Forgive the scathing cynicism, but we're governed by retards who I wouldn't trust to change a 13-amp fuse! Let alone actually realise that 99% of household equipment could get by with a 1-amp, or less, fuse.
I _know_ my local WiFi ;-) (SSID: xxxxxxxxxx, Key: not telling).
I also know that WEP is so trivially broken that, pardon the pun, "there's an app for that". WPA is not a great deal better. I've broken a couple just to prove the point. If you're planning to run an open point, do it and be damned. If this is a 'public service', and some media mogul tries to sue you then half the country would chip in to a legal fighting fund.
Sadly, Wikimedia UK has to be 'polite' to politicians; I suspect David Gerard would gleefully join me in setting about them with a clue-by-four, and tell them, bluntly, to defer to the likes of Sir Tim Berners-Lee on what is good for the Internet.
The Digital Economy Act should be overturned. The Limp-Dems promised to do so - until they ended up in a coalition with Cameron. Now, I'm dealing with repeated alarmist emails from 38 Degrees about plans to grant the police and security services "carte blanche" snooping powers. I could say "I told you so", and you could search for "INDECT" on Wikinews.
I, very infrequently, chip in on this list; and, the above is 'quite a rant'. However, I'm of the opinion that WM-UK should be an active advocate for a free and unfettered Internet. Thankfully my own hacking exploits predate the Computer Misuse Act. But, when I'm back online at home, I'll be joining the mayhem in running a Tor node, and whoever in the police told Cameron they'd like more powers can explain how they can't crack real encryption.
Brian McNeil -- Wikinews, Accredited Reporter. Personal: brian.mcneil@o2.co.uk "Facts don't cease to be facts, but news ceases to be news."
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] So who knows about their local wifi? From: Tom Morris tom@tommorris.org Date: Tue, May 01, 2012 11:24 am To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org
On 1 May 2012 11:04, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 1 May 2012 10:35, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com wrote:
More than anything it depends on the context; if you are talking about a small endeavour at, say, a meeting venue you're probably alright using an ad-hoc setup. But if you are talking an entirely public network then things are more complex. To be honest; once you are at that level you should be talking to a professional company anyway, as supplying Wifi of that sort is a non-trivial technical exercise. And they will know exactly what is required.
I note also the Hack Day Manifesto (really a how-to), which goes into quite some detail on the technical side (though not the legal one):
As one of the Hack Day Manifesto drafting cabal, I'll note why we didn't...
Firstly, because we aren't lawyers. If you are a lawyer, the Hack Day Manifesto is on Github, and, as we say on Wikipedia, "anyone can edit".
Secondly, because what we do know about the law on wifi, it's actually very difficult to know what is required. When the Digital Economy Act was up for debate, one of the provisions, if I recall correctly, would require closing of open wifi following repeated copyright infringement complaints, but whether that is going to be required is something I believe we are still waiting upon from the official Ofcom guidance (not to go political, but having a law where you basically pass it without reading it, then have someone else work out exactly what it means is a hermeneutic strategy that should make postmodernists very happy and anyone who values transparency and deliberation not so happy).
There are still some very strange questions about whether or not using a weak protection system for wifi would count - WEP is now trivially crackable, and WPA rather than WPA2 is also trivial to crack... requiring WPA2 means certain older devices can't connect to wifi.
It'd certainly be useful for everybody involved if we could have some lawyers work out exactly what the current civil and criminal penalties and issues of concern are around open wifi usage.
I say that as someone who lives right out in the countryside and, partly on principle, keeps his wifi completely open. Why? Because I believe that if you should be unfortunate enough to find yourself standing outside my house, the least you should be able to do is check Google Maps to find your way to where you are going. Given that we have really bad GPS reception, almost no mobile reception, certainly no 3G reception, I see almost no benefit in preventing people from leeching a little bandwidth from me... on the basis that if I were momentarily outside their house, I'd really like to be able to do likewise. Share and share alike, be the change you want to see and all that.
Security expert Bruce Schneier does similarly: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wireles.html
Of course, if some bastard tracks me down, camps outside my house and uses my wifi to upload his kiddy porn stash, nuclear bomb construction instructions or the contents of their 'Lady Gaga' CD-RW to Wikileaks, and I end up in jail, that would suck quite considerably. Hence why having some guidance from actual lawyers would be quite useful.
-- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/
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