[OpenWireless Tech] The police came to the AP owner first, then sniffed the air to find real culprit​​

[Brad Knowles]

On Nov 29, 2012, at 2:39 PM, David Fine <dfine at sonic.net> wrote:

> This is the part I disagree with. The way to grow is to remove barriers to entry.

We have no voice and no power to help remove barriers to entry if we don't have a sufficiently large group of people who have agreed to sign on to our project.


Feel free to show me the numbers of people who have signed up and agreed to intentionally and actively provide a completely open and insecure wireless network.  You are welcome to decide how to count me in that number, because there are multiple sites that I have set up that have completely open guest networks.

Then feel free to compare that to the numbers of people who have wireless networks but who assume or intend that those networks should be secure, even if they are accidentally open to some degree.

> To the extent that this is a movement, the main thrust is to make open wireless a viable option. Plenty of people are willing to run open hotspots if it's safe and uncomplicated.

"Safe and uncomplicated" are the critical words.  The "uncomplicated" side is something that can largely be addressed from a technical perspective, although reams have been written about how hard it is to make anything truly "simple".

The "safe" side of the equation has relatively little to do with technology, however.  And that's our weakest point.

> The time to proliferate open wifi is now, before things get locked down any further. In the United States, we are morally, ethically, and _legally_ in the right. http://torrentfreak.com/judge-an-ip-address-doesnt-identify-a-person-120503/

That ruling is only applicable in the Eastern District of New York.  It can be taken as advisory by other judges in the country, but until this matter gets brought up to the Supreme Court, this ruling doesn't serve as prior case law anywhere else.

Even then, it doesn't help anyone who is in the Eastern District of New York who has all their equipment confiscated by the police in a raid, even if they are a completely innocent bystander who just happened to be in the wrong Internet cafe at the wrong time.

> People in Germany will have to route around their laws for a while, that sucks. But that's not the problem this project should focus on right now.

Germany is not the only problem state, and you can't assume that it is.

If you continue to push your agenda to ignore all places that have problems in this area, then you are setting up yourself (and this project) for failure.

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