[nycbug-talk] WiFi use liability. . .

[Isaac Levy]

Wordemup George, All,

On Apr 21, 2005, at 10:11 PM, George R. wrote:

> On Apr 21, 2005, at 6:06 PM, Isaac Levy wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>>> uncrackable?  of course not. . . we've all done mac address 
>>> sniffing. . .
>>
>> On Tech:
>> Oh Gman, I know you know ;)  *BUT*, I'm stating that I have seen that 
>> the common person who runs MS Word, and can make a Power-Point 
>> presentation without assistance on their laptop, can, and *DOES*, use 
>> these tools commonly- esp. in NYC- so I see it as a much greater 
>> issue than many of *us* realize.
>
> I wouldn't overplay that. . . the best of that lot have just 
> discovered WEP, and paid some fool $150 an hour to configure it on 
> their router.

I'll agree that society is split then- great divide between those who 
know and those who don't- (and those who don't tend to be in govt. and 
etc...)

>> On 'To Open or not to Open, that is the question':
>> --
>> With regard to liabilities of what someone does from your IP, I 
>> believe that the strategy of locking-down/closing an AP is 
>> practically bogus, for all intents and purposes-
>
>
>
>>
>> If people don't choose to just openly share alike, we'll see more 
>> attempts at privatized and even govt. sponsored regulation of roaming 
>> wifi access, (orginizations like Sputnik, does anyone remember that 
>> group?!? [they were once upon a time nyc based])- and google says, 
>> they indeed still exist:
>> http://www.sputnik.com/
>>
>> /me shakes my head at all this waste of time hype
>
> No a useful contribution to the discussion.  We are talking about 
> residential users and their liability.

I'm sorry- I think I didn't state my intention there clear enough.  I 
didn't mean that this thread was a waste or hype, this is a really 
serious issue- but the messes that have risen up around this is a waste 
of people's time.  It pains me that someone would be spending undue 
time dealing with liability, and wading through the myriad of 
connections, and not spending time doing something interesting, or 
constructive, or fun.


> While you don't necessary get charged with a crime if someone steals 
> your car and commits homicide with it, in the digital realm this 
> hasn't been established.  If anything, everyone is potentially 
> implicated.
>
> I also would not draw a direct connection between locking down 
> publicly provided networks and residential home users.
>
> Let's be more specific: Verizon fights against free WiFi in Philly and 
> a number of other cities.  They want to maintain their monopoly of 
> widespread APs.  That is bad, and I'd hardly believe anyone on this 
> list would support that.
>
> Some judicial entity demands records from Verizon on an 'evil-doer' 
> using their APs, and they provide it, most likely.  (Although they 
> were quite good in court on the RIAA stuff with file-sharing).
>
> That judicial entity doesn't confuse Verizon and that supposed 
> 'evil-doer'.

Ok- I missed this implication- and this is indeed freaky stuff- but I 
have yet to see any evidence of this, and in the end, I go back to 
arguing that if we all bar our doors, to migigate liability, I don't 
think we get anywhere?

> Residential users are afforded no sense of protection.  Someone on 
> your network does 'evil-doing' surfing, and it's a logged site, do you 
> want to spend your time explaining this to the court?  You are 
> potentially viewed as an Online Service Provider, as you are keeping 
> an open access point.
>
> I may be dead wrong on this, and I surely hope I am, but there were 
> just two 16 year old girls in NYC accused of being trained as suicide 
> bombers, after one actually wrote an essay on why suicide bombing is 
> contradictory to Islam.  This is the reality today.

OMFG.

>> --
>> Part of *why* I think this way is:
>>
>> I think more important than everyone debating over use of the 
>> invisible wires, is for uses to emerge that *doe stuff* over the 
>> lines, and I see closing down the networks, the endless overlapping 
>> circles of micro-Machiavellian toll-bridge trolls, collecting pennies 
>> and fretting about wireless uses, inhibiting anyone actualy making 
>> this stuff do something useful for all of us in society.
>
> Like what happened with home computers on broadband in the 1990's?  
> Yeah, it's called reality.

And it's a reality which I don't like- and feel enough people who stand 
up, can curb.

>> As technical people with influence on many levels, let's not let wifi 
>> turn into a repeat of the last cycle of the telcos, (which to me is 
>> just another repeat of 14th century Japanese feudalism- violent, 
>> bloody, micro-warlords using shiny new samurai swords to hack each 
>> other to bits for a few centuries?)  *Yawn*.
>
> Home residential users being comparable to telcos again?  You're 
> scaring me.
>
> Do we influence the creation of UCE?  viruses?  No, we deal with 
> working against them and (attempting) to stop them.

Right- but it's our world- we do shape it, and I'm advocating ways of 
doing things that help curb this.


>> We've hit a point with this technology where I believe it's close to 
>> the value and price of air- or water- and it's high time we start to 
>> do interesting and useful things with it all and just let it all 
>> rip...  Mega-mesh topology, anyone? :)
>>
>> Again, just my .02?
>>
>
> You live in a nice dreamy land. . . with I had a ticket to get there. 
> . .
>
> But we simply can't influence things with our karma, whatever the hell 
> karma actually is.

I'm not talking about Karma or somesuch stuff, I'm talking about doing 
something- en' masse.  I'm not talking about being naive, or some 
wacked out notions of open anarchy, I'm talking about living how I 
wanna' live- and fundamentally, how I believe a lot of other people 
want to live.

>
> I'm done with this thread. . . we'll take it to the bar late night at 
> some point.

Gah.  But it's not done-  If you must leave, you must- but, I'll gladly 
continue this at the bar sometime...  Threads like this are *way* more 
fun in person :)

Rocket-
.ike