5 ms·

Could this be? A brief flicker of hope for the fact that maybe tech-savvy judges might be able to do something sane? I have to wonder, though, how long it'll b

Could this be? A brief flicker of hope for the fact that maybe tech-savvy judges might be able to do something sane? I have to wonder, though, how long it'll be before everyone starts just opening their wifi as a "it wasn't me" defense. And how long that will last.

trafficlight 15y ago
Until a law is introduced making it illegal to have an unsecured wifi access point.
- kinghajj 15y ago
  I don't see how that would stand up in court, but I'm sure that ISPs will enforce this more strictly. I believe most ISP agreements with homes already prohibit operating a publicly-available hotspots, anyways; they just need to crack down.
0x12 15y ago
Open wifi is't really a factor here, the word wifi is nowhere in the article. The first major point is that the defendants did not act in concert (see article title). The last point is this: "nothing in the BitTorrent architecture changes the fact that each defendant also will likely have a different defense." That part of the ruling revolves around the fact that the defendants are all allowed to have their own defense and that rolling the 188 cases into one deprives them of a fundamental right: that to a defense they themselves are happy with rather than a single unified defense for all of them. Of course that makes the case about 187 times harder to litigate than it was so far.
jrockway 15y ago
Many wifi passwords are trivially guessable, so the access points are already open. A more frightening question is, "how long until access points contain spyware to incriminate the owner in court?"
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  You don't need spyware; routers already keep logs. I'm not sure what discovery is like in civil cases in the US, but requisitioning the MAC addresses of all computers in the defendant's possession, as well as the router logs, would be sufficient to establish identity (or at least which computer was used). The fact that this doesn't seem to be widely used suggests to me that it exceeds the plaintif's rights to request said logs.
  - nettdata 15y ago
    Mac addresses are trivial to change on most operating systems.
    - redthrowaway 15y ago
      The vast majority of people don't know that. As civil cases have a much lower standard of proof than criminal, a mac address that matched the router logs for the downloads in question, and belonged to the owner of the connection, would likely be enough to establish identity. Given that a simple IP address is accepted by most courts as sufficient, MAC addresses would probably be icing on the cake.
wmf 15y ago
I don't think the open wi-fi defense ever worked; discovery would probably blow right through it. http://beckermanlegal.com/howriaa.htm#discov http://beckermanlegal.com/howriaa.htm#discov
- furyg3 15y ago
  If you have open wifi, and your hard drive is encrypted, how can they possibly make the link at discovery?
Natsu 15y ago
Actually, this ruling didn't have much to do with tech savvy, even though the judge does appear to be well-versed in the technology. It had more to do with the fact that actually managing a case like this would be a logistical nightmare. Trying to corral thousands of pro se defendants would be completely absurd and the judge lists just how many problems they'd have to deal with. Granted, those problems probably wouldn't happen because these cases are dropped the second they get discovery and have a list of names and addresses of alleged infringers to go after. But they can't very well admit to the judge that the lawsuit was just a ploy to do discovery and run, so I'm interested to see if they'll do anything here. Most likely, they'll give up on those folks and hope for a different judge next time.

trafficlight 15y ago

Until a law is introduced making it illegal to have an unsecured wifi access point.

kinghajj 15y ago
I don't see how that would stand up in court, but I'm sure that ISPs will enforce this more strictly. I believe most ISP agreements with homes already prohibit operating a publicly-available hotspots, anyways; they just need to crack down.

0x12 15y ago

Open wifi is't really a factor here, the word wifi is nowhere in the article. The first major point is that the defendants did not act in concert (see article title). The last point is this: "nothing in the BitTorrent architecture changes the fact that each defendant also will likely have a different defense." That part of the ruling revolves around the fact that the defendants are all allowed to have their own defense and that rolling the 188 cases into one deprives them of a fundamental right: that to a defense they themselves are happy with rather than a single unified defense for all of them. Of course that makes the case about 187 times harder to litigate than it was so far.

jrockway 15y ago

Many wifi passwords are trivially guessable, so the access points are already open. A more frightening question is, "how long until access points contain spyware to incriminate the owner in court?"

redthrowaway 15y ago
You don't need spyware; routers already keep logs. I'm not sure what discovery is like in civil cases in the US, but requisitioning the MAC addresses of all computers in the defendant's possession, as well as the router logs, would be sufficient to establish identity (or at least which computer was used). The fact that this doesn't seem to be widely used suggests to me that it exceeds the plaintif's rights to request said logs.
- nettdata 15y ago
  Mac addresses are trivial to change on most operating systems.
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    The vast majority of people don't know that. As civil cases have a much lower standard of proof than criminal, a mac address that matched the router logs for the downloads in question, and belonged to the owner of the connection, would likely be enough to establish identity. Given that a simple IP address is accepted by most courts as sufficient, MAC addresses would probably be icing on the cake.

wmf 15y ago

I don't think the open wi-fi defense ever worked; discovery would probably blow right through it. http://beckermanlegal.com/howriaa.htm#discov http://beckermanlegal.com/howriaa.htm#discov

furyg3 15y ago
If you have open wifi, and your hard drive is encrypted, how can they possibly make the link at discovery?

Natsu 15y ago

Actually, this ruling didn't have much to do with tech savvy, even though the judge does appear to be well-versed in the technology. It had more to do with the fact that actually managing a case like this would be a logistical nightmare. Trying to corral thousands of pro se defendants would be completely absurd and the judge lists just how many problems they'd have to deal with. Granted, those problems probably wouldn't happen because these cases are dropped the second they get discovery and have a list of names and addresses of alleged infringers to go after. But they can't very well admit to the judge that the lawsuit was just a ploy to do discovery and run, so I'm interested to see if they'll do anything here. Most likely, they'll give up on those folks and hope for a different judge next time.