[dundee] Open Wi-Fi 'outlawed' in Digital Economy Bill

[Arron M Finnon]

Iain Barnett wrote:
> On 28 Feb 2010, at 12:58, Arron M Finnon wrote:
>
>   
>> http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,1000000085,40057470,00.htm
>>
>> The government will not exempt universities, libraries and small
>> businesses providing open Wi-Fi services from its Digital Economy Bill
>> copyright crackdown, according to official advice released earlier this
>> week.
>>
>> This would leave many organisations open to the same penalties for
>> copyright infringement as individual subscribers, potentially including
>> disconnection from the internet, leading legal experts to say it will
>> become impossible for small businesses and the like to offer Wi-Fi access.
>>
>>
>>     
>
>
>  Is it too hard for a business to ask for a valid email address before allowing access? The library requires my library card before I can use one of their pc's, why not for wifi access?
>
> As far as I can see, this bill, whether right or wrong, is going to sort out a lot of crap network security.
>   
It would seem to me its a case of finding someone to point fingers at. 
Rather than deal with troublesome users, we will penalise the end
point.  With regards to Email address, well you enter the whole aspect
of DPA (<- Swifty better to answer than me), and greater targets off
phishing attacks.

There is already great scope for setting up a rouge access point in the
town centre that is '£4.99 per hour, or free to gmail and hotmail
customers by login in here'.  If it becomes the norm to supply email
details to gain 'FREE' wifi then this attack will become common place.

The issue has to be sorted at a user level not a ISP level.  The fact of
it is, they'll never convince joe public downloading movies or music is
wrong.  I mean if you see the adverts about that i am FORCED to watch
when i BUY a dvd, about how i wouldn't steal a car, or a handbag, blah
blah blah.  Your left saying, 'hell if i could download a car you bet
your arse i would'.  I mean theft is to deprive someone of their
property not to clone it.  Its a case of them losing the opportunity to
charge for their content.  Its a very different argument to that of stealing

I doubt very much indeed that this will sort out any network security
problems, in fact i would imagine we'll see more problems, as rogue
access points either put up by individuals circumventing their companies
rules, or bad guys hacking the hell out of you
> Iain
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> dundee GNU/Linux Users Group mailing list
> dundee at lists.lug.org.uk  http://dundeelug.org.uk
> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dundee
> Chat on IRC, #tlug on irc.lug.org.uk
>
>   


-- 
Arron "finux" Finnon

Finux.co.uk/blog - Twitter.com/f1nux - facebook.com/finux

Podcasting for HPR and TRACsec, shows can be found at;
http://hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents.php?hostid=85
http://www.tracsec.com 




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.lug.org.uk/pipermail/dundee/attachments/20100301/e9a1d071/attachment.htm