[oclug] The Feds can own your WLAN too

[Jonathon Moody]

This might not be a wise path to open up - but it would seem to me if 
you were allowed to offer free internet then you would be protected by 
the same laws/regulations that protect your ISP from being charged when 
your connection is used for porn.

You would of course hand over logs and could possibly loose your account 
if you were breaching your AUP but I'm pretty sure ISPs are very well 
protected under the law. Of course I'm sure they could get a warrant to 
search your house for child porn but I'm assuming that wouldn't be an 
issue....

Adrian Irving-Beer wrote:

>On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 11:06:07AM -0400, Kevin Everets wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Hoarding one's internet connection (even when it's unmetered and
>>running idle for the most part) seems to be the status quo these
>>days, which I find sad.
>>    
>>
>
>Bandwidth usage isn't what's important to me.  Certainly I'd want to put
>my traffic at a much higher priority than someone else using my link.
>Other than that, if I had unmetered bandwidth, could legally share my
>connection, and had no other concerns, I might do it.
>
>  
>
>>Viewing people who share their internet connection as negligent or
>>incompetent hurts the sharing culture which I'm a part of.  The
>>internet was built on shared connections between peers and has been
>>gradually transforming into an entirely different thing based on
>>services provided by large organizations and consumers of those
>>services.
>>    
>>
>
>The problem is, IMO, the Internet back then was inhabited by people
>with a more benign attitude.  These days, many people see the Internet
>as just a means to make easy money, or to perform illegal or morally
>wrong acts -- often both at the same time.
>
>For example, the latest trend among child pornography uploaders and
>downloaders is to wardrive for open wireless points they can use.  By
>the time the police come knocking on your door to arrest you, the
>actual criminal is long gone and untraceable.
>
>I suspect the number of wardriving spammers is less, but I sure
>wouldn't want to be responsible for that kind of Internet trash being
>spewed via my wireless, let alone ending up on some spam blacklist.
>
>  
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>>This is a trend I'd like to see reverse, and will do what I can to
>>help that happen.
>>    
>>
>
>I appreciate that, and I do find myself sometimes yearning for certain
>aspects of the older Internet.  But there are some things I recognise
>as gone and unrecoverable due to what the Internet has become today.
>Anonymous Internet access is one of those.
>
>On the other hand, your words made me think.  If I ever find myself on
>an ISP with unlimited bandwidth and no sharing issues (and can
>overcome the routing and security issues), I may consider at least
>account-based, audited, free shared wireless access.
>  
>