Years too late. Many years really.
Now it appears that you don't follow this opinion, you think we should let criminals access the internet anonymously?
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Years too late. Many years really.
Now it appears that you don't follow this opinion, you think we should let criminals access the internet anonymously?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
That's a very good reason. I don't think it truly explains the shift, considering the larger context. They suffered similar and larger legal setbacks on data retention and they didn't change their position on that, they pursued it further. Why are they willing to drop this so much more quickly? Is the legal argument stronger here? Are the law and order people just that much more powerful than the intellectual propert…
Luckily, there's always onionpi (https://learn.adafruit.com/onion-pi/ ) should you need to run an open wifi network.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's why the wifi isn't open in German hotels, instead you get a login specific to your room.
And that is why this is bullshit, because, if I want, I switch to mobile roaming for the price of one beer. You cannot stop me with bullshit like that, if I want to do something that they think is illegal. And not only that, I can buy an anonymous SIM card, if I want. What exactly are you saying, you are defending this stupidity? What else are you defending, if someone uses Facebook or Whatsapp for terrorism, you gon…
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/prepaid-sim-regie...
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It's more problematic when you're transiting through a German airport, and practically fall off the face of the earth. Ohhhh, they have a wifi hotspot portal: "Enter your cell phone number to get an SMS with a 30 minute code". You want me to turn on my cell-phone and potentially incur roaming charges now? I hear things have gotten better in Frankfurt and you only have to provide an email address. How did they skirt t…
Typically people just disable "data roaming" when travelling internationally, at least until one reaches and can lock to a "friendly" 3G/4G network. Thus there are no charges for IP traffic including MMS, and SMS reception is always free because you cannot turn it off.
(I still agree that WLAN at German airports is abysmal and at restaurants practically non-existent. Another downside of Germany is the unavailability of Google Street View.)
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!
Years too late. Many years really.
Why? Here's my current POV: 1. Internet is not really a public resource, it's rather a gigantic alliance of p2p connections, mostly organized by private entities who can make whatever contracts they want. 2. On this alliance, if one actor wreaks havoc (spam, DOS, scam, piracy), the victim can only turn back to the node which transmitted the connection; 3. It's up to this node to keep logs and forward the pursuit upst…
Of course we should, because that is unavoidable. Making anonymity harder will make it so that only criminals have anonymity, because they are the ones who can justify extraordinary measures and are willing to break laws in order to get it. All laws against anonymity do is harm honest people who need it for anonymous speech and privacy.
And somehow all of your premises are wrong, even though only one has to be for your argument to fail:
> Internet is not really a public resource, it's rather a gigantic alliance of p2p connections, mostly organized by private entities who can make whatever contracts they want.
This is like saying transportation isn't a public resource because buses and taxis and airplanes are provided by lots of different people under privately negotiated terms. You don't have to show ID to ride in a taxi, nor should you.
> On this alliance, if one actor wreaks havoc (spam, DOS, scam, piracy), the victim can only turn back to the node which transmitted the connection
Victims of scams can follow the money or flow of goods. Spam and denial of service can be algorithmically identified and rate limited. Undetectable piracy is not a problem your proposal would solve; see also direct download sites, foreign VPN services, I2P, sneakernet, LAN parties, etc.
It is also possible for endpoints to choose to require that the opposite endpoint authenticate cryptographically before accepting any other data from it, which will always be significantly more reliable then relying on every carrier and endpoint on the internet to remain uncompromised in its ability to assert the origin of traffic it forwards.
> It's up to this node to keep logs and forward the pursuit upstream to the attacker
This isn't a premise at all, it's just an unsupportable conculsory normative assertion.
> It's the only way it can decently work, because we may lack proofs or the chain of responsibility to attack the upstream node directly
So block it until the attack stops then. Or require users to register using some collateral or proof of work.
> Legal problems will happen if we treat the Internet as a public resource, where politics have a say, where access is not authenticated, and where no-one bears responsibility for crimes.
Just because an IP address doesn't map to a person doesn't mean "no-one bears responsibility for crimes." It just means investigations are more expensive. Which is good, because it means serious crimes can still be prosecuted but mass surveillance and petty crusades are impeded.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a very good reason. I don't think it truly explains the shift, considering the larger context. They suffered similar and larger legal setbacks on data retention and they didn't change their position on that, they pursued it further. Why are they willing to drop this so much more quickly? Is the legal argument stronger here? Are the law and order people just that much more powerful than the intellectual propert…
The black helecopter conspiracy theorist in me whispers: As a mass surveillance strategy it makes much more sense to have a national tap on all the free wifi than to require passwords/id, which would send potential terrorists underground with something harder to tap. The threat of an effective security culture of "undesirable" cells around, say, one-time pads, is the end-game that any state security apparatus is tryi…
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.
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