Ostensibly the "One Laptop Per Child" thing was meant to provide computing access to underprivileged youths. Now there's competition in the same market and somehow that's bad?
The OLPC project was to provide educational resources to developing countries, centered around low-cost, reliable computing hardware adapted to the needs of education in the developing world and services and open content for that platform.
Yeah, yeah, the interesting part to first-world geeks seems to be primarily the hardware platform. But that's not what OLPC is about.
The ClassmatePC, while it is introduced to as a competitor to the OLPC hardware, is not part of Intel competing to provide what OLPC is trying to provide.
The thing is, the constitution is clear on this. The states don't have a right to charge taxes on stuff shipped across state lines.
The Constitution does nothing to limit the ability of states to tax goods sold from their state irrespective of whether or not they cross state lines, or tax goods bought from their state irrespective of whether or not they cross state lines. It does not permit import or export duties, but that is not the issue, here. The issue is sales taxes, not special taxes specific to imports.
By definition it is the woman who says what is rape and what isn't, because it is defined by what she is willing to allow.
No, really, I suggest you read the rape statute in just about any state. There are various legal elements that define the crime of rape and the belief of the victim that the act was criminal is not one of them in any statute I've seen.
I know it is important to distinguish between legality and morality, but when the alleged victim says "I don't think there was a crime here" that means they don't think that the perpetrator did anything wrong.
No, it doesn't. Especially if the victim distinguishes between legality and morality.
The bottom line is it didn't sound like the store owner cared.
The owner didn't say that. The owner said she didn't know it was criminal. She also said, "If he would have come in (to the coffee shop), it would have been fine." This suggests that the owner did, in fact, care, and that what happened was not fine with the owner.
He obviously hasn't been to a state with a serious illegal immigration problem. Here in AZ, illegals use the emergency room like it was their primary care physician.
That's true of many poor people throughout the US. The fact that in some areas, the many of the poor people are also illegal immigrants is largely irrelevant to the fundamental problem, which is that our healthcare system is set up so that the an enormous portion of the population has no reasonable access to healthcare except the mandated access to emergency care, and therefore tends to burden emergency departments with issues that should not be handled there, or delay handling issues that could more cheaply (in terms of cost to the system) have been handled earlier until they become issues for the emergency department. That hospitals are generally essentially forced to eat the associated costs that come with that mandate further exacerbates the problem.
If I asked the doorknob if I could come in and it replied "Yes", I would actually accept it.
And if you actually asked the router and it actually replied "Yes", in English, that would be analogous.
However, interacting with an inanimate access control system in its usual mode of operation and having it grant you access may be some evidence that you have permission (whether it is a door or a router), but usually alone it will not suffice to demonstrate permission.
Now, if there was a "free WiFi", with no qualifiers, sign at the coffee shop, there might be a good argument that this guy thought that they were offering it free to the world without restriction in the hopes of generating good will. And, had this case gone to trial, a jury might have had to determine if he actually reasonably believed he had permission to access the network. But it looks like the prosecutor offered him a way to avoid criminal charges, and he took it.
You're making the classic misapprehension that laws must make sense, and must be just. Just because the cop thought it was a stupid law, the judge thought it was stupid law, and the person charged thought it was a stupid law, doesn't mean those individuals can ignore it.
Actually, if the prosecutor believes that the law would be unjust if applied in that case, or even if he thinks it would be just but still not worth the expenditure of public resources, he can simply not prosecute the offense. Prosecutors are not legally bound to prosecute every apparent violation of every law within their jurisdiction.
The officer extracted a confession out of a citizen without informing them of their rights.
Cops don't have to inform you of your rights to ask you questions, even if they think you might be committing a crime. They do in certain circumstances, like custodial interrogation, but, otherwise, no.
They can walk up to you on the street and ask what you are doing, and you can say "Transporting cocaine that I intend to sell", and they can arrest you, and you aren't going to get off by saying "Hey, no fair, you didn't read me my rights!"
You can always refuse to answer. There are fairly narrow circumstances where cops have to tell you that you have that right.
Can we now expect officers to start feigning ignorance about obscure laws only to claim later they looked it up and then use previous confessions to throw people in jail?
Probably not, since the cop's ignorance of the law is mostly irrelevant to the absence of a 5th Amendment violation here.
The idea is that ignorance of the law cannot be considered a valid legal defense, basically because it would be absurd to have to prove that someone knew the law in question.
No, that's not it, because a "defense", by definition, is something where the defendant bears the burden. So, if ignorance were a defense, you wouldn't have to prove that the defendant knew the law, the defendant would have to prove that he did, to whatever standard was established for that defense.
Ignorance of the law is not a defense not because of some concern about burdens of proof, but because we don't want people stealing or murdering or raping and getting away with it, even if it is just the first time they commit each offense, even if they actually think it is legal.
In the US, if you're driving a motor vehicle, you can be compelled to show your driver's license.
Well, yes, because generally you consent to that when you apply for the license, and if you don't have a license when driving, you commit the offense of driving without a license, so you are nailed either way.
OTOH, you don't have to explain what you are doing. Of course, if you don't, and you aren't doing anything illegal, you've probably just bought yourself an unnecessary hassle.
I bear that onus by asking the router "Can I use your network?", to which it replies "Sure, here's your IP, and you can use this IP as a Gateway". That doesnt sound like "I don't know" to me, it sounds more like "Yes".
Routers aren't people. "I asked your router if I could come into your network, and it let me in" carries about as much weight as "I asked your doorknob if I could come into your house, and it let me in".
There is a federal law (18 USC 1030) very similar that applies, among other things, to any computer "used in interstate commerce or communication", which could be construed to apply to anything attached to the internet, though it has a minimum $5,000 damage threshold (aggregate, in the case of action by the government including criminal action) before an action can be brought, unless very particular types of harm are done.
But if the victim does not believe a crime was comitted and is aware that rape is a crime, then that would probably imply that she does not believe the sex was non-consensual,
Not really. Lots of people are aware that particular crimes denoted by specific terms exist without knowing their parameters.
and her opinion would be rather relevent in that case then, wouldn't it?
That depends on the more precise basis for the belief. If she believe that she had not resisted because of intoxication, and mistakenly believed that under the law that was equivalent to consent, and therefore believed that she had "consented" under the law and no crime was committed, that would not stop there from having been a crime, or—presuming that this somehow was all discovered by law enforcement and brought to trial—prevent the guilty party from being convicted.
So you're saying that the coffee shop owner's comment was intended that she didn't know that any breaking-and-entering of a computer was illegal?
No, if I was saying that, I probably would have said that. The coffee shop owner's belief that the specific kind of unauthorized use at issue was not criminal does not having any effect on whether it is, in fact, illegal, nor does it imply anything about what other unauthorized use of computer systems the coffee shop owner might or might not believe is illegal.
The much more reasonable interpretation is that she was talking about the specific case of the guy in her parking lot using her free wi-fi
Yes, that's exactly what I was talking about.
and the implication is that she did not believe it to be criminal -- as in unauthorized -- access.
No, the implication is that she did not believe that unauthorized access in those circumstances was punishable under criminal law. If she said she approved of the access, then she would be saying it was "authorized". Saying she didn't think it was criminal does not mean she thinks that she authorized it.
Its just as illegal to commit a crime if both you and the victim are unaware that it is actually criminal.
Except in the many cases where whether or not it is a crime in the first place is based on the intent of the victim.
No, even there, whether or not the victim thinks the act is criminal is entirely beside the point. Rape, for instance, is still a crime if the victim doesn't consent, but doesn't know that it is criminal for the perpetrator to proceed without her consent.
The difference between stealing (crime) and borrowing (not a crime) is whether or not the "victim" thinks you're stealing or borrowing.
But not on whether or not the "victim" thinks you intentionally and wrongfully depriving them of their property is, in fact, prosecutable under the law.
Yes, in this case, whether or not he had authorization from the coffee shop owner would be relevant. Whether or not the coffee shop owner thought that it was criminal for him to use the access without authorization is not.
Say I place a sign on my house that says "Are you (the reader) allowed to come in and take a nap on the couch inside this house? Pull the tab for answer." with a pull-tab that says "yes" I think that that would qualify as permission. This is essentially what's happening here.
No, its not. An automated system that accepts connections is not the equivalent of putting notices with the text you describe. Not in law, and not in really any other way.
Its more like having a door, that isn't locked, with a knob and keyhole making it clear that it has a lock. The door advertises a possibility of entry, and the unlocked knob, when tested, doesn't reject entry, so the trespasser assumes the homeowner accepted him coming in and claims a right of entry.
Does anyone with half a clue think that the workers hanging around a street corner at 6am looking for construction bosses to pick them up are LEGAL?
Lots of illegal immigrants have fraudulent documentation that passes at least rudimentary scrutiny, and don't hang around street corners at 6am looking for construction bosses to pick them up: they work in more regular jobs, pay taxes, etc.
IOW, in Michigan, it is a felony to sit outside a coffee shop or other establishment with "Free WiFi" without buying something.
No, I'm pretty sure that its not a felony to sit outside a coffee shop or other establishment with "free wifi" without buying something.
It may be a felony to access their Wifi without buying something, but I'm pretty sure just sitting is okay. You might get in trouble for "loitering" or something like that, but that's not a felony, and has little to do with whether the location has "free wifi".
You analogy shows a complete lack of understanding what goes on here.
If I stand on the street and yell at you "Can I come in" and you respond with "Yes", I can go into your house.
Yeah, sure.
And if he had asked the coffee shop owner, that wouldn't be an issue.
The law does not, as a general rule, treat automated responses that do not purport to be from a person or create the impression that they are from a person as equivalent to a person (there are specific cases where it does, and one might try to argue that something like this created a reasonable belief of permission, though that would be evaluated on all of the relevatn circumstances, not the automated exchange alone.)
Computers aren't people, and I'm not the one who doesn't understand what is going on here.
Yeah, maybe he should have realized that "free wi-fi" probably meant "free wi-fi if you come into the store and hopefully purchase something", but that's a distinction even the store owner didn't think was a matter of law.
Its just as illegal to commit a crime if both you and the victim are unaware that it is actually criminal.
There's nothing really exceptional in that aspect of this case.
However, as you cite, if there is a "no tresspassing" sign posted, then the offender is liable for being on the premises in the first place. In this case, AFAIK, there was not a "No Piggybacking" sign in front of the coffee shop. And, since the Wi-fi access was free inside, what's to say that it's not free outside?
I'm not arguing that this guy should have been charged with or convicted of a crime: I don't know if the signs at the coffee shop indicated that the free wifi was for customers only, etc. I'm just saying that the "attractive nuisance" analogy fails, and further that the treatment of other areas of law is not inconsistent with making knowing, intentional abuse of unsecured wifi criminal.
Please explain how connecting to a network is property theft?
It isn't.
OTOH, no one claimed it was. Its also not "property theft" if you leave your door unlocked, and someone comes in and and takes a nap on your couch.
The law doesn't generally view the absence of access controls—whether on your car, your home, or your network—as free permission to use.
It may, in certain case, be one piece of evidence used with others to establish that the person intruding didn't have intent to intrude, and reasonably believed they had permission, which might defeat some, particularly criminal, liability.
The fact that the access point was unsecured implies tacit permission.
No, it doesn't. Any more than the fact that your door is unlocked or your window open is "tacit permission" for me to come in and take a nap on your bed.
It seems to me that blasting unsecured WiFi around is much like having a trampoline that is unsecured. When children come and jump on it without your permission, and injure themselves as a result, the owner is liable, since the trampoline is an "attractive nuisance".
Yes, and if an adult comes on to your property without permission despite your posted "no trespassing" signs and starts jumping on your trampoline, they are still liable for trespass. The theory of "attractive nuisance" has to do with the ignorance and vulnerability of children, not the idea that failing to physically secure your property gives everyone the right to free use of it.
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"Failure" may be excessively binary. If we're comparing it to the OLPC, we should compare the security model to the OLPC's Bitfrost security model.
The OLPC project was to provide educational resources to developing countries, centered around low-cost, reliable computing hardware adapted to the needs of education in the developing world and services and open content for that platform.
Yeah, yeah, the interesting part to first-world geeks seems to be primarily the hardware platform. But that's not what OLPC is about.
The ClassmatePC, while it is introduced to as a competitor to the OLPC hardware, is not part of Intel competing to provide what OLPC is trying to provide.
The Constitution does nothing to limit the ability of states to tax goods sold from their state irrespective of whether or not they cross state lines, or tax goods bought from their state irrespective of whether or not they cross state lines. It does not permit import or export duties, but that is not the issue, here. The issue is sales taxes, not special taxes specific to imports.
No, really, I suggest you read the rape statute in just about any state. There are various legal elements that define the crime of rape and the belief of the victim that the act was criminal is not one of them in any statute I've seen.
No, it doesn't. Especially if the victim distinguishes between legality and morality.
The owner didn't say that. The owner said she didn't know it was criminal. She also said, "If he would have come in (to the coffee shop), it would have been fine." This suggests that the owner did, in fact, care, and that what happened was not fine with the owner.
That's true of many poor people throughout the US. The fact that in some areas, the many of the poor people are also illegal immigrants is largely irrelevant to the fundamental problem, which is that our healthcare system is set up so that the an enormous portion of the population has no reasonable access to healthcare except the mandated access to emergency care, and therefore tends to burden emergency departments with issues that should not be handled there, or delay handling issues that could more cheaply (in terms of cost to the system) have been handled earlier until they become issues for the emergency department. That hospitals are generally essentially forced to eat the associated costs that come with that mandate further exacerbates the problem.
And if you actually asked the router and it actually replied "Yes", in English, that would be analogous.
However, interacting with an inanimate access control system in its usual mode of operation and having it grant you access may be some evidence that you have permission (whether it is a door or a router), but usually alone it will not suffice to demonstrate permission.
Now, if there was a "free WiFi", with no qualifiers, sign at the coffee shop, there might be a good argument that this guy thought that they were offering it free to the world without restriction in the hopes of generating good will. And, had this case gone to trial, a jury might have had to determine if he actually reasonably believed he had permission to access the network. But it looks like the prosecutor offered him a way to avoid criminal charges, and he took it.
Actually, if the prosecutor believes that the law would be unjust if applied in that case, or even if he thinks it would be just but still not worth the expenditure of public resources, he can simply not prosecute the offense. Prosecutors are not legally bound to prosecute every apparent violation of every law within their jurisdiction.
Cops don't have to inform you of your rights to ask you questions, even if they think you might be committing a crime. They do in certain circumstances, like custodial interrogation, but, otherwise, no.
They can walk up to you on the street and ask what you are doing, and you can say "Transporting cocaine that I intend to sell", and they can arrest you, and you aren't going to get off by saying "Hey, no fair, you didn't read me my rights!"
You can always refuse to answer. There are fairly narrow circumstances where cops have to tell you that you have that right.
Probably not, since the cop's ignorance of the law is mostly irrelevant to the absence of a 5th Amendment violation here.
No, that's not it, because a "defense", by definition, is something where the defendant bears the burden. So, if ignorance were a defense, you wouldn't have to prove that the defendant knew the law, the defendant would have to prove that he did, to whatever standard was established for that defense.
Ignorance of the law is not a defense not because of some concern about burdens of proof, but because we don't want people stealing or murdering or raping and getting away with it, even if it is just the first time they commit each offense, even if they actually think it is legal.
Well, yes, because generally you consent to that when you apply for the license, and if you don't have a license when driving, you commit the offense of driving without a license, so you are nailed either way.
OTOH, you don't have to explain what you are doing. Of course, if you don't, and you aren't doing anything illegal, you've probably just bought yourself an unnecessary hassle.
Routers aren't people. "I asked your router if I could come into your network, and it let me in" carries about as much weight as "I asked your doorknob if I could come into your house, and it let me in".
There is a federal law (18 USC 1030) very similar that applies, among other things, to any computer "used in interstate commerce or communication", which could be construed to apply to anything attached to the internet, though it has a minimum $5,000 damage threshold (aggregate, in the case of action by the government including criminal action) before an action can be brought, unless very particular types of harm are done.
Not really. Lots of people are aware that particular crimes denoted by specific terms exist without knowing their parameters.
That depends on the more precise basis for the belief. If she believe that she had not resisted because of intoxication, and mistakenly believed that under the law that was equivalent to consent, and therefore believed that she had "consented" under the law and no crime was committed, that would not stop there from having been a crime, or—presuming that this somehow was all discovered by law enforcement and brought to trial—prevent the guilty party from being convicted.
No, if I was saying that, I probably would have said that. The coffee shop owner's belief that the specific kind of unauthorized use at issue was not criminal does not having any effect on whether it is, in fact, illegal, nor does it imply anything about what other unauthorized use of computer systems the coffee shop owner might or might not believe is illegal.
Yes, that's exactly what I was talking about.
No, the implication is that she did not believe that unauthorized access in those circumstances was punishable under criminal law. If she said she approved of the access, then she would be saying it was "authorized". Saying she didn't think it was criminal does not mean she thinks that she authorized it.
No, even there, whether or not the victim thinks the act is criminal is entirely beside the point. Rape, for instance, is still a crime if the victim doesn't consent, but doesn't know that it is criminal for the perpetrator to proceed without her consent.
But not on whether or not the "victim" thinks you intentionally and wrongfully depriving them of their property is, in fact, prosecutable under the law.
Yes, in this case, whether or not he had authorization from the coffee shop owner would be relevant. Whether or not the coffee shop owner thought that it was criminal for him to use the access without authorization is not.
No, its not. An automated system that accepts connections is not the equivalent of putting notices with the text you describe. Not in law, and not in really any other way.
Its more like having a door, that isn't locked, with a knob and keyhole making it clear that it has a lock. The door advertises a possibility of entry, and the unlocked knob, when tested, doesn't reject entry, so the trespasser assumes the homeowner accepted him coming in and claims a right of entry.
Sure there is. For one, we could make all immigration, per se, legal.
If your concern is controlling the overall level of immigration, not just stopping "illegal immigration", then the requirements are very different.
Lots of illegal immigrants have fraudulent documentation that passes at least rudimentary scrutiny, and don't hang around street corners at 6am looking for construction bosses to pick them up: they work in more regular jobs, pay taxes, etc.
Clearly, that will no longer be allowed. Anyway, its unChristian: the Bible says no man can serve two masters.
No, I'm pretty sure that its not a felony to sit outside a coffee shop or other establishment with "free wifi" without buying something.
It may be a felony to access their Wifi without buying something, but I'm pretty sure just sitting is okay. You might get in trouble for "loitering" or something like that, but that's not a felony, and has little to do with whether the location has "free wifi".
Yeah, sure.
And if he had asked the coffee shop owner, that wouldn't be an issue.
The law does not, as a general rule, treat automated responses that do not purport to be from a person or create the impression that they are from a person as equivalent to a person (there are specific cases where it does, and one might try to argue that something like this created a reasonable belief of permission, though that would be evaluated on all of the relevatn circumstances, not the automated exchange alone.)
Computers aren't people, and I'm not the one who doesn't understand what is going on here.
Its just as illegal to commit a crime if both you and the victim are unaware that it is actually criminal.
There's nothing really exceptional in that aspect of this case.
I'm not arguing that this guy should have been charged with or convicted of a crime: I don't know if the signs at the coffee shop indicated that the free wifi was for customers only, etc. I'm just saying that the "attractive nuisance" analogy fails, and further that the treatment of other areas of law is not inconsistent with making knowing, intentional abuse of unsecured wifi criminal.
It isn't.
OTOH, no one claimed it was. Its also not "property theft" if you leave your door unlocked, and someone comes in and and takes a nap on your couch.
The law doesn't generally view the absence of access controls—whether on your car, your home, or your network—as free permission to use.
It may, in certain case, be one piece of evidence used with others to establish that the person intruding didn't have intent to intrude, and reasonably believed they had permission, which might defeat some, particularly criminal, liability.
No, it doesn't. Any more than the fact that your door is unlocked or your window open is "tacit permission" for me to come in and take a nap on your bed.
It seems to me that blasting unsecured WiFi around is much like having a trampoline that is unsecured. When children come and jump on it without your permission, and injure themselves as a result, the owner is liable, since the trampoline is an "attractive nuisance".
Yes, and if an adult comes on to your property without permission despite your posted "no trespassing" signs and starts jumping on your trampoline, they are still liable for trespass. The theory of "attractive nuisance" has to do with the ignorance and vulnerability of children, not the idea that failing to physically secure your property gives everyone the right to free use of it.