Re: [Dorset] Wi-Fi in Pubs
Sean Gibbins wrote: Terry Coles wrote: It may be that our discussions about finding pubs which provide Wi-Fi may be pointless if the pup operators take the next logical step after this case: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10405824-83.html?part=rsssubj=newsamp;tag=2547-1_3-0-5 'A pub owner in the U.K. has been fined £8,000 (about $13,183) because someone unlawfully downloaded copyrighted material over its open Wi-Fi hotspot, according to the managing director of hotspot provider The Cloud.' There is nothing in the article about what the operators might do about it, but if I was a pub landlord, I'd think twice about offering this. I really don't understand the legality of this. I wonder if the landlord in question was actually hit by one of these 'prosecutions': http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8381097.stm Basically, a law firm that has been hired by a group of IP owners to go after filesharers and goes about it by sending letters to the alleged filesharer threatening court action if they don't voluntarily cough up. Apparently many do, despite the fact that this has yet to be taken through the courts and many of the accused lack the wherewithal, the equipment and the motive to commit the 'crime'! The law firm in question is under investigation for its methods. Sean -- www.funkygibbins.me.uk -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wednesday 2009-12-02 20:00 Dorset LUG: http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
Re: [Dorset] Wi-Fi in Pubs
On Sunday 29 Nov 2009, Sean Gibbins wrote: 'A pub owner in the U.K. has been fined £8,000 (about $13,183) because someone unlawfully downloaded copyrighted material over its open Wi-Fi hotspot, according to the managing director of hotspot provider The Cloud.' There is nothing in the article about what the operators might do about it, but if I was a pub landlord, I'd think twice about offering this. I really don't understand the legality of this. There are any number of examples you could give where perfectly legal objects and services can be used responsibly or for the purposes of committing a crime and the owner of said object or service is not liable for prosecution. This comes down to one thing; no-one in the legal system or in the general commercial world understands the tech. This is not just confined to the UK; in the US there are just as looney examples (most would say more looney). In one city, the free Wi-Fi offered to residents was taken down for exactly the same reason. Further from the topic, there are the numerous patent suits in the US where the patent is obvious, has loads of prior art and is clearly frivolous and yet US courts repeatedly uphold them. Take the RIM case where *all* of the patents were overturned by the US Patent office within weeks of a court awarding hundreds of millions of $ against RIM. They gave up fighting and paid up (to save themselves another five years in court). I can't find links to either of these stories at the moment, but the Wi-Fi case occurred around 2 months ago and the RIM case was a year or so back. The point is; these things will continue until someone with a bit of technical nous realises that you can't hold back progress and frames laws to cover this (and ones that make sense). For instance, if someone uses the Queen's Highway to go to a store and steal the same movie, is the Queen liable for an £8000 fine? It's not all that far removed from the 'information super highway' after all. I agree, but in the eyes of the law, someone has to be responsible and they can't find the perpetrator, so the pub landlord will have to do. At the end of the day if there is no law governing the provision of open (or otherwise) wifi that has been provably broken, then there is no way that the provider is liable. And if there is, then they should be liable for precisely that, and nothing more. If not, we are looking at a crazy system where shopkeepers selling kitchen knives legitimately (i.e. to adults) are suddenly accomplices to murder when they are used illegally. Taken to extremes, that's the logic. And it's no more logical than ISPs being made liable if there network is used to download illegal content, but that will soon be the law here in the UK. As I said; no-one in the legal camp understands the tech. -- Terry Coles 64 bit computing with Kubuntu Linux -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wednesday 2009-12-02 20:00 Dorset LUG: http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
Re: [Dorset] Wi-Fi in Pubs
Peter Merchant wrote: Now, Take the university, with it's 250-300 Wireless access points and 16,000 students, and tell me that none of them have ever downloaded anything not legit. And it all comes over JANET (Joint Academic Network). There's a lot of money there for someone if they can figure out who to sue. Sadly, it appears that there's a living out there for less scrupulous lawyers even if they /don't/ know who to sue, just who to scare. There's a lot of folk willing to pay to make the spectre of a court case disappear even if there's a good chance they will be proved innocent. A lot of the 'customers' of the law firm in the BBC news item are porn studios - there's people out there who don't want that kind of mud to stick regardless of whether they actually downloaded that sort of material or not. Instead of Lord Mandelson being paid a fortune to try and make bad, outdated law work in favour of his rich sponsors, perhaps we need to start employing forward-looking and tech-savvy law makers to overhaul the system so that everyone is afforded the protection they are entitled to, little folk and big business alike. Sean -- www.funkygibbins.me.uk -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wednesday 2009-12-02 20:00 Dorset LUG: http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
Re: [Dorset] Wi-Fi in Pubs
On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:44:40 -, Peter Merchant mercha...@onetel.com wrote: Now, Take the university, with it's 250-300 Wireless access points and 16,000 students, and tell me that none of them have ever downloaded anything not legit. And it all comes over JANET (Joint Academic Network). I can take quite the opposite and KNOW completely that content has been shared over JANET for such purposes. Oddly enough the law is in place to protect these people offering wifi for others use. I am not a lawyer but as far as I was aware its called carriers rights. The same principle that says if you take a bus into town and rob a bank, then get the bus home again. The bus company cannot be claimed as assisting you in the robbery. They were providing a publicly accessible service. Oddly enough its the same law that protects ISPs from getting sued when you or I 'steal' content. This is also the reason many ISPs don't want to do too much content filtering, it stops them being a carrier and starts them on being an enforcer. As long as they are enforcing a law they have a legal responsibility to do it well. If they remain a carrier - nothing else - they hold no responsibility for what you do. Its just a shame some of these companies are so large they are above the law. -- Using Opera M2: http://www.opera.com/mail/ -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wednesday 2009-12-02 20:00 Dorset LUG: http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
Re: [Dorset] Wi-Fi in Pubs
On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:09:51 -, Sean Gibbins s...@funkygibbins.me.uk wrote: Instead of Lord Mandelson being paid a fortune to try and make bad, outdated law work in favour of his rich sponsors, perhaps we need to start employing forward-looking and tech-savvy law makers to overhaul the system so that everyone is afforded the protection they are entitled to, little folk and big business alike. I hate to sound such a tin-foil-hatter or a 'you must fear your government doomer' but I honestly feel the reason the government aren't employing skilled legal staff in technology is because they know it would cause them to lose huge amounts of information and control over 'joe bloggs' on the street. I don't for one minute think the government as a whole don't know how much of a crock Mandelson's plans are. I just think its being ignored as it suites many people very well. -- Using Opera M2: http://www.opera.com/mail/ -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wednesday 2009-12-02 20:00 Dorset LUG: http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
Re: [Dorset] Wi-Fi in Pubs
Sean Gibbins wrote: Terry Coles wrote: It may be that our discussions about finding pubs which provide Wi-Fi may be pointless if the pup operators take the next logical step after this case: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10405824-83.html?part=rsssubj=newsamp;tag=2547-1_3-0-5 'A pub owner in the U.K. has been fined £8,000 (about $13,183) because someone unlawfully downloaded copyrighted material over its open Wi-Fi hotspot, according to the managing director of hotspot provider The Cloud.' There is nothing in the article about what the operators might do about it, but if I was a pub landlord, I'd think twice about offering this I really don't understand the legality of this. I wonder if the landlord in question was actually hit by one of these 'prosecutions': http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8381097.stm Basically, a law firm that has been hired by a group of IP owners to go after filesharers and goes about it by sending letters to the alleged filesharer threatening court action if they don't voluntarily cough up. Apparently many do, despite the fact that this has yet to be taken through the courts and many of the accused lack the wherewithal, the equipment and the motive to commit the 'crime'! The law firm in question is under investigation for its methods. Sean More than likely; it would explain why the Pub is keeping quiet (settlement clause) and being associated with porn is not good for the Pubs image. Consequently probably not a 'fine' at all and possibly nothing to do with The Cloud provision; but a clever marketing ploy by The Cloud against Pubs who offer completely open access independent from a Hotspot provider. Hypothetically - Clouds hotspot providers get told they're OK as users must register and can be tracked - this case was an independent with a DIY solution. I'm not saying that is the case, but it is such poorly researched and evidenced reporting that it could well be! There are a lot of negative things going on with hotspot mac spoofing at the moment and imho private hotspots with correct security and WLAN isolation can go some way to protect customers vs the rather poor end user security of commercial hotspot providers this ppt might help explain what goes wrong http://www.cs.pitt.edu/~jcb/slides/net2004.ppt Steve -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wednesday 2009-12-02 20:00 Dorset LUG: http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
[Dorset] plptools
I have downloaded the aforementioned package (including plptool-kde) but I am not having a lot of luck getting them to run, I can get plpftp working in konsole but that is it, I can't find any menu item for plptools-kde or any command that will run it. The included readmes are of no help and googling is just listing its availability in various distro and bug fixes. I have kpsion installed and that is working ok so the communications with the Psion device is ok. Am I missing something simple here. Tim -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wednesday 2009-12-02 20:00 Dorset LUG: http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
[Dorset] Another Wow!
I've been meaning to get round to replacing the webcam that I used on this machine ever since it stopped working with Skype. It was never that good anyway, because the automatic brightness feature never worked. That was a Logitech QuickCam Express, so I was slightly wary of buying another device from the same manufacturer, but this page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportComponentsMultimediaWebCamerasLogitech says that the Logitech QuickCam S7500 worked OK with Ubuntu 9.04, so I've just got one from PC World (web price £39.99, so it's not cheap). The thing is, everything works! This device is quite hi-res (1.3 M pixels for video and 5 M pixels for stills), but it also comes with a built in USB mic and they throw in a traditional headset with boom mic as well. I was fully prepared for the mic to not work and slightly worried about the camera, but Skype took to it like a lamb and both the camera and the mic are made available in the drop lists when you set up video and audio. So if you need a webcam, this is well worth considering. -- Terry Coles 64 bit computing with Kubuntu Linux -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wednesday 2009-12-02 20:00 Dorset LUG: http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
Re: [Dorset] Another Wow!
I've been using a 3500 for almost two years now. No problems, and it has a useful set of windoze programmes that enable making video diary entries. Simono - Original Message - From: Terry Coles d-...@hadrian-way.co.uk To: Dorset Linux User Group dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 3:11 PM Subject: [Dorset] Another Wow! I've been meaning to get round to replacing the webcam that I used on this machine ever since it stopped working with Skype. It was never that good anyway, because the automatic brightness feature never worked. That was a Logitech QuickCam Express, so I was slightly wary of buying another device from the same manufacturer, but this page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportComponentsMultimediaWebCamerasLogitech says that the Logitech QuickCam S7500 worked OK with Ubuntu 9.04, so I've just got one from PC World (web price £39.99, so it's not cheap). The thing is, everything works! This device is quite hi-res (1.3 M pixels for video and 5 M pixels for stills), but it also comes with a built in USB mic and they throw in a traditional headset with boom mic as well. I was fully prepared for the mic to not work and slightly worried about the camera, but Skype took to it like a lamb and both the camera and the mic are made available in the drop lists when you set up video and audio. So if you need a webcam, this is well worth considering. -- Terry Coles 64 bit computing with Kubuntu Linux -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wednesday 2009-12-02 20:00 Dorset LUG: http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wednesday 2009-12-02 20:00 Dorset LUG: http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
Re: [Dorset] Wi-Fi in Pubs
Message: 1 Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 09:19:20 + From: Terry Coles d-...@hadrian-way.co.uk Subject: [Dorset] Wi-Fi in Pubs To: Dorset Linux User Group dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk Message-ID: 200911290919.20159.d-...@hadrian-way.co.uk Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=utf-8 It may be that our discussions about finding pubs which provide Wi-Fi may be pointless if the pup operators take the next logical step after this case: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10405824-83.html?part=rsssubj=newstag=2547-1_3-0-5 'A pub owner in the U.K. has been fined ?8,000 (about $13,183) because someone unlawfully downloaded copyrighted material over its open Wi-Fi hotspot, according to the managing director of hotspot provider The Cloud.' There is nothing in the article about what the operators might do about it, but if I was a pub landlord, I'd think twice about offering this. -- Terry Coles 64 bit computing with Kubuntu Linux Terry From reading the two articles pointed to at the end of this article http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10405824-83.html?part=rsssubj=newstag=2547-1_3-0-5 things appear very unclear. In theory UK law decisions apply a test of reasonableness to them. Therefore is it reasonable for those supplying any form of open public internet access such as pubs, universities etc to be prey to fines for unlawful downloads? The recent decision to give everyone in Swindon some form of free internet access would appear in theory to mean that those supplying that internet access may be prey to fines as mentioned in the above article. I think something is not right here - perhaps the pub itself has been downloading loads of copyrighted material - maybe music for example. Otherwise why would there be no appeal against the decision of the court involved mentioned in the above article? Mark Elkins -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wednesday 2009-12-02 20:00 Dorset LUG: http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
Re: [Dorset] Wi-Fi in Pubs
On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:47:57 -, Mark Elkins markelkins...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: In theory UK law decisions apply a test of reasonableness to them. Therefore is it reasonable for those supplying any form of open public internet access such as pubs, universities etc to be prey to fines for unlawful downloads? But it has already been decided that if you share you wireless at home - ergo do not password it - then you are potentially liable. See http://techdirt.com/articles/20060320/1636238.shtml for more. The recent decision to give everyone in Swindon some form of free internet access would appear in theory to mean that those supplying that internet access may be prey to fines as mentioned in the above article. Would be exactly the point. I personally do not believe they are liable, there are several legal actions that say I am wrong. I think something is not right here - perhaps the pub itself has been downloading loads of copyrighted material - maybe music for example. Perhaps - but then the landlord/staff member should have been prosecuted at a private level, not the pub itself. Otherwise why would there be no appeal against the decision of the court involved mentioned in the above article? What if the landlord paid the fine through fear of negative publicity or the cost of the legal action in defending themselves. By paying the fine they are admitting guilt so there is no available appeal. By not paying the fine they run the risk of years in court trying to justify themselves as a fair carrier. -- Using Opera M2: http://www.opera.com/mail/ -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wednesday 2009-12-02 20:00 Dorset LUG: http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
Re: [Dorset] Goodies for Reasons Harvest
Word to the wise- I noticed the HP2133 getting warm, although there have been no troubles. On the web, certain people suggested that overheating was an issue. It has been replaced by the 2140, with a change from the Via chip to the Atom. However, I think this is performance-based rather than heating issue based. If you are at all worried about overheating with your HP, go into BIOS at boot time and 'enable' 'fan always on at AC', which gives the cooling fan a higher priority. You will lose battery range, but at a shade under two hours I find it good, and I like the peace of mind from knowing that temperature control is tighter. Simono - Original Message - From: Victor Churchill victorchurch...@gmail.com To: Dorset Linux User Group dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 9:42 PM Subject: Re: [Dorset] Goodies for Reasons Harvest Sorry, don't know what happened there. Text ended up appearing in the wrong place. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wednesday 2009-12-02 20:00 Dorset LUG: http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wednesday 2009-12-02 20:00 Dorset LUG: http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
Re: [Dorset] Goodies for Reasons Harvest
Simon O'Riordan wrote: Word to the wise- I noticed the HP2133 getting warm, although there have been no troubles. On the web, certain people suggested that overheating was an issue. It has been replaced by the 2140, with a change from the Via chip to the Atom. IIRC the VIA chips were notorious for chucking out heat while under-performing and it is one reason for them slipping into obscurity in the netbook market. Sean -- www.funkygibbins.me.uk -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wednesday 2009-12-02 20:00 Dorset LUG: http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
