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Wireless Networking Electronic Frontier Foundation Networking Privacy The Internet Your Rights Online

EFF Advocates Leaving Wireless Routers Open 686

Posted by CmdrTaco from the sounds-good-to-me dept.
SD-Arcadia writes "We will need a political and technological 'Open Wireless Movement' to reverse the degradation of this indispensable component of the Internet's infrastructure. Part of the task will simply be reminding people that opening their WiFi is the socially responsible thing to do, and explaining that individuals who choose to do so can enjoy the same legal protections against liability as any other Internet access provider."
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EFF Advocates Leaving Wireless Routers Open More

EFF Advocates Leaving Wireless Routers Open

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  • Same legal protections? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mfnickster ( 182520 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:05AM (#35963092)

    Yeah, I'll really enjoy making that assertion before a judge, *after* my door has been kicked in and my gear confiscated!

    • Re:Same legal protections? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:10AM (#35963138)

      And you wonder why your rights get chipped away at, piece by piece.

      • Re:Same legal protections? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by spikenerd ( 642677 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:27AM (#35963370)
        Mod parent A/C up. This whole discussion is chock-full of people whining about how standing up for rights *might* cost them something. Of course it might cost you something--we're talking about freedom here! Come on, people, have the self-respect to sacrifice one-tenth of what your ancestors sacrificed so that you could have freedom.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

          If we had freedom no knock warrants would not exist. You come through the door unannounced, I should be legally in the clear when I send as much lead as I can in your direction at high velocity.

        • Re:Same legal protections? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:50AM (#35963838)

          Reminds me of a war movie I saw once where a guy makes a really stirring speech about sacrifice, god, country, etc. When the time comes for the big battle charge, the men all tell him that he's been chosen to lead it. As he charges across the field, he's immediately killed. The men behind him take cover instead of following. One of them looks at another one and says "Damn, he was brave!" and the other replies "Yeah, and dead too."

        • ISPs have been trying to scare people for years (Score:4, Informative)

          by billstewart ( 78916 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:52AM (#35963900) Journal

          The push to eliminate guest wireless has largely come from ISPs, especially the cable companies, who don't want people sharing bandwidth with their neighbors instead of everybody buying their own connection. A few ISPs, such as Sonic and Speakeasy, actually encourage sharing and roaming, but the companies like Comcast that also are pushing bandwidth caps have been the main propagandists against sharing wireless, and they're also the people who didn't want you running a web server from home when the broadband business was getting started.

          On the other hand, sometimes there are actual problems. Back when I was running open wireless, I once got a call from my ISP saying they'd blocked half a million spams from my address overnight, and could I check that my computer wasn't infected? The computer was fine, but my neighbor's laptop had gotten infected and was blasting away over my wifi. Eventually when I upgraded to wireless-N I turned on encryption; unfortunately the wifi standards don't give you an easy way to have open access and encrypted connections, and I'd rather have the privacy.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Amouth ( 879122 )
            <quote><p>unfortunately the wifi standards don't give you an easy way to have open access and encrypted connections, and I'd rather have the privacy.</p></quote>

            the WiFi standards have nothing to do about it - use a different router or if yours supports it switch to a non gimped OS for it.. DD-WRT along with most other 3rd party ones will allow you to have more than one SSID at a time each with it's own auth and encryption scheme.. you can even isolate and throttle - then to pr

        • Sounds good until you're the one at risk of being shot by a trigger-happy psychopath under protection of the US Government. I don't think any of us are concerned about answering a nastygram about some contrived DMCA violation. We're concerned about having our homes invaded because someone thought it was a good idea to attack non-violent crimes with violent reactions in the USA.

          in case you need a refresher: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=135680995 [npr.org]

          Our ancestors had a less ambiguous case

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yes. Technically, you have the same legal protections. As a practical matter, you do not. If someone download kiddie porn from an open router at a coffee shop the FBI will assume the coffee shop was innocent and it was one of the customers. If the same thing happens at your home, then you are guilty until proven innocent.

      • Re:Same legal protections? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by nedlohs ( 1335013 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:33AM (#35963492)

        if everybody left their wifi open then they wouldn't make that assumption.

    • Re:Same legal protections? (Score:5, Informative)

      by NeverVotedBush ( 1041088 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:27AM (#35963386)
      Even without the potential legal liability of having attacks, threatening e-mails, or child pornography traced to my router if I left it wide open to anyone who wanted to use it, why should I allow others to sap my bandwidth or help take my ISP into data caps?

      I pay for my internet service and my neighbors can do the same for theirs.

      I speak from experience. I allowed my next door neighbor to piggyback for "just e-mail and some web surfing". They seemed to be low on money so I helped them out.

      Then their house sprouts an HD satellite antenna and I notice my own Netflix streaming stuttering. It turns out they had gotten a DVR/DirecTV setup and were doing their own streaming. I blocked DirecTV and next thing I get is them asking me to help them fix their connection because their X-Box wouldn't connect and they wanted me to enable specific ports. Their X-Box would connect and it turned out the ports were what the DirecTV service rep had told them to make sure were open.

      They decided they wanted more bandwidth and were lying to me to get it. It pissed me off. I then configured QOS to limit their data rate to just what the X-Box needed to play online. They finally decided to pay for their own connection.

      It's just a pain in the butt and a liability to open up a wireless connection to anyone who wants on. I realize my story isn't exactly what this thread is about but it isn't far away. Leave your router open and people will just start soaking up bandwidth. With all of the streaming services out there, data rate increases are inevitable. It's easier to just not ever get on that merry go round and lock down your router.

      Besides, liability is far lower. Anonymous users have no accountability.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by mellon ( 7048 )

      The summary fails to point out that the EFF is _not_ talking about leaving access points unencrypted. They're actually talking about new standards, which I think is probably a doomed plan; what they should be talking about is a way to use WPA2 enterprise to provide a common authentication domain. This way you could get people to agree to reasonable terms of use (e.g., I will not pirate software on your network) and also have an audit trail in case someone did do something in violation of these ToS. Yo

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by 1u3hr ( 530656 )

      , *after* my door has been kicked in and my gear confiscated!

      Yeah, because that happens every day. We've had ubiquitous wifi for a decade or more. Open wifi points everywhere. How many people have had their doors kicked in as a result? Can you name one? Can you spell FUD? I've only ever heard of a handful of people charged with some bogus "hacking" offence for USING an open wifi point.

  • Given bandwidth caps... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ... it might get rather expensive to share one's WiFi. Yes, it would be nice to have uncapped service, and some of us might have such. But that's not the case here in Quebec.

    • Get a router that can broadcast two SSIDs, one encrypted and password protected for yourself, and an open one with capped speed and traffic limits.

      There are some which support this out of the box (Fonera, for example), but you can get much more if you install a custom firmware like DD-WRT.

  • Or you could just pay for your own services (Score:3)

    by RollingThunder ( 88952 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:08AM (#35963122)

    If you sometimes find yourself needing an open wireless network in order to check your email from a car, a street corner, or a park, you may have noticed that they're getting harder to find.

    No, actually, I haven't, because I just use the bloody cellphone I carry all the time in modem mode. I need the service, so I pay for the service. I don't leech and expect somebody else to foot the bill (note that I don't consider using a coffee shop's wifi either, unless I have purchased something from them).

  • Safe harbor prov? Sorry, only if you're a big corp (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The O Rly Factor ( 1977536 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:09AM (#35963124)
    Tell all of this to the guy who had his door kicked down and assault rifles put to his head after a wardriver used his open access point for distributing child porn.

    • Re:Safe harbor prov? Sorry, only if you're a big c (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:14AM (#35963190) Homepage

      A few more cases like that and we might get some laws changed...

      • Surely not in the favor of a free and open internet though--and honestly, back before Google filtered search results (or when their image sorting game first started), some of the results were... disturbing... to say the least. I would be all for increasing penalties on whoever films/photographs such things (death would not be too much I don't think). Should the individual home owner be protected from what other people do with their internet if they leave it open? Yes. We need to focus on the source of the p

        • Depends on whether the people whose doors are getting kicked down exercise their second amendment rights.

          If enough of those raids backfire, then maybe the cost will be seen as too high.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Anonymous Coward

            The problem is how those stories will be reported. Instead of "Innocent man has door broken down for leaving wifi open," it will be "Child pornographer shot dead, one police officer injured." The laws favor law enforcement when executing a no-knock warrant, and the media presumes guilt. Imagine how hard it will be to hear them yell "Police" when they have just set off a 180db flashbang in your house, or how hard it will be to see their badges when they have a tactical light in your eyes.

            And for the recor

      • Re:Safe harbor prov? Sorry, only if you're a big c (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Moryath ( 553296 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:20AM (#35963268)

        Yeah, it'll become fucking illegal to have open wireless access points anywhere.

        After all, if you have yours open, you are "obviously" intending to aid child pornographers. Or terrorists. Or democrats. Or something.

      • Yea. I'll pass on being one of those cases, TYVM.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by schwit1 ( 797399 )

        Be careful what you wish for. A new law may outlaw non-commercial open wi-fi or it may make wi-fi router owners legally responsible for its users.

  • Oh hell no. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Yaddoshi ( 997885 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:10AM (#35963136)
    Maybe if Communism actually worked I'd consider doing something like this.

    • Re:Oh hell no. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:17AM (#35963220) Homepage Journal

      Maybe if Communism actually worked I'd consider doing something like this.

      It is my personal observation that Communism works well in a small group, like a tribe. More than a few hundred people and you need a tyrant.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Moryath ( 553296 )

        The problem with communism is, the group needs to be able to kick out the malcontents.

        Situations where "communism" works: Religious communes. But they have a nominal "leader" for the day-to-day management, and if they find someone is not pulling their weight, the group issues a shape-up-or-ship-out ultimatum. The truly infirm or sick aren't kicked out, just the lazy. And the entire group is bound by a certain moral and ethical code of behavior to keep the rest of disagreements from turning into fistfights o

      • That is because Communism makes the fundamental mistake of assuming that people are good. Call me a cynical misanthropic bastard if you will, but any sufficiently large group of people will have an average alignment of "evil", with minority parties in "lawful evil" and "chaotic evil". Sure, individual people are fine - I'm friends with many of them - but once you get above a dozen people or so, forget it.

        What is needed is a semi-capitalist system where the government has an economic incentive to do it's j

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Thruen ( 753567 )
      Communism in it's purest form would work, the problem is we always have to involve people, and as we've all seen only people who will abuse power and use it strictly to benefit themselves ever have the drive to take a position of power. This is also why democracies, republics, monarchies, dictatorships, and every other form of government fail to adequately govern people; even when they start off well, bad people will inevitably take control and turn it into something terrible. No form of government, or lac

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lundse ( 1036754 )

      Maybe if Communism actually worked I'd consider doing something like this.

      So noone can ever share any ressource ever, because some ass-hat in Russia misread Marx and tried forcibly to have everyone share everything?

      Do you think we should privatize every meter of road too, and stop and charge each other for every meter driven? Because that is more or less what we are doing with bandwidth now, and it is more or less exactly as ineffecient.

      Sharing is not a bad thing. Not sharing when it costs you nothing is indefensible. I have not heard of a single ethical or ownership theory which

  • Too many problems. (Score:3)

    by ewanm89 ( 1052822 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:11AM (#35963158) Homepage
    Unfortunately here in the UK, the law is a might fuzzier on that one. But even so, there are other issues on open wifi, like the easy of arp spoofing, or rogue access points. Not to mention, what happens if I want to open a sensitive service on my own internal networkfor some reason.
    • You use a firewall to segregate your internal network from the access point, like you really should be doing if you want your internal network secure anyway. One of the biggest rules to securing any network is to control network access. How can you do that when you are spraying your data all over the block, where anybody can listen in for an arbitrary amount of time without you knowing and try to break your encryption? If you think your wireless network running on a $50 consumer-grade router is secure, you

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jo_ham ( 604554 )

      You can use an AP that separates the networks like an Airport Extreme. It can run 3 simultaneously - b/g at 2.4Ghz, a/n at 5GHz and a "guest network" which you can leave open or password protect. The guest network is isolated from your internal services so you don;t have to worry if you are running a sensitive one (beyond your usual precautions).

      However, saying all that I don't have the guest network running - one because I live in a pretty densely populated urban area with a lot of APs in range and runnin

    • The EFF really should not go making global declarations when they only consider one or two country's laws.

      Sure, they can say "should" and "ought" as much as they like. However, unless they can be sure that everybody (hint only 5% of the world is american) could do this legally, it sounds like a particularly irresponsible thing to urge people to do.

  • Security implications (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wiggys ( 621350 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:13AM (#35963176)
    This obviously has benefits to society but comes at the cost of making your home network less secure - most routers don't separate the internet side of things from the home network side of things, so it's similar to allowing a person to connect their PC to your LAN socket. Any machines on your network are now visible to an attacker.

    • Re:Security implications (Score:4, Informative)

      by chispito ( 1870390 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:19AM (#35963248)

      This obviously has benefits to society but comes at the cost of making your home network less secure - most routers don't separate the internet side of things from the home network side of things, so it's similar to allowing a person to connect their PC to your LAN socket. Any machines on your network are now visible to an attacker.

      Many newer routers support guest SSIDs that can have separate security settings, and are isolated from, your main SSID. My new Netgear router does this. What it doesn't do, unfortunately, is let me throttle the guest SSID.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by wiggys ( 621350 )
        Yep, I set up a router for someone recently that was configured like this. The owner runs a Guest House so she could give one password for guests and another for her kids.

  • Nope... (Score:3)

    by HockeyPuck ( 141947 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:13AM (#35963180)

    I don't leave a connected extension cord going out to the sidewalk so anybody can use my electricity...

    I lock my doors so they can't use my shelter or car...

    My car's gas tank has a lock on it so I can't "share" my gasoline.

    Anybody think that these guys don't encrypt their home APs?

    • Your analogies fail on any connection without a bandwidth cap. As long as I am not using that bandwidth at the time, there is no cost to me for letting somebody else use my wifi. I don't have to refill my router's gas tank.

  • One Fine Day In Sacramento (Score:4, Funny)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:15AM (#35963204) Homepage Journal

    "Notice all the vehicles outside, parked up and down the street?"

    "Yeah, bunch of leeches."

    "How can you say that? They're taking advantage of a basic freedom, exercising their rights, lest the government usurp them!"

    "Have you looked at the plates on the cars and vans?"

    "Uh, no. What's special about them?"

    "Exempt. Almost all of them. They're using your connection due to cutbacks - they are the government."

  • [From the article:] There is currently no WiFi protocol that allows anybody to join the network, while using link-layer encryption to prevent each network member from eavesdropping on the others. But such a protocol should exist.

    An easier solution would be for a WiFi access point to offer two networks: an open one and a secured one. The owner/operator of the AP could use the encrypted network, and enable the open network for public use.

    The open network could also have a lower priority than the encrypted one, be subject to bandwidth restrictions, and limited to certain times of the day.

    I'm not saying that any of this is a good idea. I just think there's no need for a new protocol.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tobiah ( 308208 )

      WPA2 encryption
      network name: "password is Orange1"
      problem solved

    • This allows your guests to sniff each other's traffic. The only way to prevent this with existing protocols is to use an easy password and name the network in an inviting, password-hinting way.

  • An interesting idea, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by VGPowerlord ( 621254 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:17AM (#35963218)

    Most of us have had the experience of tremendous inconvenience because of a lack of Internet access. Being lost in a strange place with no way to find a map; having an urgent email to send with no way to do so; trying to meet a friend with no way to contact them.

    A wise man once said "A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."

  • Really irresponsible idea (Score:3)

    by SCHecklerX ( 229973 ) <greg@gksnetworks.com> on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:20AM (#35963270) Homepage

    Most home users have their APs on their private network. Behind that hardware firewall that at least gives them some protection. Advocating that people who don't understand the risks of an open AP, especially one that is not segregated, is really poor judgement on the EFF's part.

  • No. (Score:3)

    by tripleevenfall ( 1990004 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:20AM (#35963274)

    "Why would I pay for internet service when I can just use someone else's?" Eventually, no one is paying for it. Overall access to the internet decreases.

    And if I am paying for it, why would I let other people degrade my connection, hurtle me toward the bandwidth caps, and possibly do illegal things and get my door kicked down?

    Letting strangers onto my network or my connection is something I'll be safely be saying no to for the indefinite future.

  • I won't do this because:
    (1) I don't want a slow internet.
    (2) I don't appreciate piracy. I write software for a living, and that means having people pay me for my software. Until you've been on the other side of the fence (i.e. the side of the people trying to earn a living from creating digital media, rather than existing purely in the group of people who benefit from free digital everything), you probably won't understand my viewpoint. And let's face it: the EFF has constantly sided with pirates on is

    • I'm a physicist. Among other things, I've made a few codes and I've developed some numerical schemes. What would you say if I asked everyone in the world who wanted to use my formulas to pay me a nominal fee? What is the difference between you asking them to pay to use your algorithm, and me asking them to pay for using my formula?
      I agree you have to be payed for your work, but you have to be payed when _you create_ something, you shouldn't be payed when _someone is using_ something you created. And yes, I

    • You're paranoid. I write commercial software too. People buy it. I get some money. Life goes on.

    • Re:No Thanks, EFF (Score:4, Interesting)

      by walshy007 ( 906710 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:37AM (#35963572)

      And let's face it: the EFF has constantly sided with pirates on issue after issue. I suspect this is the EFF's way of helping pirates by frustrating any enforcement of copyright.

      Your view of the EFF is rather twisted, they espouse freedom to do as you wish electronically without copyright infringement or the like, why should everyone else suffer because the pirates find these freedoms useful at times?

      I can in all honesty say I have never pirated a single piece of software (helps I mainly use OSS of course) and yet I strongly agree with most of what the EFF say with many topics.

      I have at times kept a separate access point dedicated for the purpose open for people to gain access to the internet (limited by QoS so it stays sane) passers by are free to use it as they wish. If others did the same then when I am visiting their area I could use their wifi as well. How is this a bad thing. Wifi is far more convenient than mobile internet access when available. So long as you keep security controls in place in case malicious people try to connect I see no harm in providing a useful service to your fellow man which costs you nothing.

  • It already exists in a responsible way (Score:3)

    by ArhcAngel ( 247594 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:21AM (#35963298)
    Isn't this exactly what Fonera [fon.com] is all about? You buy their WiFi hotspot and connect it to your Internet connection creating a separate WiFi hotspot from your personal secured WiFi and anyone who also owns and provides a hotspot is able to access it. That way you don't get freeloaders because only people who opt-in can access the network. There are even some ISPs who are starting to deploy them.

  • and I'll be the porn provider king for the entire neighbourhood...

  • Prior to WiFi, we moved along fine for decades without holding out extension cords to our neighbors. This is an operation akin to demanding that all corporate headquarters blindly put publicly accessible wired wallplates in their parking lots just because they can afford 24/7 internet. We all know the security implications.

    Just because we're already leaking our radiation* doesn't mean that preventing other neighbors from misusing it and implicating us in their crimes. We have everything to lose and little t

  • Yeah, sure, socially responsible thing to do. I'm not putting down $60/month and minding a wireless router just so that the neighbors can get free wireless Internet access on my dime, TYVM. Last time I checked, there were also a few clauses that basically say that you may not pretend to be an ISP, resell bandwidth, or sublet bandwidth, should you be a Verizon/Charter/Clearwire/whoever Internet subscriber. That reads to me that if you do try to use a 'all the protections of an ISP' claim, your ISP will sa

  • Not socially responsible (Score:3)

    by brass1 ( 30288 ) <SlrwKQpLrq1FM.what@net> on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:30AM (#35963442) Homepage

    reminding people that opening their WiFi is the socially responsible thing to do

    No, it is not. This is like saying it's socially responsible to leave your keys in the ignition so your neighbors can barrow your car when they need to run to the store. It's not socially responsible to suggest that it's OK for people to use Internet connectivity they don't know anything about, like who the man in the middle might be. It's not socially responsible to allow unknown third parties to rile though your personal belongings, like those tax returns you left on that unsecured windows share.

    Finally, "legal protections" are for people who can afford lawyers.

  • Been doing it for years. And have been doing it for something along those lines for a reason.

    1. The norm that we all need to lock the things down out of fear has got to be checked. There is no need for that.

    2. I like the EFF reasoning.

    3. The security stuff is a PITA. I've got some stuff that I would rather not share, and it's not on the open wi-fi. Easily done.

    Drives my neighbor nuts. They say, "but I want to use MY INTERNET". And I say, "ok" and "why don't you just do that?". "But yours is just

  • ... you know that binding agreement you enter into that you and your family will be the only users on that connection. It then gives my ISP the right to revoke my connectivity because I broke that TOS agreement and they are not obligated to provide me with Internet connectivity.

  • Great, you'll be exonerated. But only after you name appears in the newspapers in conjunction with [insert wrongdoing here], you've lost your job because you were accused of [insert wrongdoing here]; and you've lost anything vaguely computer-related in your house while they take an unknown amount of time to determine that you really were not guilty. And for some types of accusations, your life stays ruined even after you're shown to have no complicity in the activity.

  • You will have all the lukewarm apologies you like after the police have ransacked your house and tasered you to death while calling you a pervert. Did you realize that the suspicion of possessing child pornography is punishable by extra-judicial execution?

  • But too often, to troubleshoot a slow connection, I'd disable it. It's easier just to keep it invisible.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @11:52AM (#35963896)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Ok, hippies, enough is enough (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Loosifur ( 954968 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @12:10PM (#35964216)

    I just RTFA to make sure I'm getting this correct, because I normally am fully in support of "damn the man" stuff like this, but this is just ludicrous. There has never been a time in my life where I have needed to "urgently" check my email and been unable to, nor has there ever been a time where the only thing standing between me dying of thirst and reaching a nearby oasis has been my ability to access Google Maps on a laptop. In fact, I would like to go so far as to say that if you are the kind of person who ever "urgently" needs to check your email, consider: a.) purchasing a cellphone and distributing that number to whoever might need to get in touch with you, b.) purchasing a smartphone so you can check your email without a WiFi connection, and/or c.) checking your email before you leave for a four-week safari. Who is this demographic that can afford a laptop and conducts vital business via the Interwebs, but can't afford a data plan?

    I know that people around here get fussy about car analogies, so...

    This is like asking me to buy a horse, and leave the horse saddled in my front yard just in case anyone needs to use it to go somewhere. And then just trusting that no one is going to hop on the horse, rob a stagecoach, and then drop the horse back in my yard for the posse to find.

    At a certain point, personal responsibility has to enter into all of this. Of course someone shouldn't be liable for nasty things accomplished using a WiFi connection if they made an honest effort to secure it, or just didn't know that that was something one ought to do. But if they intentionally leave it open for anyone to use, they should accept some of the blame when someone uses it to do something naughty.

    And furthermore, it's WiFi, not clean drinking water. Since when is leveling your paladin a vital civil liberty? What's next, should I set up an HD projection system on the side of my house so that people outside aren't suppressed by the tyranny of Netflix requiring a subscription? Because Ironman 2 is one of those bits of information that "wants to be free"?

  • Do the exact opposite, please (Score:4, Insightful)

    by boarder ( 41071 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @12:22PM (#35964418) Homepage

    For years we've been trying really hard to get everyone to close down their open WiFi spots to prevent hacking/leeching/malicious activity/etc. Now they want us to do the opposite? I'm sorry, while I don't think a person should be held liable for the child porn their neighbor downloaded using their open WiFi, I also don't think we should be telling them to just ignore security. We have botnets precisely because people ignore security.

    They are paying for a service and shouldn't be told to let others use it for free. Why wouldn't they then just cancel their service and use someone else's for free? They shouldn't have to open their computer up to being hacked (or do you want to explain to them how to beef up their security after telling them to lower their security?) just so someone can get free service. They shouldn't have to worry about bandwidth caps just so their neighbor can stream netflix for free.

    They SHOULD be hassled if something goes wrong on their open network as a lesson to secure their system.

    Hell, I turn off both my router and my cable "modem" when I'm not using them.

  • Power, water, sewer, too? (Score:3)

    by pz ( 113803 ) on Thursday April 28, 2011 @12:41PM (#35964764) Journal

    So, is it then the socially responsible thing to provide free access to my other basic services, too? Is the EFF suggesting that I need to provide a series of power outlets outside my house, so that people can share that? And a sink and toilet as well? Should I be sharing my heating/cooling too?

    Please. Get a grip. I pay for the services just mentioned, just like I pay for internet access. If someone wants the same services, then they have to figure out how to pay for them themselves.

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I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. -- Plato

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