Can owning a Wi-Fi Skype phone land you in jail?
section: common, for your questions: KezNews forum, 23.8.2007
A man in London was arrested for using an open Wi-Fi network from someone’s unsecured broadband link from a nearby house. Similar arrests have happened in the US and this makes me wonder: Can owning a Wi-Fi Skype phone land you in jail?
I was reviewing a Wi-Fi enabled Skype phone and an interesting thing happened when I took it on a trip. I was in an unfamiliar place and someone rang my review Skype phone and I answered the call as if I had a cell phone. But wait a minute, how did I manage to get a connection? After some further investigation I determined that the phone was automatically configured to connect any “open” (read unsecured) Wi-Fi network it can find. Of course the majority of users won’t ever bother changing the default settings and many won’t even know how to change it or what it implies if they don’t change it. Would this make them criminals in the eyes of the law since ignorance is never an excuse?
The issue of “open” Wi-Fi networks is something that any modernized society needs to work out. Of course there’s no question that if someone broke in to an even weakly defended Wi-Fi network that they’re at least guilty of bandwidth theft, but “open” networks are a very slippery slope. What happens if your computer happens to use the same SSID like “Linksys” or “Netgear” and your computer automatically connected to that network because it thought it was your home network? Does that make you a criminal? What happens if it’s a free Wi-Fi hotspot or you thought it was a free hotspot, does that make you a criminal? All these questions have to be answered but it’s another one of those issues that the law is grossly behind on.
source: blogs.zdnet.com/Ou
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Comments(5)
i know that these people have gotten in trouble but, at least in the uk when you buy a
broadband service, im sure the t&c clearly state that it is your responsibility. if you
choose to leave an open wap on it, then anything that is transferred across the connection
is still *your* responsibility, unless perhaps you can *prove* your connection was hacked
without your consent or knowledge.
otherwise, i could leave an open wifi and
download war3z and claim it wasn't myself and i knew nothing of it - it must have been
someone passing on their skype phone... complete rubbish as far as i'm concerned....
basically it comes down to the "law" meaning what it wants to suit each case.
while pleading ignorance is not a good excuse for the casual wifi borrower or
unknowing borrower, likewise, nor is an excuse for someone leaving their network insecure
when mr. public is donwloading mp3s (or a lot worse) over their connection.
if
you buy home insurance, you are most likely not covered unless your door and windows are
locked. if you buy a wireless router, you should not be covered (from prosecution) unless
it is protected. simple as.
oh, i bought this car, and killed my
passengers.... i didnt have a license so it cant be my fault because i didn't know hoe to
drive, and that i couldn't drive.
maybe there should be add's on tv... if you
have a network secure it, because you don't know who might be abusing it....
arghhhh!!! :)
no, the phone can not land you in jail. but stealing internet resources you are not
paying for will!
unsecured it mean open,
open it mean every body can use
if you don't want
every body use your net work you have to secure your net work
the man in that
story can say that i don't kmow bcs my fone auto connect to the preferred net work
if police want to jail sb they have to they the company that make the fone can auto
connect to any preferred open net work.
the question is valid regarding bandwidth usage. any wireless device, not just skype can
access open wireless unsecured networks. i would say, if the wireless network is
unsecured, it is really public domain, because anyone in the public could connect to and
use that wireless network.
what's even more interesting here, is not for the
fact, every wireless device has the method to connect to other wireless devices, but that
suddenly new benefits like being able to receive and transmit voip calls to other
individuals might not profit the big telecommunication corporations as much as they would
like.
why should any society that is suppose to be free, make laws and rules
and even limit the sharing of information, especially telecommunications as in individuals
talking with another?
in north korea, i can tell you the society has no mobile
phones in general, as it's against the law! and does anyone think that helps society to
share, to develop and advance?
now the u.s. like other countries view society
as a threat, meaning if citizens get organized, just like in china, the leaders might not
be able to hold on to their monopolies of special interest and abuse.
first,
everyone should have the means to communicate with everyone else, just as health care
should be provided for all citizens, unless your society is based upon wealthy rich, who
don't give a dam about the majority who are not.
the wealthy always worry
about their power, that is to lose it. the money helps to lock out the poor from becoming
rich, as it's used to limit, to deny the many rights and most of all, the power of the
rich system here to provide for all the equality of life.
why should bill gates
earn how many billions of dollars a year all for himself?
while a huge
majority of other individuals go without, so he can buy billion dollar super yacht? hiw
partner paul allen bought four billion dollar super yachts to party!
each boat
holds about 200 individuals. it's a small town floating on the ocean.
now the
whole world is beginning to experience capitalism. capitalism that is mostly concerned
about making profits for it's owners.
all this has bearing because, the
government needs an economy to survive. china's rising development is based upon an
economy as well.
if we the people stop using technologies that benefit our
society, so a few can become rich and wealthy, then we as a people do not advance and make
use of that or those benefits.
meaning, we as a people have allowed a special
few to monopolize our society for their own benefit.
ownership is a system that
also means denial. do we want to live in a world where a few have, and the majority have
not?
this issue is bigger than intellectual property rights, it's rally about
what people do for work, in their activities of making an economy.
consider
this, every innovation the people have given effort to create, has always been basd upon
prior innovation. the moment we as a society deny ourselves this ability to build upon
prior innovation, we limit and deny what new innovation we as a people can develop.
china doesn't mind borrowing the innovation from others, stealing it, whatever you
want to call it. once they educate their 1.3 billion citizens, they going to have at
least a 6x times advantage over the u.s.
right now china experiences double
digit economic growth rates every years for the pass 15 years or so. all that is based
upon cheap labor exporting products. this has proven to be extemely successful, as just
about every item now comes from china here in the u.s.
now imagine china
becoming able to innovate their own inventions and technologies. what advantage is that
for a closed society where ipr laws forbid citizens from using the benfits of technologies
to build upon prior innovation?
wibro, has an internet broadband radius of about 120 km/h (74.5 miles/h). this wireless
protocol would allow everyone within a city to experience free mobile wireless internet
service that can provide 30 to 50 mbit/s quality of service.
japan, south korea
and even part of china are not using this wireless network protocol.
it sure
would make sense to deny this innovation to the american society, which now pays for each
individual internet access, unless americans wanted to have free high speed mobile
wireless quality of service internet access, which such applications like skype, gizmo and
others using voip service would allow everyone within range to have this type of being
connected to each other.
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Quite frankly
By Phil on 24.08.2007 - 00:08