I Jedi

November 30, 2009 at 6:24am

He's new

bdwoolman

November 30, 2009 at 2:19am

If you leave your front door open and somebody walks in and takes
something and they later get caught their crime is less serious than
if they broke a lock to get in. Even bypassing a screen door hook is enough to
intensify their crime. By the same token a secured network, even a
weakly secured one, is arguably a way to insulate you from wrongdoing on that
network. Conversely, by leaving your network open and unsecured you
possibly implicate yourself in any torts or crimes committed by the
people using it. At least these days.

Look. If you knowingly share your
bandwidth any reasonable person could predict that some people will
use it as a screen for nefarious activity: from illegal
downloading of copyright material to downloading illegal kinds of
porn.  It is arguably akin to leaving a weapon around. Common
sense now dictates that you have been irresponsible. And a DA
bringing charges could argue so forcefully -- albeit perhaps not fairly.
Grandma claiming ignorance might skate. But a bar owner? Probably not.

However, even putting weak security like WEP on your network
places the onus firmly on the person who breaks into the network to
misbehave. He has to commited a crime by hacking you to get access to
your bandwidth. Hacking you shows his intent. Nobody could sensibly
argue that a burglar committed less of a crime because he only picked a cheap run-of-the-mill lock. More importantly it shows your intent. You
have locked the screen door.  Moreover, if you do give somebody
your password (or rent it to them) then you can have them sign an agreement
that they will not misbehave. Once again the blame has shifted to the doer. Sadly the days of safe open WIFI are over.

Liability and culpability naturally will shift to the network owner.
Furthermore, sharing a network in this way may well violate your
service agreement with your ISP. The fact that you are committing a
tort further erodes your legal standing in the event somebody uses
your network to no good purpose.

Let's take it one more logical step. What if you put your phone in
your front yard and said: "Hey I just pay a monthly fee so walk
up and make any calls you want." When the local drug dealer
starts using it (not to mention the local hooker.) What will your
situation be when the heat comes down? Not good I think. Your position is quite different from that of the phone company in this case. You are the user. They are the provider.

What if you left your back door wide open and somebody came in and took a gun you were cleaning from the kitchen table and comitted a felony with it? Would you be implicated in the crime? Maybe. Maybe not. Could you be successfully sued by the victims? You bet you could.

Very few cases like this have been brought to date because the technical issues are complex, but the legal theory is pretty clear. Bottom line. Secure your WIFI network.

Yusonice

November 30, 2009 at 12:44am

The page on a real mod's account will look like this when you click the name. Anw the staff are paid to update so they have to have a lot of postcounts

http://www.maximumpc.com/user/justinkerr_0

MRrelabled

November 29, 2009 at 10:24pm

It looks like as the law is written it's like if someone used your phone to call whatever, that phone would be charged or the owner of the phone would be responsible, it's the ip address as I understand with the little facts I've found. 

Is a public network any less responsible than say a private network or an individual computer ? Say if the business provided a computer rather than just a connection ? Soon I imagine we'll have to login into a cloud first so that will be different or isn't that what you want ? 

Five Rabbits

November 29, 2009 at 4:17pm

I tried looking for more information, but all I could find was a source saying 'someone', downloaded copyrighted material.

 Unless there was some active part by bar owners involving the infringement I can't see how they can be held liable, you know like a sign in the window saying 'free wifi pirate all you want'.  Really it just sounds like another case of copy-right holders carpet bombing a problem area and hitting everything but the actual pirates.  Kind of like how PC gamers who actually buy their games have to have to put up with Draconian copyright protection while the pirates hacked version doesn't have any of that.

MRrelabled

November 29, 2009 at 3:54pm

maybe I could make a better judgment if presented some facts it sounds like their is a lot more to the story. beware of the double edged agenda, you might not like what you end up with. 

Cache

November 29, 2009 at 2:45pm

Does this mean internet service providers are likewise guilty since they provided for the same communications as the wifi hotspot? They may not have been the 'end point', but certainly they were an accomplice in the whole thing.

dgourd

November 29, 2009 at 2:09pm

This is outrageous.  I guess people will sue for anything these days. 

auwingr1

November 29, 2009 at 2:05pm

This is one we definitely need to watch here stateside.

mpcrsc562

November 29, 2009 at 2:03pm

this is the stupidest thing i've read! i can only hope that this doesn't set a precedent to be picked up and followed here in the u.s.