5 ms·

"You, as a home user, are not likely to get away with that." His point is that you _should_ be able to get away with that. Precisely because there is no differ

"You, as a home user, are not likely to get away with that." His point is that you _should_ be able to get away with that. Precisely because there is no difference between an open network and a cracked one!!!

pdonis 14y ago
there is no difference between an open network and a cracked one!!! Yes, there is. An open network means whoever is providing the wifi disclaims all responsibility for how the network is used. Starbuck's may be able to get away with that, as I said, but I don't think the average home user can, unless they have a really unusual ISP. Have you read the fine print in your ISP's terms and conditions? If the point is that home users should not have to tolerate those kinds of terms and conditions, I don't disagree; but I don't expect it to happen any time soon. :-)
- jessaustin 14y ago
  As Schneier describes it, there is a trade-off. Would you rather be kicked by your ISP for T&C violations, or imprisoned and branded a sex offender for your neighborhood wireless hacker's kiddie porn habits? If the chances of each scenario were roughly equal, I'd certainly agree with Schneier to prefer the former scenario. Since the former scenario seems much more likely than the latter I'm not so sure.
  - pdonis 14y ago
    your neighborhood wireless hacker's kiddie porn habits If your wifi is secured and there are open networks nearby, the hacker isn't going to bother trying to hack yours (I assume you're using WPA, not WEP, the latter is so easy to hack now that it doesn't really make a difference). He's going to use one of the open ones. To have a serious chance of having your WPA hacked you would need to have attracted the notice of someone much more determined than your neighborhood porn junkie, someone like the NSA. So I would say the former scenario is much more likely than the latter.
    - crististm 14y ago
      Let's see: You are a high profile figure who happened to step on someone's tail. What should we do to make you behave? I know, we'll show the whole world how you download child porn. Did I say "child porn"? You mean the burden of proof is on you that you secured your network? How can you prove this, because, you know, you can't!
      - pdonis 14y ago
        So you're saying that if you are a high profile figure who happened to step on someone's tail, you should run an open wifi network to make it exponentially easier for your enemies to convince the world that you download child porn? You say you run an open wifi network, so anybody could have downloaded that porn using your wifi? You're a high profile figure and you expect us to believe that? Yeah, right. We can spin scenarios all day. At the end of the day, I still think that an ordinary person with an ordinary ISP is better off securing their wifi; the likelihood of WPA security being broken is much smaller than the likelihood of someone using your open wifi to do something that your ISP won't like (or worse). Even a high profile figure is, IMO, better off securing their wifi than running an open network for every nutjob who has a fixation on them to use.
        jessaustin 14y ago
        You're a high profile figure and you expect us to believe that? For someone in this situation, it's very unfortunate that Google doesn't have this info anymore! Although historical records would be more dispositive, it isn't difficult to verify that someone is running open wifi now.

pdonis 14y ago

there is no difference between an open network and a cracked one!!! Yes, there is. An open network means whoever is providing the wifi disclaims all responsibility for how the network is used. Starbuck's may be able to get away with that, as I said, but I don't think the average home user can, unless they have a really unusual ISP. Have you read the fine print in your ISP's terms and conditions? If the point is that home users should not have to tolerate those kinds of terms and conditions, I don't disagree; but I don't expect it to happen any time soon. :-)

jessaustin 14y ago
As Schneier describes it, there is a trade-off. Would you rather be kicked by your ISP for T&C violations, or imprisoned and branded a sex offender for your neighborhood wireless hacker's kiddie porn habits? If the chances of each scenario were roughly equal, I'd certainly agree with Schneier to prefer the former scenario. Since the former scenario seems much more likely than the latter I'm not so sure.
- pdonis 14y ago
  your neighborhood wireless hacker's kiddie porn habits If your wifi is secured and there are open networks nearby, the hacker isn't going to bother trying to hack yours (I assume you're using WPA, not WEP, the latter is so easy to hack now that it doesn't really make a difference). He's going to use one of the open ones. To have a serious chance of having your WPA hacked you would need to have attracted the notice of someone much more determined than your neighborhood porn junkie, someone like the NSA. So I would say the former scenario is much more likely than the latter.
  - crististm 14y ago
    Let's see: You are a high profile figure who happened to step on someone's tail. What should we do to make you behave? I know, we'll show the whole world how you download child porn. Did I say "child porn"? You mean the burden of proof is on you that you secured your network? How can you prove this, because, you know, you can't!
    - pdonis 14y ago
      So you're saying that if you are a high profile figure who happened to step on someone's tail, you should run an open wifi network to make it exponentially easier for your enemies to convince the world that you download child porn? You say you run an open wifi network, so anybody could have downloaded that porn using your wifi? You're a high profile figure and you expect us to believe that? Yeah, right. We can spin scenarios all day. At the end of the day, I still think that an ordinary person with an ordinary ISP is better off securing their wifi; the likelihood of WPA security being broken is much smaller than the likelihood of someone using your open wifi to do something that your ISP won't like (or worse). Even a high profile figure is, IMO, better off securing their wifi than running an open network for every nutjob who has a fixation on them to use.
      - jessaustin 14y ago
        You're a high profile figure and you expect us to believe that? For someone in this situation, it's very unfortunate that Google doesn't have this info anymore! Although historical records would be more dispositive, it isn't difficult to verify that someone is running open wifi now.