[P1] hot spots in the U.S.

[William L Carr]

On Tuesday, January 28, 2003, at 11:39  PM, Jack Rodgers wrote:

>> You could think of this as being no more illegal than parking in a 
>> Reserved for Customers parking lot downtown.   And less likely to be 
>> caught.
>
> What are your credentials for making such a statement?

Sigh.   :>(     What credentials do I need, Jack?   How about a 
fanatical adherence to the Bill Of Rights?    I've got my Voter 
Registration card here, want me to scan it in and email it to you?   
(Oh, that's right, the State of Florida doesn't respect Registration 
cards...(just a joke..:>)   ))

While software is always changing, right now it appears that merely 
logging on a WiFi Open connection doesn't harvest ID off your laptop.  
That's according to the author of MacStumbler.     And as I said, if 
the site uses Access Control Lists then you have to be registered to 
even login.   It seems to me therefore that anyone who wants privacy 
can get it easily.    And those who don't care, that's like free 
parking....   Maybe soon sites with WiFi will either go with Access 
Control Lists or post a No War Driving notice...

Here's my experience.   I'm too far out in the country to get Cable 
Modem access.   My ISP is setting up local wireless but I'd need a 
tower to clear the trees on the horizon.   And $60 a month, not to 
mention losing my ability to dialup from work too.

So I asked around about other  options.   At my ISP, they had an 
article about how proud they were to have put in a WiFi network at 
their headquarters.    I asked about it, "Can paying members come in 
and use the Wireless connection?"   And the lady said "If you've got a 
membership, sure".   So, after about a year I found a good price on an 
Airport card.   I came in to their new offices, and asked if they had a 
form for their Access Control Lists, and how long it took to be 
registered.

Well, let's skip forward to the part where this lady declaimed, "I 
would NEVER say anything like that !!".   I talked to the owner of the 
ISP and he was puzzled at my effrontery in asking for help.  He said 
something like "We have a direct connection to the Internet here, if  
we were to allow customers to login we'd have to charge a lot more than 
$60 a month".

So, I left.  Noplace to even test the new Airport card.    But I did 
open my iBook in the parking lot.  Hmm, there's a signal there.   Guess 
the Airport card works, anyway.     If I were the angry, vengeful type 
I'd get a parabolic dish and scope them out from 50 yards away.   These 
people talk about being friendly but it's just talk.    I realized a 
year ago that they were just trashing my support emails and questions.



  The local Library said THEY were putting in a wireless network.   I 
had asked, because there's a library thirty miles away that has a 
wireless network and loans out iBooks (cool, huh?).

Their go-to guy assured me that their network would be up at the end of 
August 2002 or early September.   I asked him if I could check back 
from time to time about this.  He said, 'Sure'.   I asked him 
specifically if Patrons could bring in their wireless equipped laptops. 
  He said "YES".

So, I came back in September, and the desk librarian (anti-Apple, by 
the way) said, "The wireless network is up now, it was a little rocky 
for the first two days but it's fine now".   So I asked how a Patron 
logs in.

Want to guess what happened next?    (I don't even know why they need 
wireless for their PCs, it's not like they didn't already have cables 
run everwhere !)

Their go-to guy avoids me now, like he's got a guilty conscience.   
Seems that the library board decided that Patrons using their WiFi 
network constituted the Library acting as an ISP, and they'd ruled 
against that two years ago.   I'm waiting for things to cool off a 
little, and then I'll write a letter to a Library Board member we do 
business with.

As for getting caught... ask Randy what he thinks.   If there's no 
precedent yet then this could go either the CB radio way or the Wire 
Fraud way.

If the first precedent says that an open network is like CB radio, then 
everything is cool.   If some paranoid IT guy claims borrowing 
bandwidth is tantamount to Wire Fraud, then there goes another civil 
liberty... and it's often the Rights you didn't realize you had that 
you'll miss when they start taking them away.   The Ninth Amendment 
notwithstanding.

Jkirk


I once thought about starting a club to discuss the philosophy of 
Fatalism.
But then I realized that even if anyone came, they'd only come to steal 
the folding chairs.