Re: [PLUG] Verizon FIOS & open wireles

[gabriel rosenkoetter <gr@eclipsed.net>]

At 2007-10-02 10:02 -0400, Brian Stempin <brian.stempin@gmail.com> wrote:
> The day-to-day probability of such an event is pretty low, but the cost of
> such an event probably outweighs the pain of shoring-up your wireless
> connection.  As I said earlier in the thread, I would have gone this route
> to keep myself anonymous as a highschooler.  This would lead me to believe
> that many (young) people would realize this.

That is quite a lot of assumption, but thank you for labeling it as
such. I disagree with your conclusions. For me, the frustration to
myself, my friends, and neighbors outweighs the risk.

> Case and point:  Delaware County Comm. College had a bomb threat emailed to
> them a couple of months ago.  The perp used an open wireless AP that was
> owned by another educational entity.  (a) They never found the guy, (b) they
> never will, and (c) what do you think would happen if such activity were
> traced back to your ip address?

Okay, so what did happen when the authorities did trace the IP
address back to the other educational entity?

Were there any accusations leveled, either at the institution or at
its students?

I'm with you for a and b, but you are making a false leap of logic
in c. Although certain civil liberties are threatened or damaged in
our currently terrorized society, I've yet to see an example where
the presumption of innocence is one of them in a case like this. Can
you point to one?

Once upon a time we had a good person to speak to points precisely
like this. Trooper John, you still out there?

(The same is, of course, not true with the RIAA's and MPAA's
litigation. It is a simple exercise to prevent usage of your
connection for P2P sharing.)

> Having said that, I also want to note that this is not reason to
> be paranoid.

Okay... so what IS the reason to be afraid then?

You seem to be asserting, here, that real reason I should be afraid
of leaving my AP open is not that someone will do something evil
using it and I'll get blamed for it, but just that someone I don't
know will use my connection rather than moseying on down the block
to find another one.

Did I miss something? Because, that's exactly what I'm trying to do:
share my Internet connection.

> Last time I checked, greater than 75% of all residential WAPs
> had no security,

Do you have any statistical evidence to back that number up? How
did you "check" this "last time"?

My own observation in various parts of the city of Philadelphia
suggests that number of open wireless APs in residential areas is
more like 20% of the signals visible. For example:

13th and Chestnut: roughly 15 APs visible, three "open", two of
which fail to pass traffic to the Internet.

9th and Tasker: three APs, only one open, functions

51st and Locust: no APs broadcasting SSID, one that does not (and
does function if you know the SSID)

2nd and Girard: 6 APs visible, two open, both pass traffic (but
one's pretty flaky).

(None of those count the earthlinkwifi etc. APs, half of which just
don't work anyway.)

-- 
gabriel rosenkoetter
gr@eclipsed.net

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