wireless-weblog.com — Tammie Marson of Palm Desert, California responded to a lawsuit from the RIAA by stating that her wireless router was not secure, and that therefore the file sharing seen on her network could have been from any passerby. The defense worked, and the RIAA dropped the case.
Nov 6, 2006 View in Crawl 4
sixsenceNov 7, 2006
w/e happened to being responsible for your own things? just like if someone else uses your computer, it's still your responsibility for w/e they do on it. It's your responsibility to protect your wireless connection. If you don't protect it, the blame should still fall on you. You're providing their weapon for the crime committed. It's your fault you didn't take measures to secure your wireless connection, just like it's your fault if you fail to put a windows password on your computer, and someone gains access. That would be my defense to their defense at least.
matthewsr2000Nov 7, 2006
sixsence wrote: "w/e happened to being responsible for your own things?"Responsibility is one thing, liability another. It would be impossible to hold everyone involved in the case responsible to the level that you ask. Was the manufacturer being irresponsible for not making secured access default? Was the vendor of the router being irresponsible by not helping you to enable a security scheme when you paid them for the router? And how about your ISP being responsible for helping to enable security?Each and every one of the parties mentioned above had in some a connection to the event, and by your reasoning a responsibility for it. It would be awfully messy if everyone were responsible for the actions of another person.to borrow from the very old and tired gun cliche': 1-If I sell a man a gun innocently and he murders someone with it, I'm not responsible. 2-If I sell a man a gun with the knowledge that it is his expressed intent to kill his wife with it, then I have some responsibility. (How much responsibility would be decided by the courts of course. . .)I would assume that the same defense as case #1 in the gun example would work in court. i.e. "I had no intention or foreknowledge that people would use my internet connection for illegal activities when I chose to leave my access point open to the public."Now, if you have been notified, and you continue to allow people to use your wireless access point for illegal activities, you're screwed.
Closed AccountNov 7, 2006
1. Open up router2. Download music3. ???4. Profit!
gothelderNov 7, 2006
You realize that if I confine my downloading activity to the PC connecting wirelessly in the garage that does not look like its worked in years, they are going to be very disappointed when:1: My home machine in the living room is off and the downloads do not cease.2: They find no evidence of any sort of illegal files on it.3: I point out that the courts have ruled against the RIAA in regards to suppressing 3'rd party forensic analysis on suspect machinesHow many people here only have 1 machine running at home (have 4) and what makes you think the RIAA can find out how your network is configured? As I understand it even if they try to penetrate your network (secured or unsecured) across the Internet they immediately can be charged with a felony, interstate computer crime and whatnot.
sixsenceNov 7, 2006
@kryptofag94Ummm, first of all there are laws prohibiting stealing a gun from a gun shop and there are no laws saying you can't use wireless access if it's open and u happen to stroll upon it while driving around, or your laptop may automatically connect to your neighbors connection.Second, you prove my point by providing an example in which the gun store puts measures in place that make it difficult to steal a gun. Now, if they had no alarms, and no one watching the guns and with no protection whatsoever, then yes it would be partially their fault. Just like if people with wireless connections at least put some kind of security on it, people would maliciously have to hack their way in, so it would in no way be the fault of the person with the wireless connection.But, if there is no security on your wireless connection you're basically inviting people in, and if someone next door has a laptop and it automatically connects to your wireless connection and this person then gets the internet, how can u blame him? He didn't try to break into your connection. What they then do on your connection is your responsibility. They wouldn't be able to download music without your connection being open. If they are going to dl music, it's your responsibility to make sure it isn't on your connection, so it would be their business. You may not know people are going to do bad things once on your connection, but you must assume the worst. That's called being responsible. It's your responsibility to keep it closed with security.Wouldn't you feel guilty if you let someone drive home drunk that you knew was too drunk to drive and they ended up dieing? I mean, it's not like it's your responsibility for the action of him deciding to drive home drunk, but it was still your fault for allowing him to drive without at least attempting to keep him from driving home.If the gun store that was robbed didn't have proper security then it would be their fault. But, if someone had to maliciously break into the store and forcefully steal the guns, there was nothing the store owner could do to stop them, so it was in no way their fault.Rethink your logic people. AIGHT
mastercheifNov 8, 2006
LOL THANKS FOR GIVING OUT YOUR IP ADRESS ON THE INTERNET! I AM HACKING 192.168.1.2 NOW!!! YOUR C DRIVE IS 75% DONE!!!/jk
Closed AccountDec 31, 2006
Like anyone is going to read this reply a good 7 weeks after the last comment was made on this article...But, yes, I do understand NAT and that my IP address of 192.168.1.2 doesn't show up on the Internet. What I'm concerned about is what logs are kept inside the router. For all I know, they could keep detailed logs of time/date/IP/MAC-address so therefore, just because my WiFi is open, they could still see all those different IP addresses in my router logs are actually the same computer, and not someone wardriving and downloading.