[nycbug-talk] WiFi use liability. . .

[George R.]

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.

>
> 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.

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'.

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.

>
> --
> 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.

>
> 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.

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

g