't have the right to live, then you don't have the right to live unless you have an army of robots to defend yourself with. Nature isn't going to strike the police who come for you down with lightning bolts or diseases.
Ah, you mean natural as in nature, biology.
There is no such thing as a natural/biological right to anything. The whole concept of a right is a human thing. The only reason anyone has any rights at all is because they can defend them or rely on other people to defend them.
They do? Why?
Well, obviously. The issue is why was the board drawing such an abormally large current through it in the first place.
And what do they do in that case?
I say take responsibility for your choices. Drive whatever the hell you want as long as you do something with the extra pollution you're creating other than dumping it into my air.
Add an obscure security hole to your software which only works if it detects it is "his" version. When he releases a new version with this in it, anonymously announce it to various security mailing lists. He won't have the skill to fix it on his own very quickly. Repeat a few times if necessary.
Of course, there will be a lot of collateral damage to his users who probably just didn't know any better...
Well if your "style" is such that you randomly mix tabs and spaces for indentation in the same code then I can see why you would feel that way.
Oh, and what file does the web server look at for an extension when there is no file because the content was generated on the fly, as many web sites are now?
Who can best decide: a server, which is maintained by someone who knows what content they're serving, or a client who has never seen the content before in its life?
Voting to restrict abortion, voting to assure the right to an abortion, and voting to remove the federal government from the matter entirely are three completely different things.
A vote to penalize abortion is not conducive to removing the government from the matter entirely. It would have been more conducive to his libertarian philosophy to vote "no".
Or better yet, hanged for treason...
I don't know what you're talking about. Where I live, the vast majority of APs I see whenever I take a look these days are encrypted. Clearly they are not set up by some "majority of technically ignorant individuals" since the vast majority have used at least enough security to indicate that they didn't want to make an open AP.
Wide open APs are few enough to reasonably think that a significant number are that way intentionally.
Re-read what I said. I never said using an AP had no effect on it whatsoever.
Where? In the US that is unheard of now. Maybe AOL dialup or something, but nobody is going to be using that in conjunction with an AP.
Like I said, completely different situation for reasons I already explained. It doesn't make sense to compare an open AP to the rest of those things.
That's nice. But I'm still wondering, at what point did you actually communicate with an owner rather than communicate with a machine acting on the owner's behalf to be sure that you could do all this?
How do you know those advertisements weren't mistakenly left on a server after being canceled? How do you know the program that emailed you your account information wasn't failing to recognize people who the owners might not want to have accounts? Google doesn't personally ask before crawling a website.
That's right. The Arrogant Sociopath who cannot admit that he is at fault for miscommunicating his intentions and remaining ignorant about the machines he operates could wind up on the jury or become a judge. That is very much a problem.
Right, like all those APs which can project a hologram in visible light throughout every point in their range which says in large text in every language spoken by humans "open" or "private"... rather than having to say so in binary.
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.
Said WAP:
* broadcasts its signal physically all over public property and other people's private property
* broadcasts its presence and openness multiple times per second on frequences which are specifically allocated for public use
* actively responds to requests from clients to associate and to acquire network configuration information
* actively accepts and forwards network packets given to it.
Now, describe to me exactly how this is the same as the bar or the unlocked door.
If I'm using a resource that is advertised for public use, that is not theft. Not morally anyway. Legally it depends on the jurisdiction, if the issue has even been hashed out there at all.
No they aren't, because those easily-accessible resources (the ones that you named) are practically NEVER intentionally made available for public use. Therefore, if you see a car idling unattended it would not be reasonable to think that it was left for your use.
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.
Completely different situation. To gain access to those things I must physically enter and alter your private property. 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. And a typical home phone line cannot be used for more than one call at the same time.
And furthermore, I have in fact done some of the exact things you're describing (with permission) with my neighbors in college.
In Michigan, perhaps.
Ah, so you personally asked all owners/shareholders of SourceForge, Inc. if you could access this website and post comments on it...
They configured their equipment to grant permission on their behalf. They have done so through ignorance or error, but that certainly doesn't mean someone who uses it is in the wrong.
Irrelevant. If the owner of the network is incompetent, that is not my fault or problem. If through their ignorance they mistakenly configured their equipment to advertise itself and provide network access to me then I've done nothing wrong by accepting their invitation.
Those analogies aren't valid. There aren't really any real life situations where a car or a wallet is left intentionally for public use. There are actual situations where wifi is left for public use intentionally.
Its only the same if there's a sign on the bar that says "help yourself".
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.
Considering that iPhone users consider the phone's web browser to be an acceptable way to write iPhone apps, I highly doubt efficiency is the reason for their lack of interest.
The key difference between a "PC" and all those gadgets is opennness. You can easily start writing code for a PC without anyone else's approval, vendor resistance, expensive/proprietary SDKs, etc...
Some gadgets are more open than others, but for the most part they generally aren't. Especially if you count game consoles, home entertainment stuff and cell phones
Why not just put your writing on a web site of your own? Google & friends will still see it. I never rely solely on wikipedia to find information on anything.