[OpenWireless Tech] A small question about tracking

[Brad Knowles]

On Nov 6, 2012, at 7:38 PM, Russell Senior <russell at personaltelco.net> wrote:

> Dude, I have been.  For years (since 2005, personally, since 2000 for
> our project).

That's wonderful!

Now, tell me -- how many people have you inspired to set up their own networks and take that same risk, in today's legal climate?


I agree with you that the actual risk is minimal, that's why I was running open wireless networks back when 802.11b first came out and I bought some of the first wireless cards sold to private individuals in Belgium -- and I only got that because the reseller made a mistake and thought I was buying on behalf of my employer, who was the largest ISP in the country.  IIRC, retail sales weren't technically legal until sometime the following year.  That would have been in 2000, although I just barely missed the second Linuxbierwanderung event.

But I was just a single guy running a single wireless network, and all I had was a modem (and then later, an ISDN line) as my upstream.

> No pepper spray found.

The problem is not the actual pepper spray.  The problem is the fear of the potential of pepper spray.

> What else are you waiting for?

Speaking only for myself, I'm not waiting, and I haven't been.  When I set up the wireless network in Austin after moving back to the US from Belgium in 2006, we had an open guest network.  When I set up the wireless network at my Dad's house before we moved back to the US, I included an open guest network.  When I set up the wireless network here in the Bay Area after I got a one-year contract to work out here for a Silicon Valley company, I set up an open guest network.

But I'm still just one guy.  And I remain very concerned about the potential for abuse and someone blaming me for something that someone else does on my wireless network(s).

--
Brad Knowles <brad at shub-internet.org>
LinkedIn Profile: <http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu>