The journalist IS a moron, but he's on the front page of the Times, which gets read by millions of people who hardly know what public wifi is, and are now being told that it breeds terrorists and child molesters. It strikes me as a new level of accusation against open wifi, that might be in need of a coherent response. (And I'm surprised that the Times went with such a reactionary story.) Just checking in to see what people's individual responses are. Lee, I like your response.
-j.
On Mar 22, 2005, at 11:45 AM, Dustin Goodwin wrote:
Turn OFF WEP, broadcast your SSID and let everyone share you bandwidth. I didn't see the article but by the sound of it the journalist is a MORON. By his reasoning the mere existence of the Internet is the equivalent "helping child pornographers and credit card thieves (and maybe even terrorists)". What do I think? I think to sell papers and run for political offices you must scare people. It's the currency every a-hole has access to... fear. Funny how as a child we are taught sharing is good and as an adult we are taught that sharing is bad.
Sorry that was a bit of a rant. As NYCwireless we should working on something like "Responsible Wifi sharing". Maybe the logo can be crossing guard but instead of heard they have Wifi access point. Teach everyone how to use Wifidog, CuWIN or the like to do authenticated free sharing. Would that make the fear mongers happy?
- Dustin -
John Geraci wrote:
I'm curious to hear what others think about the front-page article in the NY Times on Saturday, which equated leaving your wifi open with helping child pornographers and credit card thieves (and maybe even terrorists). It seemed like a bit of yellow journalism to me, and reflecting of how much the public has assimilated John Ashcroft's point of view that we should all submit willingly to government surveillance. Still, I think the groups and people that support free wifi have to have a good rebuttal to the argument that was made, and not just dismiss it.
I came across a to-do list on this Sony site "lifehacker" just now (http://www.lifehacker.com/software/security/todo-secure-your- wireless- network-036577.php). They recommend that their readers 1. set up WEP on their router 2. create an access list of what computers can access the Internet 3. turn off their SSID broadcast. Granted, everyone should know how to lock down their router, but it seems that the press is going farther, making it your civic duty to close off your Internet access. What is the free wifi movement's response? Maybe it's just a good counter argument. Maybe it's developing new tools that allow users to easily find some sort of middle ground between fully open wifi and fully closed wifi. Not sure, but I think there should be some sort of response.
-John
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