Having a look at an old policy... the locks and so forth must be installed and in working condition, but forced entry (i.e. picking a lock) is not a requirement for the claim to be valid. However one thing I was mistaken with is that if I invite someone into my Home and they steal something then I cannot claim; though certainly its still a crime. Stolen stuff that was left in public or shared spaces (like a shared car park in units) cannot be claimed either. Home contents covers accidental breakage of stuff too. I read somewhere that it covers a tax audit as well (if I'm unlucky enough to get audited, the insurance company will pay a certain amount for accounting fees). They cover my contents even if I bring them with me on holiday and had left them in a motel room or something like that. They also cover to some extent vistors contents. So if you bring an expensive camera to my house and it accidently breaks or is stolen then I think it is covered to some extent. There are a lot of clauses, but it does indeed sound a lot better than U.K. contents insurance. (Having said this, some items like bicycles and laptops need to be locked down... when travelling or in open air, etc., blah, blah, blah....)
"Even still, I suspect all you'd need to do in modern day 802.11b/g is just name your access point "FreeWiFi" and you'd be set from a legal standpoint."
Yeah, but that's an ad-hoc solution and ambiguous. Maybe my company name is Free, and so on. I'd say the best solution to the legal issue is an explicit flag that is universally accepted as the test for legality.
"The problem is will anyone pay attention to a voluntary flag."
If they don't pay attention then they are liable to be prosecuted for unauthorized use. Same as if I don't pay attention to the speed limit sign when driving. Its a voluntary flag too.
So I leave my car unlocked, with the keys in the car. In Australia this is legal. Anyone can steal it and commit a crime with it. I'm not liable for their actions.
The opposing law would be "it is illegal to operate a wireless router, without permission from the relevant authority, that allows public access". That would put the onus on the owner and on the router manufacturers to secure their wireless router.
AFAIK, in Australia (which is where I am) leaving my door unlocked does not invalidate my contents insurance. If something is stolen (regardless of whether I invited the person in or not, who stole it) then it can be claimed on the insurance. When something is stolen then, in order to claim, it must be reported to the police as a crime and then the matter is in their hands.
All of the examples you've given are nicely showing the grey areas of law but don't address the question (which I posted on the main thread), of "can I delegate my legal decision making to a machine?". Eventually we may live in a society where I can. But for now, and particularly in the case of the router, most people will argue that they do not. In your examples, I certainly didn't explictly allow or have knowledge of "guy" accessing my router. I don't accept that my router can make such legal decisions, i.e. allowing access, on my behalf. In a professional sense, I (and my company) have a responsibility to secure the data on my network which leads to securing the network at home if I have my computer at home; presumably I accept this responsibility because/iff I'm capable of understanding it and taking relevant actions to make it happen (same if I bring anything important out of the work place). Most people don't have such responsibilties and so can't be expected to undertake them at home (at work they leave it to the IT department and just follow what they say, and they therefore don't bring stuff home). In the future, for clarity, I would expect routers to broadcast either "this router is open for public use" xor "this router is for authorized access only", even though there is absolutely no actual security on who can and can't connect and use it. It is therefore easy to use and also clear on its legal intent. The default setting will be authorized access only and the owner would be liable for switching the setting to the public use.
I think the immediate question centers on how people (meaning society) interprets what the technology is supposed/expected/meaning to do. In particular what does a wireless router operating in "open access" mode, mean. Technically it means any computer can connect and route packets, much the same as a door is intended for anyone to be able to work through it. Some people may interpret this as an open invitation to use the resource, but most people will not and so the legal interpretation will likely follow to support how most people interpret it. In the long run I guess technology will have to include a specific flag to indicate whether the network is "open to the public use" or just "open to use for those who have prior permission". What this amounts to is that it is not legally necessary to have electronically enforced authorization in order to legally prevent someone from using your wireless router. And it would follow then that if people use a router for which they do not have explicit permission from the owner then they will be liable. Laptops/OSes will have to prompt users to remind them of the possibile consequences of connecting to an "open" network. The long term question is (as I posted on another thread) one of semantics. If I have a (human looking) robot that is programmed to greet people and invite them into my house, and someone comes to the door and the robot invites them in, and they enter, then are they tresspassing? If I forgot to turn off the greeting for general public, and have it only for family members, then is it my problem? If I couldn't figure out how to do this, is it my problem? Can I delegate my legal decision making to a machine?
This is a matter of semantics. If I have a (human looking) robot that is programmed to greet visitors and invite them into my house then I would argue that someone who is greeted by the robot and invited in, who does then come in, has not broken a law. Now, if my robot is only supposed to greet family members, but I don't bother switching off the greeting for general public, then I take the liability myself. Its different to leaving the door unlocked. The door handle does not have a high enough level of semantics to warrant an interpretation at the level of the robot; even though they are both just "deterministic machines".
Clearly the process of spending money on legal costs needs to be auditable and follow a process that allows for reasonable timeframes. Money not spent on legal defense would need to be refunded. Corp's can fire their lawyers, I presume.
I think such a change should be fine; along these lines: If either side has $X to pay, then the money is evenly divided. E.g. if I have $5k to pay to sue a large corporation then $2.5k of that is made available for their defense. The corporation can leave it at that if they wish; a cheap court case is a court case after all, yes? If the corporation decides to raise the stakes and put up an extra $100k (e.g. to make some long-winded, elaborate defense), then $50k of that goes to me, and so on. The losing party ultimately pays all of the court costs.
Some school(s) in Australia have already started teaching ID.
If it must be taught, I'd prefer for it to be in philosophy, so long as
philosophy has 99% other philosophical content as well.
Rather it would be preferable to allow the users of such phones to switch on/off the ability to report its location under remote control. That way each user gets the choice of trading freedom for security.
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Having a look at an old policy... the locks and so forth must be installed and in working condition, but forced entry (i.e. picking a lock) is not a requirement for the claim to be valid. However one thing I was mistaken with is that if I invite someone into my Home and they steal something then I cannot claim; though certainly its still a crime. Stolen stuff that was left in public or shared spaces (like a shared car park in units) cannot be claimed either. Home contents covers accidental breakage of stuff too. I read somewhere that it covers a tax audit as well (if I'm unlucky enough to get audited, the insurance company will pay a certain amount for accounting fees). They cover my contents even if I bring them with me on holiday and had left them in a motel room or something like that. They also cover to some extent vistors contents. So if you bring an expensive camera to my house and it accidently breaks or is stolen then I think it is covered to some extent. There are a lot of clauses, but it does indeed sound a lot better than U.K. contents insurance. (Having said this, some items like bicycles and laptops need to be locked down... when travelling or in open air, etc., blah, blah, blah ....)
"Even still, I suspect all you'd need to do in modern day 802.11b/g is just name your access point "FreeWiFi" and you'd be set from a legal standpoint." Yeah, but that's an ad-hoc solution and ambiguous. Maybe my company name is Free, and so on. I'd say the best solution to the legal issue is an explicit flag that is universally accepted as the test for legality.
"The problem is will anyone pay attention to a voluntary flag." If they don't pay attention then they are liable to be prosecuted for unauthorized use. Same as if I don't pay attention to the speed limit sign when driving. Its a voluntary flag too. So I leave my car unlocked, with the keys in the car. In Australia this is legal. Anyone can steal it and commit a crime with it. I'm not liable for their actions. The opposing law would be "it is illegal to operate a wireless router, without permission from the relevant authority, that allows public access". That would put the onus on the owner and on the router manufacturers to secure their wireless router.
AFAIK, in Australia (which is where I am) leaving my door unlocked does not invalidate my contents insurance. If something is stolen (regardless of whether I invited the person in or not, who stole it) then it can be claimed on the insurance. When something is stolen then, in order to claim, it must be reported to the police as a crime and then the matter is in their hands. All of the examples you've given are nicely showing the grey areas of law but don't address the question (which I posted on the main thread), of "can I delegate my legal decision making to a machine?". Eventually we may live in a society where I can. But for now, and particularly in the case of the router, most people will argue that they do not. In your examples, I certainly didn't explictly allow or have knowledge of "guy" accessing my router. I don't accept that my router can make such legal decisions, i.e. allowing access, on my behalf. In a professional sense, I (and my company) have a responsibility to secure the data on my network which leads to securing the network at home if I have my computer at home; presumably I accept this responsibility because/iff I'm capable of understanding it and taking relevant actions to make it happen (same if I bring anything important out of the work place). Most people don't have such responsibilties and so can't be expected to undertake them at home (at work they leave it to the IT department and just follow what they say, and they therefore don't bring stuff home). In the future, for clarity, I would expect routers to broadcast either "this router is open for public use" xor "this router is for authorized access only", even though there is absolutely no actual security on who can and can't connect and use it. It is therefore easy to use and also clear on its legal intent. The default setting will be authorized access only and the owner would be liable for switching the setting to the public use.
I think the immediate question centers on how people (meaning society) interprets what the technology is supposed/expected/meaning to do. In particular what does a wireless router operating in "open access" mode, mean. Technically it means any computer can connect and route packets, much the same as a door is intended for anyone to be able to work through it. Some people may interpret this as an open invitation to use the resource, but most people will not and so the legal interpretation will likely follow to support how most people interpret it. In the long run I guess technology will have to include a specific flag to indicate whether the network is "open to the public use" or just "open to use for those who have prior permission". What this amounts to is that it is not legally necessary to have electronically enforced authorization in order to legally prevent someone from using your wireless router. And it would follow then that if people use a router for which they do not have explicit permission from the owner then they will be liable. Laptops/OSes will have to prompt users to remind them of the possibile consequences of connecting to an "open" network. The long term question is (as I posted on another thread) one of semantics. If I have a (human looking) robot that is programmed to greet people and invite them into my house, and someone comes to the door and the robot invites them in, and they enter, then are they tresspassing? If I forgot to turn off the greeting for general public, and have it only for family members, then is it my problem? If I couldn't figure out how to do this, is it my problem? Can I delegate my legal decision making to a machine?
This is a matter of semantics. If I have a (human looking) robot that is programmed to greet visitors and invite them into my house then I would argue that someone who is greeted by the robot and invited in, who does then come in, has not broken a law. Now, if my robot is only supposed to greet family members, but I don't bother switching off the greeting for general public, then I take the liability myself. Its different to leaving the door unlocked. The door handle does not have a high enough level of semantics to warrant an interpretation at the level of the robot; even though they are both just "deterministic machines".
Clearly the process of spending money on legal costs needs to be auditable and follow a process that allows for reasonable timeframes. Money not spent on legal defense would need to be refunded. Corp's can fire their lawyers, I presume.
I think such a change should be fine; along these lines: If either side has $X to pay, then the money is evenly divided. E.g. if I have $5k to pay to sue a large corporation then $2.5k of that is made available for their defense. The corporation can leave it at that if they wish; a cheap court case is a court case after all, yes? If the corporation decides to raise the stakes and put up an extra $100k (e.g. to make some long-winded, elaborate defense), then $50k of that goes to me, and so on. The losing party ultimately pays all of the court costs.
Some school(s) in Australia have already started teaching ID. If it must be taught, I'd prefer for it to be in philosophy, so long as philosophy has 99% other philosophical content as well.
I wonder if they could be small enough to power a PDA or mobile phone? I guess people may buy into that, even with a high cost.
I'm not a neuropsychologist but perhaps the argument could be made that a person's identity is a function of the formation of their brain.
Rather it would be preferable to allow the users of such phones to switch on/off the ability to report its location under remote control. That way each user gets the choice of trading freedom for security.