Full Version: Wi-Fi Crime
| QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Jul 25 2005, 06:19 PM) |
| At the risk of sounding insensivitive, darn right she is. Nothing happens in a vacuum. It takes two people to commit a crime. (Unless it is a victimless crime). While the victim holds no legal or moral culpibility the victim is responsible for putting him or herself in a position where he or she is likely to be victimized. |
That's the dumbest thing I've ever read on the Internet.
Let me repeat that.
That is the dumbest thing I have ever read on the Internet. Anywhere. In twelve-thirteen years of using the Internet.
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) | ||||
At the risk of sounding insensivitive, darn right she is. Nothing happens in a vacuum. It takes two people to commit a crime. (Unless it is a victimless crime). While the victim holds no legal or moral culpibility the victim is responsible for putting him or herself in a position where he or she is likely to be victimized. To put it another way, if a random hypothetical woman hears on the news that a large and prolific gang of serial rapists are targeting women who wear red Bruno Mali shoes it is not wise for her to go out wearing red Bruno Mali shoes. It is not wise at all. If I had a Wi-fi Network and I chose to leave it unsecure my reason would be that I want to share access with anyone and everyone. As has been said, an unprotected network is an open invitation to geeks and hackers. Usually, it is a friendly invitation. If I do not want my network to be used I take steps to secure it. The most powerful computers in the world would require centuries to crack a properly constructed password using brute force. Proper password construction is an art. The artist must use all of the tools available. An entire phrase with correct capitalization letters, spaces, and punctuation makes a good password. Most people use crappy passwords. Edit:I think I have come up with a better answer to the rape analogy. Say a Woman does to a BDSM party. She is told that wearing a red ribbon is a sign that one has a rape fantasy and that everyone should just ignore please to stop unless she uses a safeword. She goes to the party wearing a red ribbon despite the fact that she doesn't want to have sex. When someone tries to fulfill that fantasy that she presents to the crowd by wearing this ribbon she kicks and screams but she doesn't remember to use the safeword. This hypothitical situation, no matter how unlikely, is a situation where the rape certainly was the woman's fault and in which the rapist is completely innocent. It is also far more like wireless bandwidth theft than any other rape analogy could be. |
Im sorry, but that is amoral thinking.
It may be unwise for me to leave my network open, or my car window open, but by doing so does not make copeable to a crime. The committer of the crime is totaly and soley responicable for the crime they commit.
Every individual is ultimatly responsible for his or her own safety. A person who ignores that responisbility has no legal copability, of course, but ultimatly suffers the consequences of that choice. In such a case, other participants are responsibile for there on actions as well, including criminal actions. The fact that the victim was an idiot doesn't mitigate the criminal's behavior, it just means that it victim was an idiot.
In this case, however, it isn't even a case of ignoring basic safety procedures. Rather, it is a case of openly soliciting random connections and then complaining when someone answers the advertisment. If you advertise free access it is stupid to complain when someone answers your ad.
In this case, however, it isn't even a case of ignoring basic safety procedures. Rather, it is a case of openly soliciting random connections and then complaining when someone answers the advertisment. If you advertise free access it is stupid to complain when someone answers your ad.
| QUOTE |
| At the risk of sounding insensivitive, darn right she is. Nothing happens in a vacuum. It takes two people to commit a crime. (Unless it is a victimless crime). While the victim holds no legal or moral culpibility the victim is responsible for putting him or herself in a position where he or she is likely to be victimized. |
Okay, now that is possibly the stupidest thing I ever heard.
The city I live in rape is not a common crime. A couple weeks ago, at a nice apartment complex a guy broke into a house and raped a woman. You're saying she had some fault in that?!!? She lives in a nice city, a nice complex, and had all her doors locked. Where in the hell is her part in the crime? What she should have had abn alarm, a gun, and a personal body guard as well?
MY car, parked in my drive way, under a light, was broke into, vandalized and an attempt was made to steal it. The prolock prevented the actual theft, but not the damage. My drive way, lit, doors locked. Where in the hell was My part in that crime.
I could go on for days, but saying that a victim is part fault in the crime is the dumbest thing I ever heard.
Yeah, if I leave my car doors unlocked and open, in a highschool parking lot on a friday night, yeah I deserve to be vandalized. But not at home.
Dude you are way off base.
| QUOTE (Eldritch @ Jul 25 2005, 10:12 PM) | ||
Okay, now that is possibly the stupidest thing I ever heard. The city I live in rape is not a common crime. A couple weeks ago, at a nice apartment complex a guy broke into a house and raped a woman. You're saying she had some fault in that?!!? She lives in a nice city, a nice complex, and had all her doors locked. Where in the hell is her part in the crime? What she should have had abn alarm, a gun, and a personal body guard as well? MY car, parked in my drive way, under a light, was broke into, vandalized and an attempt was made to steal it. The prolock prevented the actual theft, but not the damage. My drive way, lit, doors locked. Where in the hell was My part in that crime. I could go on for days, but saying that a victim is part fault in the crime is the dumbest thing I ever heard. Yeah, if I leave my car doors unlocked and open, in a highschool parking lot on a friday night, yeah I deserve to be vandalized. But not at home. Dude you are way off base. |
How is broadcasting a radio interface to half the neighborhood not equivilant to leaving your car door unlocked and open in a highschool parking lot on a Firday night?
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| the victim is responsible for putting him or herself in a position where he or she is likely to be victimized. |
Read part of the quote. Apparently, many people missed it. Someone who takes the proper precautions and acts to ensure his or her own safety can still be a victim of crime. Sometimes, bad things happen despite one's best efforts to prevent them.
Still, people who refuse to make any effort to protect themselves despite all evidence and experience telling them that they should do something bear some responsibility for their own injuries.
Where I come, from the police ticket people for not weaing seatbelts. This isn't because the lawmakers or police believe that people who don't wear seatbelts deserve to die in car crashes or even that they deserve to be crashed into. Rather, it is because lawmakers and police know that people who do not wear seatbelts are more likely to die if they are in a crash. If they choose not to wear a seatbelt they pay for it, either with a fine today or with their life tomorrow.
Still, people who do wear seatbelts die in car crashes. They die in car crashes that are no fault of their own This doesn't mean that wearing a seatbelt is pointless and it certainly doesn't excuse the people who choose not to wear seatbelts.
However, if you solicit to have an act perpertrated against you and then regret it later, you have no one to blame but yourself. Charging this wardriver with bandwidth theft is equivilant to steping in a boxing ring with someone and then having that person charged with battery when you are punched.
I don't think the posters are objecting so much to the use of open wi-fi spots, as your rather *ahem* unusual statements regarding the victim's responsibility for a crime as a general principle.
I would advise strongly against the use of those statements when advising a lawyer who is defending a client who accessed someone else's wireless network.
I would advise strongly against the use of those statements when advising a lawyer who is defending a client who accessed someone else's wireless network.
Yes, it was:
| QUOTE |
| It takes two people to commit a crime. .... While the victim holds no legal or moral culpibility the victim is responsible for putting him or herself in a position where he or she is likely to be victimized. |
Then going on with contrived examples.
Yes, you have a responsibility to take reasonable measures. Lock your doors. Don't go to BDSM parties unless you want to be there. Don't walk naked through bad neighborhoods. But there's a difference between 'reasonable measures' and 'no matter what, it's YOUR FAULT, you dummy'.
Now, if someone pulled up in your driveway with big blue in his trunk, or broke into your house at night and reprogrammed your router or met you at the door with an AK and said to change your password (and presumably, you complied), are you saying YOU are responsible for that? That it's your fault that he broke into your computer?
Yes, putting a password on your wi-fi router is 'reasonable measures'. Just like not getting your insurance check if your car is stolen when you don't lock the doors, you should be culpable if your bandwidth is 'stolen' due to your own negligence. But again, your words don't seem to reflect that. They seem to reflect that we should all live in underground bunkers and shoot visitors on sight, because if they happen to be robbers or rapists, it's our fault for being dumb enough to let them get close.
| QUOTE (nezumi @ Jul 26 2005, 10:30 AM) |
| They seem to reflect that we should all live in underground bunkers and shoot visitors on sight, because if they happen to be robbers or rapists, it's our fault for being dumb enough to let them get close. |
You mean you don't live like that?
Man, that's livin on the edge...
looks like sr will catch up to the real world with sr4 and the new wireless matrix 
hmm, star trek communicators, me like
still, i wonder what happens when more then one person press the button in the same area
nothing like having both connections trying to get the first name spoken within range.
hmm, maybe give it a glue on throat patch as a mic. that way it cant be confused. still, thats a less elegant solution then just press and speak
still, nice to see this kind of wifi use
hmm, bbc's click online show talked about how african nations are going direct to mobile phones not to long ago. costal fishers used it allmost like a radio and so on. hell, there where people that had a income by providing sms sending services for the local community
kinda makes me wonder what kind of posision a hacker can get in a community located in the barrens
hmm, star trek communicators, me like
still, i wonder what happens when more then one person press the button in the same area
nothing like having both connections trying to get the first name spoken within range.hmm, maybe give it a glue on throat patch as a mic. that way it cant be confused. still, thats a less elegant solution then just press and speak
still, nice to see this kind of wifi use
hmm, bbc's click online show talked about how african nations are going direct to mobile phones not to long ago. costal fishers used it allmost like a radio and so on. hell, there where people that had a income by providing sms sending services for the local community
kinda makes me wonder what kind of posision a hacker can get in a community located in the barrens
I still think the judge is whack.
I relativly recent bought a wireless router. On like the second page of the manual (after "Plug it in, you dope") it says something to the effect of "Your wireless router is, by defualt, unprotected so that anyone can connect to it. Do one, or all, of these 3 things to secure your network from unauthorized use.
It's not like the manufacturer didn't try to warn me of the dangers of an unsecured network, they did (and I just choose to ignore it, because I don't give a flying flip who accesses my network, and we only share stuff to the network when we need to move things from computer to computer).
Sure, I check the logs every once in a while to see if anyone did connect (in 8 months, nobody has), but if I didn't want random people using my internet connection, I'd put a password on it, encrypt it, and make it so that my router no longer broadcasts its name (so the causual wargamer wouldn't be able to even see that it's there).
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The analogies about propery theft are, in my opinion, entirely off base, except in the case of restricted use broadband, like the aforementioned australia ISPs. Even then, I'd still rule that it was loss due to negligence, much like running your hose to the gutter and turning it on, then complaining to the water company that your water bill shouldn't be so high because you didn't get to use much of the water they're billing you for, and that they should instead bill your neighbor, because the water ran into his yard. Your neighbor didn't turn on the water, he just failed to trespass to turn your water off.
Perhaps the analogy should be that you turned on your spinklers and someone stood there for a while catching the water that would have fallen on the street and drank it. Obviously he stole your water, despite the fact that he just accessed the overflow that was landing on public domain.
It is much more like trespassing, but even then, it's not very apt. It is closer to what a poster above said -- It's like turning on your floodlights outside and complaining when someone sits on the curb in front of your house and starts reading by your lights (they're not paying for the electricity!), or turning on your CD player and complaining when you notice someone a yard over having the gall to listen to your music! After all, they didn't pay for the CD, you did, right? They should shut their ears or go inside where they can't hear it! STOP MUSIC THEFT! TURN OFF RADIOS!!
I relativly recent bought a wireless router. On like the second page of the manual (after "Plug it in, you dope") it says something to the effect of "Your wireless router is, by defualt, unprotected so that anyone can connect to it. Do one, or all, of these 3 things to secure your network from unauthorized use.
It's not like the manufacturer didn't try to warn me of the dangers of an unsecured network, they did (and I just choose to ignore it, because I don't give a flying flip who accesses my network, and we only share stuff to the network when we need to move things from computer to computer).
Sure, I check the logs every once in a while to see if anyone did connect (in 8 months, nobody has), but if I didn't want random people using my internet connection, I'd put a password on it, encrypt it, and make it so that my router no longer broadcasts its name (so the causual wargamer wouldn't be able to even see that it's there).
==========
The analogies about propery theft are, in my opinion, entirely off base, except in the case of restricted use broadband, like the aforementioned australia ISPs. Even then, I'd still rule that it was loss due to negligence, much like running your hose to the gutter and turning it on, then complaining to the water company that your water bill shouldn't be so high because you didn't get to use much of the water they're billing you for, and that they should instead bill your neighbor, because the water ran into his yard. Your neighbor didn't turn on the water, he just failed to trespass to turn your water off.
Perhaps the analogy should be that you turned on your spinklers and someone stood there for a while catching the water that would have fallen on the street and drank it. Obviously he stole your water, despite the fact that he just accessed the overflow that was landing on public domain.
It is much more like trespassing, but even then, it's not very apt. It is closer to what a poster above said -- It's like turning on your floodlights outside and complaining when someone sits on the curb in front of your house and starts reading by your lights (they're not paying for the electricity!), or turning on your CD player and complaining when you notice someone a yard over having the gall to listen to your music! After all, they didn't pay for the CD, you did, right? They should shut their ears or go inside where they can't hear it! STOP MUSIC THEFT! TURN OFF RADIOS!!
Hehe! I had a neighbor of mine who played poker for a living. He kept getting kicked off his Wi Fi 'cause I was stupid enough to leave mine open.
He lost £20 at one point. He was not happy. So he found out (by the name of the network) what the maker of my hub was, used the IP address to connect to it, and then set up WEP encryption so no one could get access to it. He left it like that for a couple of days, and finally decided to knock on everyones door and ask if they had Wi fi. He then showed me how to set it up properly.
I felt stupid, he felt cheap for pulling a stunt like that. But the upshot is, he might come and play SR. LOL how weird is life.
MORAL: ALWAYS READ THE MANUAL!!!!
He lost £20 at one point. He was not happy. So he found out (by the name of the network) what the maker of my hub was, used the IP address to connect to it, and then set up WEP encryption so no one could get access to it. He left it like that for a couple of days, and finally decided to knock on everyones door and ask if they had Wi fi. He then showed me how to set it up properly.
I felt stupid, he felt cheap for pulling a stunt like that. But the upshot is, he might come and play SR. LOL how weird is life.
MORAL: ALWAYS READ THE MANUAL!!!!
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