[TheForge] Wireless internet connection - OT from blacksmithing

[Jerry Smith]

Clyde,

A few years ago, a county in Florida had some
obscenity laws on the books that met the muster of the
federal regulation covering that subject. Somebody
there discovered that the Tuxedo Network was being
broadcast from satellite to their county, as well as
most of North America. The county went to court and
said our county has laws against such subject matter
and that they wanted the Tuxedo Network to cease
sending signals into their county. 

Most people would be laughing over such a legal
reguest. The courts said that Tuxedo Network was to
cease broadcasting into that county. That court order
killed that company and reformed the "smut in space"
industry. A very clear cut judicial ruling was made in
that case. 

If a wireless ISP had a news server that had "smut" on
it, that did have a signal that went into a county or
city that had laws about the subject, they may be
subject to the same ruling. There are so many ways to
make laws, if the courts wanted to. And there are so
many people who try to get away breaking the law. 

Using something without paying for it, is really
serious. If I was a small business and 8 people were
costing me $280 a month, thats a truck payment to me
or $3,360 a year. People have said that big companies
won't even notice that, but I would.

Jerry  


--- Clyde Wynia <clyde at fibernetcc.com> wrote:

> No Jerry, I'm not going to be a test case. I have
> good service from a good
> company and I am happy to pay for it. That way I
> have no legal or ethical
> issues and everybody is happy. 
> 
> Enforcing the law may be very difficult if it does
> become definitely
> illegal. People are wandering around all the time
> picking up signals. Of
> course a homeowner taking service from his
> neighbor's account would be
> easier to discover and prosecute. 
> 
> If it becomes a definite illegal thing I wouldn't
> accuse big brother of
> working ill on us for enforcing it anymore than I
> would come down on a
> government office, police, FBI, etc for enforcing
> any other theft law. 
> 
> It costs us all less in the long run if everyone
> pays his share for the
> service.
> 
> But then what do I know?
> 
> Clyde 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jerry Smith
> [mailto:jerry_smith at anvilsandinkstudios.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 7:41 PM
> To: clyde at fibernetcc.com; Sponsored by ABANA
> Subject: RE: [TheForge] Wireless internet connection
> - OT from blacksmithing
> 
> Clyde,
> 
> Are you volunteering to be a test case? In 1980
> there
> were no uniform laws for theft of service for the
> cable companies. The satellite companies had no
> standards that year either. In 1982/83/84 when the
> cable companies and later the satellite companies
> found out how many dollars of services were being
> lost, they march to Washington with lots of facts
> and
> figures. The Cable TV Act of 1984 became law, plus
> we
> all know that Big Brother is watching us thru cable
> TV, just read the book.
> 
> The question becomes is this a civil lose or a
> criminal act. If it is civil, it's is a lot easier
> to
> prove and you could end up owing a lot of money. We
> can have a debate over this matter until the cows
> come
> home, but what happens when a good case ends up in
> the
> courts and makes clear cut judicial law? 
> 
> Jerry
> 
> 
> --- Clyde Wynia <clyde at fibernetcc.com> wrote:
> 
> > Apparently you are not going to get a definite
> legal
> > answer. See
> >
>
http://news.com.com/FAQ+Wi-Fi+mooching+and+the+law/2100-7351_3-5778822.html?
> > tag=nl.caro
> > 
> > 
> > Here is part of that page: 
> > 
> > Is it legal to use someone's Wi-Fi connection to
> > browse the Web if they
> > haven't put a password on it?
> > Nobody really knows. "It's a totally open question
> > in the law," says Neal
> > Katyal, a professor of criminal law at Georgetown
> > University. "There are
> > arguments on both sides."
> > Wi-Fi roundup
> > Wi-Fi's urban push
> > Cities take on big Wi-Fi projects--and face
> > challenges to their plans.
> > 
> > That doesn't make much sense. Is there a specific
> > law that regulates Wi-Fi
> > access?
> > Sort of. The primary law is the federal Computer
> > Fraud and Abuse Act.
> > 
> > You can read it for yourself, but the important
> part
> > (check out paragraph
> > (a)(2)) covers anyone who "intentionally accesses
> a
> > computer without
> > authorization or exceeds authorized access."
> Nobody
> > knows exactly what that
> > means in terms of wireless connections. The law
> was
> > written in 1986 to
> > punish computer hacking--and nobody contemplated
> > 802.1x wireless links back
> > then.
> > 
> > What do prosecutors think?
> > We asked the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday.
> A
> > department
> > representative who did not want to be quoted by
> name
> > said, essentially, that
> > it depends on the details of each case.
> > 
> > The representative said in an e-mail exchange:
> > "Whether access is considered
> > authorized can be determined in part by the
> precise
> > circumstances of access,
> > just as it would be in the physical world. The
> > prosecutor and jury would
> > look at how the access was accomplished and what
> was
> > done with the access
> > before definitively determining that it was
> > unauthorized." In other words,
> > the representative said, someone sitting in a
> > company's parking lot at 3
> > a.m. for the sole purpose of network connectivity
> > might be viewed as a
> > lawbreaker.
> > 
> > Will we ever get a straight answer?
> > Yes, but expect it to take a while. "This is a
> > problem with the way the
> > legal system works," says Orin Kerr, a law
> professor
> > at George Washington
> > University who has written a detailed article on
> > unauthorized network
> > access. "Nobody knows how an ambiguous law works
> > until a prosecution is
> > brought and a court decides."
> > 
> > Alternatively, Congress could rewrite the Computer
> > Fraud and Abuse Act to
> > clear things up, but nobody expects this to happen
> > anytime soon.
> > 
> > How about sharing? Is it legal for me to share my
> > cable modem or DSL
> > connection with my neighbors?
> > In many cases the answer is no. It depends on the
> > wording of your contract
> > with your broadband provider. Many don't want you
> to
> > share. As far back as
> > 2002, Time Warner Cable was sending warnings to
> > customers with open Wi-Fi
> > access points, and a year later it sued an
> apartment
> > complex on charges of
> > illicit sharing. Also, AT&T Broadband has
> > acknowledged monitoring customers
> > for "inordinately high" usage.
> > 
> > "Our terms of service for Verizon Online DSL
> > customers do prohibit them from
> > sharing their connection," says Verizon
> spokeswoman
> > Bobbi Henson. "The
> > service is meant for use in one location, which
> > would be their home."
> > 
> > Henson adds: "We haven't seen a lot of problems
> with
> > this, to tell you the
> > truth. Because of the way the DSL network is
> > configured (with one line into
> > each house), sharing doesn't cause us the network
> > problems, frankly, that it
> > can cause for cable. If we were to receive some
> kind
> > of complaint, like
> > maybe a neighbor calls and says, 'I know my
> neighbor
> > is sharing my
> > connection and it's making me mad because other
> > neighbors are getting it for
> > free,' we might warn that customer."
> > 
> 
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