Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Germany plans to remove owner liability for piracy on open Wi-Fi hotspots–report

arstechnica.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 85 posts

Re: Germany plans to remove owner liability for piracy on open Wi-Fi hotspots–report

#21

Post by denzil_correa »

george20 wrote: post #19

You guys surprise me, how is this news? Western societies are supposed to be liberal, how exactly would one be responsible of what other guys do? How about open Wifi in hotels or restaurants? I am not surprised provided what I hear you say, that Bulgaria (where I live in) has the best internet connection in the world. If you think I am joking - Google it. What the title says is sheer stupidity and makes absolutely no…

> How about open Wifi in hotels or restaurants?

This the primary reason why Germany has very few open WiFi spots.

Re: Germany plans to remove owner liability for piracy on open Wi-Fi hotspots–report

#22

Post by denzil_correa »

DasIch wrote: post #13
germanier wrote: post #8

The wording of the proposed law is not published yet and there are good reasons (including statements by the involved ministries) to believe that it does not really have the effect they claim.

Just politically it doesn't make any sense to me to believe the change will have that effect. Why would after such a long time the CDU suddenly drop the pro-Störerhaftung position? It seems much more likely that SPD and CDU have reached a compromise that eliminates the Störerhaftung only partially. I expect the outcome will just create legal uncertainty. So that there won't be any positive effect.

> Why would after such a long time the CDU suddenly drop the pro-Störerhaftung position?

That's because the Advocate General (AG) to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has decided it to be so [0]. According to the AG, there has to be balance between "freedom to conduct business" and "protection of IP". So, the requirement to make WiFi networks secure via passwords is an unfair balance.

The AG's counsel is not binding on the CJEU but it gives you fair direction on which side the CJEU would rule.

[0] http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2016...

Re: Germany plans to remove owner liability for piracy on open Wi-Fi hotspots–report

#23

Post by denzil_correa »

abhi3 wrote: post #2

Is this a common practice in Europe /US? It seems ridiculous that the WiFi provider would be held liable for such a thing. Why stop there, should make the ISP liable too!

It's just Germany. Another thing that Germany does is "speculative invoicing" viz. they send legal threats with settlement offers for illegal torrent downloads or any copyright infringements. Generally, most people pay up as the former law protected it. This new law could bring an end to this as WiFi providers now have a defense mechanism to fight this in court.

Re: Germany plans to remove owner liability for piracy on open Wi-Fi hotspots–report

#24

Post by denzil_correa »

The article doesn't mention that the case was fought in court by German Pirate Party activist Tobias McFadden.

http://piratetimes.net/german-pirates-went-to-the-european-c...

In addition, there is a Freifunk - a non commercial initiative to provide free public WiFi.

https://freifunk.net/en/

Re: Germany plans to remove owner liability for piracy on open Wi-Fi hotspots–report

#25

Post by germanier »

kpcyrd wrote: post #16
BjoernKW wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's just Germany that has this stupid rule. Yes, it's ridiculous but has that ever kept politicians from implementing legislation? Germany is particularly notorious when it comes to useless, ridiculous and downright detrimental laws regarding anything that has to do with the Internet, notable examples being the so-called 'Leistungsschutzrecht' ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leistungsschutzrecht ) and the 'Impre…

The Impressumpflicht that is applied to websites now, is based on a law from 1530[1] [1]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressumspflicht#Geschichte

The idea is old but the law now applied to websites was deliberately extended to the internet.

Re: Germany plans to remove owner liability for piracy on open Wi-Fi hotspots–report

#27

Post by ptaipale »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #3
abhi3 wrote: post #2

Is this a common practice in Europe /US? It seems ridiculous that the WiFi provider would be held liable for such a thing. Why stop there, should make the ISP liable too!

No. That's a Germany thing and it resulted in the conplete lack of public wifi hotspots.

More precisely: for example hotels typically have a public wifi for their customers, but you must get an individual login account from the reception. This protects the hotel or its service provider.

It is quite silly, of course, and is generally a little hassle with your hotel.

Re: Germany plans to remove owner liability for piracy on open Wi-Fi hotspots–report

#28

Post by george20 »

denzil_correa wrote: post #21
george20 wrote: post #19

You guys surprise me, how is this news? Western societies are supposed to be liberal, how exactly would one be responsible of what other guys do? How about open Wifi in hotels or restaurants? I am not surprised provided what I hear you say, that Bulgaria (where I live in) has the best internet connection in the world. If you think I am joking - Google it. What the title says is sheer stupidity and makes absolutely no…

> How about open Wifi in hotels or restaurants? This the primary reason why Germany has very few open WiFi spots.

Well, I am glad they are moving over. Technically, it would be very hard to find people responsible for open Wifi in, for example, a hotel. Who would be responsible if Osama Bin Laden browsed something that is illegal? The hotel owner, the staff, the internet provider? And how about if the hotel is owned by a public company? The shareholders?

Just bullshit.

Re: Germany plans to remove owner liability for piracy on open Wi-Fi hotspots–report

#29

Post by lucaspiller »

revelation wrote: post #18
codecamper wrote: post #5

I think there should be a law that would disallow passwords for public wifi. passwords are soooo annoying (is that a 1, l, or I?) & if everyone had open wifi, then it could be utilized much more, lowering everyone's wireless carrier usage. also, you wouldn't need to worry about someone using too much bandwidth -- it would happen, but i doubt more frequently than with the passwords. Well, wifi could be throttled if it…

If I remember correctly, the problem with open WiFis is that all data is transmitted as plaintext. If you set a password (even if it's just "password") and therefore enable e.g. WPA2-PSK, data is properly encrypted with a per-client session key.

This isn't really true. If you know the PSK and can capture the packets of the client associating with the AP, you are able to decrypt any further communication.

http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/8591/are-wpa2-co...

Re: Germany plans to remove owner liability for piracy on open Wi-Fi hotspots–report

#30

Post by detaro »

lucaspiller wrote: post #29
revelation wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I remember correctly, the problem with open WiFis is that all data is transmitted as plaintext. If you set a password (even if it's just "password") and therefore enable e.g. WPA2-PSK, data is properly encrypted with a per-client session key.

This isn't really true. If you know the PSK and can capture the packets of the client associating with the AP, you are able to decrypt any further communication. http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/8591/are-wpa2-co...

Some event WLANs I've used had been set up to use WPA2 Enterprise, but accepting any user/password combination, giving everybody a different key. Bit more annoying to set up and connect to though, so probably not for general public APs. (+ explain that to customers. "No, really, just put anything in there. No, it doesn't matter, just do it.")
Post reply on HN