At 22:46 24/09/2003, jon baer wrote:
[...]i dunno i grabbed this off a 802.11 mailing list, the story in question (link below) makes no reference whatsoever to 802.11 + i get the feeling alot of the RIAA's assault mistakes will get blamed on open WiFi ...
- jon
RIAA's mistake highlights 802.11 vulnerability
When the RIAA subpoenas ISP records, there will be no way for the ISP to determine that a rogue wireless network client was responsible for the illicit activity. Matthew S. Hamrick, an independent security expert, said: "This is going to be a big mess... from a technology perspective, it's going to be awfully hard for the RIAA to prove that if the people they're suing have wireless networks, that it wasn't a rogue war-driver downloading songs using their [the suit target's] wired network connection."
Well, I don't know (and am too lazy to check) the actual text of the DMCA that allows them to ask ISPs about who the user was that had such IP address at such time, but depending on the writing, the owner of the unsecured AP may very well be considered an ISP (even if free or even involuntary) and be requested to provide information about who was doing that at that time. Don't know what the consequences are for not providing (or not being able to provide) such information.
Whatever happens, in the end, there *will* be a need to be able to identify any user of a wireless network. Even if people don't know it, it's already the case in many other countries, and is probably already the case in the US too.
Totally open unchecked access really cannot survive in the long term. Even though I am clearly an advocate of civil liberties (and am clearly against the DMCA allowing right holders to request identity without any judicial process), I cannot imagine a world where it would not be possible to find who was using a connection to the Internet at a given time.
Jacques.
-- Jacques Caron, IP Sector Technologies Join the discussion on public WLAN open global roaming: http://lists.ipsector.com/listinfo/openroaming
-- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
