EFF And Others Push For Open Wifi APs Everywhere 253
netbuzz writes "Forging ahead with an initiative that proved controversial when introduced last year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and nine other groups today are advancing the Open Wireless Movement to encourage ubiquitous sharing of Internet access. 'We envision a world where sharing one's Internet connection is the norm,' said EFF Activist Adi Kamdar, in a press release. 'A world of open wireless would encourage privacy, promote innovation, and benefit the public good, giving us network access whenever we need it. And everyone — users, businesses, developers, and Internet service providers — can get involved to help make it happen.'"
So long as... (Score:5, Insightful)
...the EFF is willing to back me up with unlimited legal support when the FBI comes knocking at my door because my next door neighbors turn out to be pedos, I'm all for it.
Bandwidth no longer unlimited? (Score:5, Insightful)
How do they think this will work in a world where we're all getting dinged for bandwidth? If connections were still unlimited, great, but otherwise this is a bit of a non-starter.
Re:No. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the point. If everybody opened their WiFi AP, then an IP address will become meaningless as a way of identifying a person to arrest or sue.
It'll never happen though, what's to stop all the neighborhood leeches from freeloading off my cable modem and save themselves $50 a month?
Responsible for others action (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No. (Score:3, Insightful)
If everybody opened their WiFi AP, then an IP address will become meaningless as a way of identifying a person to arrest or sue.
It's already meaningless. I'm not impressed.
Re:No. (Score:5, Insightful)
It'll never happen though, what's to stop all the neighborhood leeches from freeloading off my cable modem and save themselves $50 a month?
Bandwidth limits on unknown users. If all they need to do is check their email and read the web, then you could have 20 such leeches and never really notice it.
Free wifi was great when we had it (Score:4, Insightful)
I've had a specific idea for a while... (Score:4, Insightful)
You know how everywhere you (in residential areas, mostly) you see APs with names like '2WIRE123' (to pick just one) all the time? Or out in public, 'attfreewifi' at McDonald's, Starbucks, etc.? AT&T (and the rest) should configure their residential products to have, say, 10% of your total bandwidth optionally made available with a separate standard SSID (like 'Free2WIRE' or something) that is separated from your main network. (So strangers can't print, browse shared resources, play 'Macarena' through your AirPort Express, etc.)
ISPs who are also cell providers (like AT&T) will be happy to save some cellular bandwidth. Yes, they like charging for big plans and overages (and tethering, and everything else they can think of, the greedy bastards) but they really do want to save relatively expensive cellular bandwidth also. As they tell me via text every time I approach my limit for the month, "Tip: Mobile Data is unlimited over WiFi."
It would also save you from having to ask friends with secured APs what their password is. A) it's a bit of a pain, B) it's a bit awkward, C) if they're serious about security they won't want to share it in the first place, and D) if it's long and complex it's REALLY a pain.
Re:No. (Score:2, Insightful)
You go ahead and be one of the test cases for this. Let us know how it goes after you lose a couple years of your life and have a legal bill in the six figure range. Oh, and all of your computer equipment will be gone for the duration so I hope there's nothing important on it.
Re:Your IP (Score:5, Insightful)
They may get what they wish for soon enough (Score:4, Insightful)
They may get what they wish for as it's happening already, but when it arrives it they will come to realise it wasn't what they wanted.
There are already companies that allow you to re-sell your access point bandwidth. It's not rocket science. They just provide you with a router than is also a captive portal. You get to use it for free of course, but if foreigner logs into it they charge them for the bandwidth and split the fee with you. In fact most paid for captive portals operate on this basis already.
In theory this should be a win-win for everybody. It sending a byte over a land line generally costs between 1/10 and 1/100 of sending the same byte over a commercial 3G/4G network. So the mobile user gets cheap ubiquitous data and the land line owner gets to make a little money on the side.
In practice, right now, that isn't how it's working out. Somehow these captive portal operators manage to make data on these networks more expensive than the commercial 3G/4G networks. But one day someone will figure out how to make it work, and on that day a new competitor the current 3G/4G networks will arise, and it will be in the form of millions of 802.11 microcells dotted around the country. I bet they know it's coming, but don't have a clue what to do about it. They will find themselves in the same position as music publishers, newspapers, TV - except in this case it will be a case of the internet eating its own.
As I said, even though I consider this almost a long term certainty and it is what the EFF is asking for now, it isn't what the EFF actually wants. The EFF wants open access points so people can send and receive information anonymously. In this new world order every access point will be open, but every byte will be paid for, and thus tied to a credit card.
OpenWrt, etc., etc. (Score:4, Insightful)
And I'd find it strange that government, which seems to operate on utilitarian principles, would fail to see the "greater good" in providing positively-used access to far more people than the fewer who'd comprise the abusive. Regarding the FBI (or others) raiding homes because of abuse, it seems in most situations a more hypocritical rather than critical response. In 'my' town, some beast had been out on his boat while connected to an open AP at one of the nearby condominiums. He'd been doing nasty things, apparently. The FBI raided the unit of the condo AP in the middle of the night, nearly killing the innocent couple by shock. Odd that they couldn't have sniffed the waves first and perhaps deduced a remote host. As advanced as they are, and for all their budget, they sure seem primitive sometimes. I have my doubts though.
I think we can see how well our post-911 hysteria has worked for us. Everyone's a terrorist now, but hardly anyone is terrorizing. We're spending enormous amounts of liberty and money on departments and agencies that are primarily self-serving. Departments like the DHS are bridging dangerous gaps between the DoD and local law-enforcement. And for all the collective efforts of our militant angelic protectors, safety hasn't increased much. We're petrified of bogeymen, yet we fill the role ourselves through social indifference and mainstream-media-administered xenophobia. It's mildly ironic that we're petrified that our networks will be abused for pedophilia, but we now lend our children without hesitation to the TSA. The yield of fear is golden indeed.
Self protection is good, and I'd not advise every soccer-mom to open their WiFi necessarily; but I can't see any benefit in building our society on principles of fear and self-imposed disadvantages, especially while so many viable sources for fear are above, not below the law.
And finally, the typical ISP competition duopoly between two gluttonous villains is not so great for many people. It's expensive, and many broadband (FIOS) subscribers never use much more than could be offered by DSL. And take note; in my area, DSL is not offered -- only cable or FIOS.
But playing the social board-game of Divide & Conquer is fun enough. After all, we're all our own unique snowflakes, and we should emphasize it as much as possible. Anything else would result in hippies, pirates, pedophiles, communists and zombies taking over our streets, eating our children and using our toothbrushes.
Re:First... (Score:5, Insightful)
most people tend to be reasonable with freely offered services.
Yes, most people are responsible. It is that other small percentage that is the problem.
I submit that the unreasonable percentage is vanishingly small. I am sick and tired of the child molester trope. If all systems were open (and mine has been wide open for years), then we would not be discussing this nonsense. Grow a pair, America!
Spartacus
Re:They're forgetting existing law. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First... (Score:3, Insightful)
(1) Contact the EFF.
Tell them: "Go ahead and sue me. I can prove that it wasn't me," or something to that effect. Most of these copyright trolls are not even remotely interested in suing anybody. It costs too much. And the only case they have won so far was one in which the defendant admitted everything. Result: you walk.
Re:First... (Score:4, Insightful)
"If someone on your network DDoSes my server, I will sue YOU for being negligent for letting some fuckwad on YOUR network."
Haha. Good luck with that.
Not, it's NOT like lending someone your car. Automobiles are a unique situation. The law that makes you responsible if somebody commits a crime with your car applies ONLY to cars. It doesn't apply to ANYTHING else.
If I loan you a gun, for legitimate reasons (or so I thought), and you go out and kill somebody with it, I am NOT legally responsible.
Same with a router. Or just about anything else... except a car.
It balances individualistic security concerns (Score:4, Insightful)
I was surprised last year when I first saw an article from EFF suggesting that we open our wifi networks. I did see some reason to support what they were suggesting, but I was also anxious about opening up my LAN, weak as wireless encryption may actually be. Since then, I bought a new wireless router, which does make it easy to offer separate WLANs with configurable levels of access to each other. I see TLS being used more widely. I've learned a bit about VPNs, and set up OpenVPN on my router. And, I read the article others have mentioned in this thread, that Bruce Schneier, who both knows more than I do and has more to worry about, doesn't bother securing his wireless, since it's really not the security vulnerability that it's made out to be.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wireles.html [schneier.com]
But most important, I worry that a lot of the structure of IT, and especially IT security, tends to foster an individualistic and cautious outlook that needs the balance of the considerations of fostering community. Of course, offering security advice is a service to the community, but it's worth arguing for something that explicitly supports an open community, now and then.