[Nottingham] Considering the last talk...

[Duncan]

On 30/04/11 19:41, Sergiusz Pawlowicz wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 19:31, David Aldred<davidaldred at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> On 30 April 2011 19:24, Sergiusz Pawlowicz<sergiusz at pawlowicz.name>  wrote:
>>> In my opinion, leaving an open wifi, to help my neighbours to cut the
>>> bills or sometimes even create possibility of any connection, to
>>> protect freedom of speech as well, is important enough to justify an
>>> unlikely possibility to allow a bad guy to download a picture.
>> I said upload, not download.   You're happy to allow people to profit from
>> the abuse of children, to protect some nebulous idea of 'freedom of speech'
>> (which doesn't and can't exist as a pure entity in any civilised society)?
>>
>> What a disgusting attitude.
> Could we please talk about numbers?

Pi is approximately 3.14159265
e is approximately 2.71828183
(they are as relevant as any number you have provided so far).


You have obviously made a assessment and concluded that the perceived
benefits of running an open wireless network outweigh the risk and 
consequences
of someone using it to committing an offence.

You have been informed that should the police have reason to suspect 
that your
internet connection (be it wired, open wireless or closed wireless[1]) 
has been used
to commit a criminal offence (be that cracking another system[2], 
receiving or
distributing unlawful material or breaking the data protection act) 
then, without the
ability to distinguish your network activity from that of any other user 
on your network,
the police can get a warrant to seize _all_ of your computers as part of 
the investigation
(they can also ask a court to demand all of your passwords and 
encryption keys)
and that even if you are innocent an investigation like this can deprive you
of your computers for a seriously inconvenient amount of time.

Those are facts.   Being able to quote numbers of children slain in 
Afghanistan
does not change them.   If you decide, in light of these facts, to 
continue to run an open
wireless network  then you are free to do so;  but you do so perhaps a 
little bit better
informed than you were before.

An additional point which is painfully obvious from watching the news is 
that should
such an investigation be child protection related then, innocent or not, 
those caught
up in it face a significant risk of being be subjected to "trial by 
Daily Mail" and that in
itself can be hugely damaging to a person and those close to them.

Again:  If you decide to continue to run an open wireless network after
reading this then you are free to do so.

<Snipped guff about current military action being relevant to  the 
enforcement
of an act of parliament passed in 1978  hint="It's in the name "The 
Protection of Children Act 1978")" /> ?

[1] Friends routinely have their encrypted wireless network "opened" by 
their neighbours.
[2] We had this one at work many years ago.  Someone compromised a 
computer and used it
to try to crack a secure US government computer.   The admin in charge 
was told
to unplug the machine from the network and then someone came and took it 
away for analysis.
I'm honestly not sure if we ever saw the machine again.

Have fun,
Duncan