Re: [MLUG] Looking 4 mad cheap PCI wireless cards

["Christian M. Cepel" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

You know... lack of precedent means nothing.  There is no such thing as 
a grandfather clause for such things.

Even if someone can't point you to an example of it's illegality now 
doesn't mean that you might not be the first.

Just because a technology (and not really the technology, but its mass 
availability and type of usage) is too new for legislators, judges, 
police, and even network administrators to entirely understand all the 
ramifications, or what to do about them doesn't mean that your action 
today is any less free of scrutiny after it's all codified into law and 
precedent.

As an example, no government body anticipated the P2P explosion, and 
proactively establish construct to deal with it.  Quite the contrary, 
they were playing Catch-Up _Years_ after.  The concepts of P2P first had 
to be explained to them.  The ramifications both theoretical and 
historical had to be shown to them.  Discussion and education had to 
happen.  Then legislation and test cases, and finally, the Napster (not 
the new napster) establishment was shut down and people held responsible.

Now.. Case law and precedent is established for P2P concerns & property 
rights, intellectual, digital, otherwise, whatever.

The same will happen for wireless.

It's also worth noting that you cannot take the current state of things 
as 'set'.  If that were true, if things didn't continue to evolve, there 
would be no DMCA2, etc.

And your claims of lack of precedent or ignorance will mean Nothing to 
the prosecutor, judge, police, whatever.

Mike Miller wrote:

> On Thu, 21 Oct 2004, Rick Buford wrote:
>
>> If you connect to my AP, and are pulling mp3's across my line, you 
>> --will-- be interfering with my use of the bandwidth I pay for. I run 
>> into it with the roommate all the time, he's pulling downloads while 
>> I'm trying to play a game, and it's a bad enough experience that I'm 
>> considering going back to using the linux server as my gateway and 
>> doing traffic shaping on it.
>
>
>
> Tell me about this when you find a case - just one case in the entire 
> country - where someone is convicted or sued successfully for doing this.
>
> In the example you gave, a wifi users is getting poor performance 
> because he configured his system badly and his neighbors are accessing 
> his wifi. That's his fault.  Proper configuration will yield better 
> performance. His neighbors might not even know that they are accessing 
> his network. It is very easy to do - just go to a different room of 
> your house and you might suddenly be using your neighbor's network.  
> In fact, you might both have easily given your wireless networks the 
> same name (e.g., 'linksys') and it might not even be possible for many 
> users to tell whose network they are on!  Try prosecuting that.  Would 
> the crime be "using your neighbors wifi on purpose?"  Or would it be 
> "using your neighbor's wifi?"
>
> This all seems ridiculous to me.  It is more ridiculous because you 
> guys are usually on the side of freedom and against restrictive laws.
>
> Mike
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-- 

|Christian Marcus Cepel           | And the wrens have returned &
EMAIL:PROTECTED icq:12384980 | are nesting; In the hollow of
371 Crown Point, Columbia, MO    | that oak where his heart once
65203-2202 573.999.2370          | had been; And he lifts up his
Computer Support Specialist, Sr. | arms in a blessing; For being
University of Missouri-Columbia  | born again. --Rich Mullins|

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