Archive for the ‘OPINION’ Category
May 10th, 2009 | 
Author: Archeologists in Siberia have found several elongated skulls in the forest. 
They’re from the 4th century A.D.
Some people believe that the most likely explanation was that ancient communities deliberately deformed the skulls of infants, possibly with the intention of increasing their mental abilities.
However, there are still some unanswered questions. How did multiple cultures across the planet with no contact come to perform the same type of ancient “surgery”? What purpose did it serve?
There is some evidence that these people with the elongated heads had strange brain powers and the ability to predict the weather.
Pravda News.
Russian media outlets have recently covered a story about yet another mystery of the ancient period of human civilization, when archaeologists discovered plates with drawings in South America. The plates or the so-called Iki stones are about 70 million years old. The drawings show people with disproportionately large heads. There are skulls of the same shape in the local museums. But archeologists find the elongated skulls in Russia too, in the North Caucasus. The Pyatigorsk museum of regional studies has them on display. Do those skulls have anything in common? And who started the fashion?
They wanted to look like aliens
I did research on one of those skulls found near the town of Chihuahua in Mexico in the 1930s, says the well-known archeologist Lloyd Pye, the author of the book Everything You Know is Wrong. When the appearance of the owner was restored using Professor Gerasimovs method, it became obvious that the guy resembled aliens the way they are portrayed by eyewitnesses. I ran a DNA test of his bones in two laboratories. His DNA links in some sections differed from the human ones. The skull should have contained around 2 liter of brain. The skull of present-day man can hold only 1.5 liters of brain, says Mr. Pye.
Some specimens indicate that the fashion for elongated skulls is al least 20 thousand years old. It could have originated earlier on. I can not tell you exactly when. I can only assume that ancient people wanted to imitate somebody else. Maybe they wanted to look like those beings who were more perfect in terms of evolution. They could also imitate the aliens whose skulls probably had different dimensions, says Mr. Pye.
These skulls were photographed by Robert Connolly on his trip around the world during which he was collecting materials about ancient civilizations. The discovery of unusual skulls was thus an unintended “spinoff” of his efforts.
The data about the skulls is incomplete, and that makes the correct assessment of their age, context with other hominids, as well as placement of their origin extremely difficult. Some of the skulls are very distinct, as if they belong to entirely different species, remotely similar to genus Homo. The first thing that attracts attention is the size and shape of the cranium in all the specimens. There are 4 different groups represented in the pictures. As a matter of convenience, I labeled them “conehead”, “jack-o-lantern” or “J” and “M” based on the shape of the skull, except the first and possibly earliest type of skull, which I call “premodern”.
When some of these pictures (the first two) were posted on CompuServe more than year ago, the majority of people assumed that they represented an example of binding of the head, well known to be in fashion in ancient Nubia, Egypt and other cultures. The problem with this theory is that the inside of the cranium of the mentioned skulls, although elongated and with a back sloping, flattened forehead, have the same capacity as normal human skulls; the only difference is the shape achieved by frontal and side deformations.
They are actually more similar to the first type of skull (premodern) with the rounded back, than the conehead type. The cone-shaped types of skull are not found amongst the usual skull-binding samples.
The first skull presents problems of its own. The frontal part of the skull seems to belong to an individual of the pre-Neanderthal family, but the lower jaw, though more robust than modern human type, has a modern shape and characteristics. The shape of the cranium does not have any comparison with the Erectus, Neanderthal types, nor the modern human type. Some minor Neanderthal characteristics are present, as is the occipital ridge on the bottom back of the skull and the flattened bottom of the cranium, other characteristics point more towards Homo Erectus. The angle of the cranial bottom is, though, unusual. We cannot exclude the possibility of a deformed individual in this case, but it is highly unlikely that the angle of the frontal part would require a modification of the lower jaw in the process of growing to resemble modern human types with their projected chin rim. The answer seems to be that the skull belongs to a representantive of an unknown premodern human or humanoid type.
As is obvious from the comparison with a modern human skull, the cranial capacity lies within the modern human range. This is not surprising, since the late Neanderthals and early modern humans (Cro-Magnon) had larger cranial capacities (both roughly 1600 ccm to 1750 ccm) than modern humans (av. 1450 ccm). The decrease of the cranial capacity (sudden at that — the specimens of modern humans after about 10500 BCE have smaller craniums) is a puzzling matter, but that’s another story.
No less puzzling is what a representative of a premodern human type is doing on the South American continent. According to the orthodox anthropology, this skull simply does not exist, because it cannot be. Textbooks’ oldest date of appearance of humans in North America is about 35000 BCE and much later for South America, based on the diffusion theory assumptions. The only accepted human types entering the continent are of the modern anatomy. There are some other sources that place all types of human genus in both Americas at much earlier dates based on numerous anomalous finds, but the academe sticks to its preconceived notions, no matter what. It’s safer.
The “premodern” skull and the following three specimens were found in the Paracas region of Perú. It does not necessarily mean that they are related. There is some possibility that the “premodern” is in fact a precursor of the “conehead” type, but since we do not have any dating analysis at hand, we may only speculate in this regard.
The “conehead” type is very unusual because of the cranial shape. Here we have three specimens, which exclude the possibility of random or artificial deformation (the already mentioned Nubian deformations had quite a number of individual variations). They have individual characteristics within the range of overall morphology. There is no doubt that they are closely related and possibly represent quite a distinct branch of the genus Homo, if not an entirely different species.
The comparison of the C1 with a modern human skull has slight inaccuracies, caused by a degree of distortion when rotating the skull shape into position. As is obvious from C2 and C3, the angle of the bottom part of the cranium does not deviate from normal. However, the general proportions are correct.
The enormity of the cranial vault is obvious from all three pictures. By interpolation, we can estimate the minimum cranial capacity at 2200 ccm, but the value can be as high as 2500 ccm. The shape of the skull may be a biological response–a survival of the species mechanism–to increase the brain mass without the danger of relegating the species to extinction and keeping a viable biological reproduction intact. However, since we do not see the representatives of the “conehead” type in modern population, something prevented the type becoming as widespread as it is in the case of present-day moderns.
The “J” type of skull presents different sets of problems. It is an equivalent of the modern type of skull in all respects, with only several factors out of proportion. Less significant is the size of eye sockets which are about 15% larger than in modern populations. More significant is the enormity of the cranial vault. The estimated cranial capacity ranges between minimum of 2600 ccm to 3200 ccm.
Pravda News – October 6, 2005
Russian media outlets have recently covered a story about yet another mystery of the ancient period of human civilization, when archaeologists discovered plates with drawings in South America. The plates or the so-called Iki stones are about 70 million years old. The drawings show people with disproportionately large heads. There are skulls of the same shape in the local museums. But archeologists find the elongated skulls in Russia too, in the North Caucasus. The Pyatigorsk museum of regional studies has them on display. Do those skulls have anything in common? And who started “the fashion?”
A hole in the crown of the head
“The Pyatigorsk skull was found at the excavation site of the Khasaot burial ground in the vicinity of Kislovodsk,” says Doctor of Historical Sciences Vladimir Kuznetsov, the author of numerous studies of history of the North Caucasus. “The skull is part of culture of the ancient Alani. Approximately, it dates back to the 3rd – 5th centuries A.D. These strange skulls appeared at the same time when the Sarmatian and Alani hordes came around. Some of the nomads moved for the North Caucasus in 15th century.”
Some claim that researchers have repeatedly proved that the skulls had been deformed on purpose, says Mr. Kuznetsov. “Ropes or special blocks were tied tightly round the heads of infants, over the temples. The custom went out of fashion by 17th century. The reason behind the deformation phenomenon is still unknown. It is hard 
to say whether the methods worked effectively or not since nobody ever conducted scientific experiments regarding the binding of the infants’ heads.
But “aliens” are not likely to be involved in this case,” says the researcher.
Still, it is very strange that the deformed skulls are found in European countries including Norway and France. They are also found in Central Asia, in Central and South America. Taking into account huge distances and oceans separating different nations, how could people pass around the weird fashion?
“The skull exhibited here used to belong to a young woman in her twenties,” says senior researcher of the Pyatigorsk museum of regional studies Mikhail Semendyaev. “Its volume is quite regular, about 1.5 liters. By the way, archeologists normally find 2-3 deformed skulls like this one in every hundred of skulls discovered during the excavation,” adds Mr. Semendyaev.
Specialists have no explanation for a particular feature of the elongated skulls. If you take a closer look at the skull, you will see a tiny hole on the crown. The edges of the hole are extremely neat and even. Only elongated skulls have tidy holes. Could it be that the holes were used for picking information from space or from the egg-headed colleagues scattered around the world?
OMSK, RUSSIA – Archaeologists have found a set of elongated skulls buried in Siberia. But this is not the first time these odd relics have been found.
Elongated skulls have been discovered across the globe in various cultures, dating back as far as 45,000 BC in what is now Iraq. The theory archaeologists have is called ‘artificial cranial deformation’, where a baby has its head bound to encourage specific skull growth.
Skulls were found as recently as this past January, in a dig in Siberia.
Can we even be sure they are entirely human? Or are these important relics of secret human-alien connections? Ancient Egyptians often depicted the pharaoh Akhenaten and his family with extremely elongated heads.
Is this evidence of the theory that Egyptian culture was influenced by aliens?
It is hard to say whether the methods worked effectively or not since nobody ever conducted scientific experiments regarding the binding of the infants’ heads.
But “aliens” are not likely to be involved in this case,” says the researcher.
Still, it is very strange that the deformed skulls are found in European countries including Norway and France. They are also found in Central Asia, in Central and South America. Taking into account huge distances and oceans separating different nations, how could people pass around the weird fashion?
“The skull exhibited here used to belong to a young woman in her twenties,” says senior researcher of the Pyatigorsk museum of regional studies Mikhail Semendyaev. “Its volume is quite regular, about 1.5 liters. By the way, archeologists normally find 2-3 deformed skulls like this one in every hundred of skulls discovered during the excavation,” adds Mr. Semendyaev.
Specialists have no explanation for a particular feature of the elongated skulls. If you take a closer look at the skull, you will see a tiny hole on the crown. The edges of the hole are extremely neat and even. Only elongated skulls have tidy holes. Could it be that the holes were used for picking information from space or from the egg-headed colleagues scattered around the world?
OMSK, RUSSIA – Archaeologists have found a set of elongated skulls buried in Siberia. But this is not the first time these odd relics have been found.
Elongated skulls have been discovered across the globe in various cultures, dating back as far as 45,000 BC in what is now Iraq. The theory archaeologists have is called ‘artificial cranial deformation’, where a baby has its head bound to encourage specific skull growth.
Skulls were found as recently as this past January, in a dig in Siberia.
Can we even be sure they are entirely human? Or are these important relics of secret human-alien connections? Ancient Egyptians often depicted the pharaoh Akhenaten and his family with extremely elongated heads.
Is this evidence of the theory that Egyptian culture was influenced by aliens?
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Jerusalem Post | Apr 10, 2009
By Caroline Glick
Surviving in a post-American world
Like it or not, the United States of America is no longer the world’s policeman. This was the message 
of Barack Obama’s presidential journey to Britain, France, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Iraq this past week.
Somewhere between apologizing for American history – both distant and recent; genuflecting before the unelected, bigoted king of Saudi Arabia; announcing that he will slash the US’s nuclear arsenal, scrap much of America’s missile defense programs and emasculate the US Navy; leaving Japan to face North Korea and China alone; telling the Czechs, Poles and their fellow former Soviet colonies, "Don’t worry, be happy," as he leaves them to Moscow’s tender mercies; humiliating Iraq’s leaders while kowtowing to Iran; preparing for an open confrontation with Israel; and thanking Islam for its great contribution to American history, President Obama made clear to the world’s aggressors that America will not be confronting them for the foreseeable future.
Whether they are aggressors like Russia, proliferators like North Korea, terror exporters like nuclear-armed Pakistan or would-be genocidal-terror-supporting nuclear states like Iran, today, under the new administration, none of them has any reason to fear Washington.
This news is music to the ears of the American Left and their friends in Europe. Obama’s supporters like billionaire George Soros couldn’t be more excited at the self-induced demise of the American superpower. CNN’s former (anti-)Israel bureau chief Walter Rodgers wrote ecstatically in the Christian Science Monitor on Wednesday, "America’s… superpower status, is being downgraded as rapidly as its economy."
The pro-Obama US and European media are so pleased with America’s abdication of power that they took the rare step of applauding Obama at his press conference in London. Indeed, the media’s enthusiasm for Obama appeared to grow with each presidential statement of contrition for America’s past uses of force, each savage attack he leveled against his predecessor George W. Bush, each swipe he took at Israel, and each statement of gratitude for the blessings of Islam he uttered.
But while the media couldn’t get enough of the new US leader, America’s most stable allies worldwide began a desperate search for a reset button that would cause the administration to take back its abandonment of America’s role as the protector of the free world.
Tokyo was distraught by the administration’s reaction to North Korea’s three-stage ballistic missile test. Japan recognized the betrayal inherent in Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s announcement ahead of Pyongyang’s newest provocation that the US would only shoot the missile down if it targeted US territory. In one sentence, uttered not in secret consultations, but declared to the world on CNN, Gates abrogated America’s strategic commitment to Japan’s defense.
India, for its part, is concerned by Obama’s repeated assertions that its refusal to transfer control over the disputed Jammu and Kashmir provinces to Pakistan inspires Pakistani terror against India. It is equally distressed at the Obama administration’s refusal to make ending Pakistan’s support for jihadist terror groups attacking India a central component of its strategy for contending with Pakistan and Afghanistan. In general, Indian officials have expressed deep concern over the Obama administration’s apparent lack of regard for India as an ally and a significant strategic counterweight to China.
Then there is Iraq. During his brief visit to Baghdad on Tuesday afternoon, Obama didn’t even pretend that he would ensure that Iraqi democracy and freedom are secured before US forces are withdrawn next year. The most supportive statement he could muster came during his conversation with Turkish students in Istanbul earlier in the day. There he said, "I have a responsibility to make sure that as we bring troops out, that we do so in a careful enough way that we don’t see a complete collapse into violence."
Hearing Obama’s statements, and watching him and his advisers make daily declarations of friendship to Iran’s mullahs, Iraqi leaders are considering their options for surviving the rapidly approaching storm.
Then there is Europe. Although Obama received enthusiastic applause from his audience in Prague when he announced his intention to destroy the US’s nuclear arsenal, drastically scale back its missile defense programs and forge a new alliance with Russia, his words were anything but music to the ears of the leaders of former Soviet satellites threatened by Russia. The Czech, Polish, Georgian and Ukrainian governments were quick to recognize that Obama’s strong desire to curry favor with the Kremlin and weaken his own country will imperil their ability to withstand Russian aggression.
It is not a coincidence, for instance, that the day Obama returned to Washington, Georgia’s Moscow-sponsored opposition announced its plan to launch massive protests in Tblisi to force the ouster of pro-Western, anti-Russian Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.
And as for Russia, like Iran, which responded to Obama’s latest ode to the mullahs by opening a nuclear fuel plant and announcing it has 7,000 advanced centrifuges in operation, so Moscow reacted to Obama’s fig leaf with a machine gun, announcing its refusal to support sanctions against North Korea and repeating its false claim that Iran’s nuclear program is nonaggressive.
Finally there is Israel. If Obama’s assertions that Israel must support the immediate establishment of a Palestinian state, his declarations of support for the so-called Saudi "peace plan," which requires Israel to commit national suicide in exchange for "peace" with the Arab world, and his continuous and increasingly frantic appeals for Iran to "engage" his administration weren’t enough to show Israel that Obama is sacrificing the US’s alliance with the Jewish state in a bid to appease the Arabs and Iran, on Tuesday Vice President Joseph Biden made this policy explicit.
When Biden told CNN that Israel would be "ill-advised" to attack Iran’s nuclear installations, he made clear that from the administration’s perspective, an Israeli strike that prevents Iran from becoming a nuclear power is less acceptable than a nuclear-armed Iran. That is, the Obama administration prefers to see Iran become a nuclear power than to see Israel secure its very existence.
AMERICA’S BETRAYAL of its democratic allies makes each of them more vulnerable to aggression at the hands of their enemies – enemies the Obama administration is now actively attempting to appease. And as the US strengthens their adversaries at their expense, these spurned democracies must consider their options for surviving as free societies in this new, threatening, post-American environment.
For the most part, America’s scorned allies lack the ability to defeat their enemies on their own. India cannot easily defeat nuclear-armed Pakistan, which itself is fragmenting into disparate anti-Indian nuclear-wielding Islamist and Islamist-supporting factions.
Japan today cannot face North Korea – which acts as a Chinese proxy – on its own without risking a confrontation with China.
Russia’s invasion of Georgia last August showed clearly that its former republics and satellites have no way of escaping Moscow’s grip alone.
This week’s Arab League conference at Doha demonstrated to Iraq’s leaders that their Arab brethren are incapable and unwilling to confront Iran.
And the Obama administration’s intense efforts to woo Iran coupled with its plan to slash the US’s missile defense programs – including those in which Israel participates – and reportedly pressure Israel to dismantle its own purported nuclear arsenal – make clear that Israel today stands alone against Iran.
THE RISKS that the newly inaugurated post-American world pose for America’s threatened friends are clear. But viable opportunities for survival do exist, and Israel can and must play a central role in developing them. Specifically, Israel must move swiftly to develop active strategic alliances with Japan, Iraq, Poland, and the Czech Republic and it must expand its alliance with India.
With Israel’s technological capabilities, its intelligence and military expertise, it can play a vital role in shoring up these countries’ capacities to contain the rogue states that threaten them. And by containing the likes of Russia, North Korea and Pakistan, they will make it easier for Israel to contain Iran even in the face of US support for the mullahs.
The possibilities for strategic cooperation between and among all of these states and Israel run the gamut from intelligence sharing to military training, to missile defense, naval development, satellite collaboration, to nuclear cooperation. In addition, of course, expanded economic ties between and among these states can aid each of them in the struggle to stay afloat during the current global economic crisis.
Although far from risk free, these opportunities are realistic because they are founded on stable, shared interests. This is the case despite the fact that none of these potential alliances will likely amount to increased support for Israel in international forums. Dependent as they are on Arab oil, these potential allies cannot be expected to vote with Israel in the UN General Assembly. But this should not concern Jerusalem.
The only thing that should concern Jerusalem today is how to weaken Iran both directly by attacking its nuclear installations, and indirectly by weakening its international partners in Moscow, Pyongyang, Islamabad and beyond in the absence of US support. If Japan is able to contain North Korea and so limit Pyongyang’s freedom to proliferate its nuclear weapons and missiles to Iran and Syria and beyond, Israel is better off. So, too, Israel is better off if Russia is contained by democratic governments in Eastern and Central Europe. These nations in turn are better off if Iran is contained and prevented from threatening them both directly and indirectly through its strategic partners in North Korea, Syria and Russia, and its terror affiliates in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
For the past 16 years, successive Israeli governments have wrongly believed that politics trump strategic interests. The notion that informed Israel’s decision-makers – not unlike the notion that now informs the Obama administration – was that Israel’s strategic interests would be secured as a consequence of its efforts to appease its enemies by weakening itself. Appreciative of Israel’s sacrifices for peace, the nations of the world – and particularly the US, the Arabs and Europe – would come to Israel’s defense in its hour of need. Now that the hour of need has arrived, Israel’s political strategy for securing itself has been exposed as a complete fiasco.
The good news is that no doubt sooner rather than later, Obama’s similarly disastrous bid to denude the US of its military power under the naive assumption that it will be able to use its new stature as a morally pure strategic weakling to win its enemies over to its side will fail spectacularly and America’s foreign policy will revert to strategic rationality.
But to survive the current period of American strategic madness, Israel and the US’s other unwanted allies must build alliances with one another – covertly if need be – to contain their adversaries in the absence of America. If they do so successfully, then the damage to global security induced by Obama’s emasculation of his country will be limited. If on the other hand, they fail, then America’s eventual return to its senses will likely come too late for its allies – if not for America itself.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
Why I have my WIFI locked down tight
Posted by Brad – cheapestPCrepair.com
Below is a great conversation that was sent to me by my buddy Ricola, he thought you might be interested in hearing about the differences of opinions and facts in the debate over leaving your WIFI open or closed. If you have an opinion or would like to comment on this hot topic, please scroll down and click "comment". We would all love to hear your thoughts.
For my own wireless, I have it encrypted, I also have my phone number as the SSID along with a little plug for my business. I have already given the pass to my friends, if someone ever called me and wanted to use my wifi? . .. hmmm, i think I would suggest to them to use the wifi that is right next door at the "Grounds For Celebration" Coffee house, it’s free and open all the time. I used to leave it open, I did so for years, but then I started hearing stories, true or false, the info I heard worried me enough to put a password on the WIFI for the first time. I heard stories of unsecured wireless being used for Al Qaeda OPS, child porn, inter-gang slurs, threats to the president and (the least of those) illegal file sharing. So, like I said, I am not saying those will happen, but they worry me and that is why my WIFI now has a password on it. what’s your thoughts?
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Why it’s good to leave your WiFi open
Posted by Cory Doctorow, January 10, 2008 10:18 AM
Bruce Schneier has a wonderful essay up on Wired explaining why he runs an open wireless network at home — and how that fits in with security. I’ve run open wireless networks since the late 1990s (in five cities in three countries) and I’ve never encountered the problems that everyone says are inevitable — network contention, crap from my ISP, busts for the child-porn my neighbors are downloading from my network.
Instead, I’ve provided network access to innumerable people — people like me: I can’t count the number of times I’ve had my ass saved by an open wireless network at the right moment (e.g., in good time to help me look up directions, a phone number, or flight details). I figure the more open wireless I provide to the world, the more people I’ll turn on to providing their own open wireless access, and the more open WiFi I’m likely to find.
To me, it’s basic politeness. Providing internet access to guests is kind of like providing heat and electricity, or a hot cup of tea. But to some observers, it’s both wrong and dangerous…
I remain unconvinced of this threat, though. The RIAA has conducted about 26,000 lawsuits, and there are more than 15 million music downloaders. Mark Mulligan of Jupiter Research said it best: "If you’re a file sharer, you know that the likelihood of you being caught is very similar to that of being hit by an asteroid."
I’m also unmoved by those who say I’m putting my own data at risk, because hackers might park in front of my house, log on to my open network and eavesdrop on my internet traffic or break into my computers. This is true, but my computers are much more at risk when I use them on wireless networks in airports, coffee shops and other public places. If I configure my computer to be secure regardless of the network it’s on, then it simply doesn’t matter. And if my computer isn’t secure on a public network, securing my own network isn’t going to reduce my risk very much.
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#1 posted by philipb , January 10, 2008 10:26 AM
Thank you! I figure I’ve used enough unsecured networks in my time that my WiFi should "spread some love" too.
Never had a security problem.
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#2 posted by Matt Staggs , January 10, 2008 10:33 AM
To me, it’s basic politeness. Providing internet access to guests is kind of like providing heat and electricity, or a hot cup of tea.
Agreed, but I think that my definition and your definition of who constitutes a guest differs.
Guests are people I know and have invited to share my hospitality, not a stranger who pulls up outside my house hoping to score some free web access.
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#3 posted by Cory Doctorow , January 10, 2008 10:36 AM
I don’t worry about people who use the light from my porch to read a map — their use of my photons doesn’t impede my enjoyment of them. Likewise, I’ve never experienced contention with my public wireless. "Hey stop harmlessly stealing my radio waves" just seems silly.
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#4 posted by Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator , January 10, 2008 10:42 AM
If strangers came to my door asking for food, I’d give them some. Why not WiFi?
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#5 posted by pork musket , January 10, 2008 10:43 AM
That’s an interesting perspective. However, from a consumer standpoint, the security reasons you shouldn’t use open unknown wifi connections are really obvious. It is not hard, if one has control of the packets, to hijack someone’s session and screw with how they see/interact with the internet.
I could easily go to an airport, setup a ‘FREE Public WiFi’ peer-to-peer network on my laptop, wait for someone to connect, and then serve them up a fake paypal.com or any other website.
If you MUST use untrusted connections, please, SSH tunnel or otherwise use encryption.
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#6 posted by Cory Doctorow , January 10, 2008 10:45 AM
Pork, did you read the article? It addresses this stuff in depth.
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#7 posted by Lulu , January 10, 2008 10:47 AM
So 1 in 600 music downloaders gets sued. Do I really have a 1 in 600 chance of being hit by an asteroid? Or have 26,000 people been hit by asteroids as well and I haven’t heard anything about it?
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#8 posted by fencesitter , January 10, 2008 10:53 AM
Yeah, some people are a bit particular about their "property." I’d be annoyed if every car that wanted to pull a U-turn on my street decided to use my driveway.
I remember the people on my cul-de-sac (sp?) not liking all the cars that just came up and drove around it it when I was a kid.
That said, I leave my wifi open, but put a basic request as the SSID, something like: DoNoEvil.
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#9 posted by jjasper , January 10, 2008 10:55 AM
Heck, we named our network in a recognizable way so that our neighbors would know who we were. One of our neighbors shares her itunes library, which includes recordings of her opera work.
I suppose if we were organized about it, we could have cable modem and DSL in the building, and share the costs, so that if one provider went down, the other network could be accessed by wireless.
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#10 posted by Cory Doctorow , January 10, 2008 10:56 AM
Mine is called "doctorow@craphound.com free wifi" — I get emails from people thanking me for leaving it open.
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#11 posted by pork musket , January 10, 2008 10:58 AM
Cory, I did read the article, and the only vulnerabilites he comments on are hackers snooping the wireless provider’s packets, not the other way around. The vulnerability I am warning against affects the person using the open network – the guy who opened it up could serve you basically whatever he wants.
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#12 posted by Alfie , January 10, 2008 11:01 AM
Last night my roommates and I came home from a get-together and were trying to find parking on our street. Since today is trash day, everyone had their garbage up on the curb to allow ample parking for everyone. Except one guy who had put his dumpsters on the street blocking off a perfectly good parking spot. We took it upon ourselves to move the bins and park. As I was getting out of the car, I hear a voice coming from the window of the apartment where we had parked.
"You can’t do that."
"What?"
"You cannot move the trash cans"
"We just did"
"Do not touch my trash cans."
"uh.. i won’t touch your cans again"
What sort of NIMBY dumbassery is THAT? Look around you, friends. Is everyone chill? Then relax, take precautions, but continue to be a good neighbor and a friendly part of an information sharing community.
Sadly, I’m the only one with an unlocked network on my entire block.
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#13 posted by mclanea , January 10, 2008 11:02 AM
I had my wireless open for several years. Like you mentioned, it was great to be hospitable to people who just needed a few minutes of wireless to save their tails. And I’ve had many times when a person’s open wifi saved my tail.
That said, I just closed mine at my house. As a father, I got creeped out by a sick-o looking guy spending more than a few minutes in the back of his minivan. About 10 minutes into it, feeling ill, I rebooted the router, added a password, and watched him drive off.
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#14 posted by pork musket , January 10, 2008 11:02 AM
A well-known, not really malicious, example of what I am talking about: http://www.ex-parrot.com/~pete/upside-down-ternet.html
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#15 posted by dculberson , January 10, 2008 11:04 AM
I’ve run an open wireless network at my house for many years without a problem. I agree with Cory – it’s not only polite, it’s also not really dangerous.
I’ve worried about the crime-on-borrowed-wireless angle before, but realized that if someone wanted to commit a crime that involved internet access, they would be much better off doing it at a coffee shop or other public place. Doing it off a residential wireless network would nail down a geographical location that would, in all likelihood, be close to where they live.
The internet is inherently public, so any fiddling that might be done at the "local" level with your wifi could also be done upstream, at the ISP, or upstream from there. The payback would be much greater (and more likely) going after those targets versus a single wireless network. Pork’s scenario would only work in his specific example – if someone tried that at my house, I wouldn’t connect to their bogus peer-to-peer network. Why would I when my own is available? And .. I wouldn’t pay bills at a coffee shop, airport, etc. But again that’s a separate issue from running an open network at home.
Lulu: I had the same thought. An asteroid death, while cool, is probably a lot less common than 1 in 600. I’ve heard the same comparison before, and it’s pretty silly.
Isn’t an open wireless network a defense against RIAA lawsuits anyway? I could’ve sworn that the RIAA dropped at least one lawsuit due to that defense.
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#16 posted by Stephan Lukac , January 10, 2008 11:15 AM
I WAS totally open to the idea until I got slapped with a $50 fee from my ISP. I guess one of my neighbors decided to run a huge P2P network via my open WiFi network and racked up a 20 GB upload and 50 GB download on my account.
After much back and forth with my ISP they said that it was ultimately my own fault. They are only a “utility” company providing a basic service and like the water or electric company they can’t be help liable if someone “steals” a connection. Ever since then I’ve kept a secure WiFi, sad but true. Perhaps we need a service like Spanish “fon” here in North America to really make this work. http://www.fon.com/en/
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#17 posted by Cpt. Tim , January 10, 2008 11:16 AM
I hate having to hunt for open networks, or finding out what the password is at a friends house. So i leave mine open. its karma. I’m just one extra open point for someone on their search.
check out the FON program. i actually got a free wireless router through them.
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#18 posted by EH , January 10, 2008 11:23 AM
Stephan: With the right hardware and/or software you could institute bandwidth limits for unknown clients.
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#19 posted by notyou , January 10, 2008 11:23 AM
Schneier suggests a service called Fon, which is essentially a community of wifi sharers and a router with two signals. One signal is encrypted and private and for the homeowner; the second is open and public and for other members of the Fon community.
I suppose if one possessed a spare wifi router, something similar could be set up; one router for sharing and another for hiding behind.
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#20 posted by fuzzferatu , January 10, 2008 11:25 AM
One day, I received a strange phone call from my (now former) boss, asking me to come in for a meeting to discuss commissions.
When I arrived, breathless with anticipation of finally (finally!) getting paid these overdue commissions, I was instead hustled into a room with two foreboding strangers. They were detectives from the Vancouver, WA police department.
They grilled me about my IP address, what kind of laptop I had, etc. until they gave up and revealed that a stolen laptop had been detected on my IP address. I explained that there was a public park across the street from my apartment, so it was likely the crooks used my open wifi to do their dastardly deeds, which was pirating music files.
The detectives lightened up quite a bit and became very friendly. We had a great talk about their jobs, how they find stolen computers, pirating music ("we couldn’t care less," they said). They warned me that if the crooks had downloaded child porn over my connection, I would be in a legal morass trying to prove that I had no involvement. When child porn is in the mix, the law comes down hard. I would have needed a lawyer, they told me.
Scary stuff. I went home and secured that connection post haste.
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#21 posted by trebonius , January 10, 2008 11:41 AM
Right on. I keep mine open for the same reasons.
I use a High Power Buffalo router with the open-source firmware called Tomato. It allows me to set a few rules so that any aliens using my wireless have a few light limitations imposed on them, and I have it set to give me a QOS advantage, so if my service is approaching saturation, the alien’s packets slow down before my own do.
I have never noticed even the slightest of slowdowns caused by outside users.
I’ve been toying with the idea of adding a splash screen using NoCatSplash so that I can tell people they’re welcome to use my wifi as long as they’re well-behaved, and encourage them to do the same if they ever operate their own access point.
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#22 posted by skarbreeze , January 10, 2008 11:51 AM
There are really three responses in my book:
1. Free love. I like this one the most, as it seems Cory does.
2. Greedy selfish… to the Nth degree. Aka it’s mine, don’t touch it! This is how most people feel about something they pay for every month, or that’s my best guess in any case.
3. Scared into security. I don’t want to go to court because some child molester met with my neighbor’s little girl, and used my ‘net connection to talk with her on myspace/facebook and set the meeting time. Or be the access point over which was shared the latest movie screener two weeks before it hit theaters.
I fall into the third section. I’m not big-hearted enough to risk my life savings to defend sharing a resource that anyone can use simply by hitting the Starbucks around the corner. Ah well!
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#23 posted by strathmeyer , January 10, 2008 11:59 AM
"Guests are people I know and have invited to share my hospitality, not a stranger who pulls up outside my house hoping to score some free web access."
We are all in this together, but we all die alone.
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#24 posted by Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator , January 10, 2008 12:07 PM
Alfie (12), you should find out what the law in your area says about trash cans. Here in Brooklyn, you’re liable for a ticket if you leave them anywhere but on the sidewalk; likewise if you put them out when it isn’t a garbage pickup day. The usual reason people will put cans in the street is that they’re trying to reserve the parking space. If I had your neighbor, I’d assume that was what he was trying to do.
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#25 posted by Kid , January 10, 2008 12:16 PM
#22: I am scared of that as well. Do you think it is traceable what MAC address downloaded the wrong files through your router?
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#26 posted by Takuan , January 10, 2008 12:19 PM
Perhaps you crazy kids can help a senior citizen out here; (excuse me if I drop out here and there, the rubber cups on my modem are dried out and cracked):
What’s it take in current hardware (that will fit in a van)to set up a node that would support wifi file sharing among say, 500 users? The idea being that you would receive a face to face invite (with a one use key) to attend an event location somewhere (they used to call them "raves" , heh heh) ,show up with your lap top and share files with like minded people out of the prying electronic sight of the RIAA and other instruments of Satan?
Oh yeah, they could serve drinks and dance too.
Oh, I suppose they already do this, but I don’t get out much these days (cackle, wheeze)
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#27 posted by Webbie , January 10, 2008 12:20 PM
Cory check your online bank account ;o)
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#28 posted by billstewart , January 10, 2008 12:26 PM
I leave my wireless open, and occasionally my laptop will glom onto a neighbor’s open wireless or they’ll use mine. I’ve only had a problem once – my neighbor’s laptop got pwned and was using my wireless to send spam. Since I use a small customer-friendly ISP instead of a big cable modem or telco, my ISP called about the problem, and we checked that it was the wireless and not my PC, so I turned it off temporarily and contacted my neighbors who cleaned up their laptop. It was interesting that the spamware preferred to use the harder-to-trace wireless instead of her wired connection.
Unfortunately, the wireless encryption protocols are really designed for corporate access control – I’d prefer to encrypt my wireless link but leave the access open for guests.
A friend of mine used to leave his access open until the neighbor’s kid discovered file sharing. He didn’t think there was a significant legal risk, but it was burning enough bandwidth that it interefered with his own usage. Some routers may be smart enough to do fair queuing on the bandwidth, but at least back then it wasn’t common.
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#29 posted by salsaman , January 10, 2008 12:33 PM
Glad so many of us are of the same mind– dig that "reading a map by my porch light" analogy, and I’m changing my SSID when I get home to include my email and welcome guests.
But then I’m the sort of person to puts potted plants outside my door on the street, not worrying about somebody stealing or dogs peeing on them.
Service providers of all stripes must be scratching their heads bald worrying about what’ll happens when WiMax hits…
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#30 posted by Rukasu , January 10, 2008 12:44 PM
As someone who syphons a very fast wireless connection off my unbeknownst neighbor (gratis), I feel that if the person doesn’t care or is ignorant to the fact that they can lock their connection, then it becomes free for all once those waves leave their apartment.
Even if they locked it, I would not be averse to knocking on their door and offering to pay part of the bill (saving me a comcast or verizon subscription/contract and both of us getting a discount, in a sense) thus guaranteeing myself exclusive access to their network. Call me a cheap bastard, but I would do the same for anyone else, and until they do block it, I’ll use it. I am surprised more people don’t advertise within they apartment complexes to share connections to split the costs of ISP bills.
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#31 posted by abb3w , January 10, 2008 12:46 PM
I get a craptacular cable modem connection free with my lease; it is sufficiently unreliable that I use my DSL for my home machines. Being a geek, I’ve a vast amount of minor networking crap about. So, I hooked up a spare Wireless AP to it, and it sits there, open and free to the world.
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#32 posted by salsaman , January 10, 2008 12:51 PM
Also: setting up my sister’s wireless network a few years ago– my lawyer sister with huge confidential cases– she insisted that I keep her network open. She gave me a lawyerly reasons that surprised me:
* It’s her IT department’s job to make sure people don’t steal data; she has to use networks for work and it’s fine. She knows what https means.
* There’s no way she can be held responsible for stuff she can’t reasonably monitor.
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#33 posted by blacklabelsk8erX , January 10, 2008 12:55 PM
I’d like to see something like JJasper was talking about. Why can’t like-minded neighbors get the super mega DSL or cable internet and then pipe it to each other either by wifi or Point-2-Point directional wireless? At least there are some people who are open minded enough to see the bigger picture and share their radio waves.
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#34 posted by copydeskcat , January 10, 2008 1:18 PM
It’s great fun when my neighbours snag my wi-fi then download movies all night on it, reducing my browsing speed to a crawl.
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#35 posted by Crash , January 10, 2008 1:23 PM
My biggest worry with open WiFi is that it would encourage strangers to loiter near my home.
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#36 posted by skarbreeze , January 10, 2008 1:24 PM
Re: "#22: I am scared of that as well. Do you think it is traceable what MAC address downloaded the wrong files through your router?"
For most, yes. But it’s not so simple as all that, unfortunately. If I may venture a guess, the logic you are hoping to use is "No PC in my house has that MAC address, so don’t prosecute me/disconnect me/jail me!"
Although I like the idea, there is no way to prove that you never owned a PC with that MAC address. It’s proving a negative, which isn’t possible unless the actual device with that MAC address is located and they can nail that user and let you off the hook. As they say, somebody has to pay!
So in short, as ideal and nice as it is to leave it hanging out there, I’m not willing to risk my reputation/money/livelihood just to help random strangers a little bit.
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#37 posted by Hunty , January 10, 2008 1:33 PM
no thanks. I’d really rather not give my entire neighborhood free access to the fileserver where I keep all my stuff and make regular backups.
And to anyone who suggests that I should put security on the server to protect it from the people I’m sharing free wifi with, I will suggest that you put deadbolts on every door in your house and then leave your front door unlocked so that random strangers can come hang out in your living room whenever they want, but can’t go into your room and poop on your bed while you sleep.
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#38 posted by vendorx , January 10, 2008 1:53 PM
I don’t see that much wrong with letting strangers sleep in my front room if I can definitely keep them out of my private affairs, either.
The issue I’ve always had with either of these notions is volume volume volume. I don’t mind one random person a night on my couch, but I can’t handle, say, ten, or fifty. Same is true of my WiFi. I leave it open when I’m not doing anything myself, but when I need the bandwidth, I have to close it off again. My neighbors tend to overwhelm it given the chance, leaving me with precious little left to, say, build in Second Life while downloading lesbian porn. Now, once I upgrade my bandwidth again, this may become less an issue, but for now I can’t do my own work if I have an open WiFi.
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#39 posted by salsaman , January 10, 2008 1:55 PM
Hunty: locking down your stuff internally is a good idea regardless and kind of a separate issue; I don’t think people are suggesting you don’t use any security– server connections at home should be protected and secure, but in a way that’s transparent to you– deadbolts are one thing, think Star Trek automated doors who know who’s who. My Mac, TiVo, PC’s and printers won’t talk to anybody from the outside, but they’re sure talking to each other– the only thing open to a guest is a WiFi pipe to the intertubes; the rest of my LAN is opaque.
CopyDeskCat: seems useful to figure out how to throttle your guests’ access; too bad wireless router software can be so [expletives deleted]…
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#40 posted by kaosdevice , January 10, 2008 2:03 PM
I’ve got my wifi locked down. Mostly because I do a lot of P2P and I don’t care to share my bandwith. Sure I could set up rules to limit that but when giving other people free net access = work for me, sorry but they are out of luck. I’ll give to charity or get my good karma points in some other fashion. Espescially when there are tons of places in my hometown that offer free net access.
If that makes me a jerk in some people’s eyes fine. But on the flip side I’m one of the few people I know that holds the door for others so, go figure.
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#41 posted by theturtle , January 10, 2008 2:11 PM
I live in a very rural area, and a surprising number of my elderly neighbors not only don’t use the net, they still have old black bakelite telephones with cloth cords and stamped-steel dials. Thus, if anyone’s going to borrow my wireless, it’ll likely be exactly the sort of situation Scheier and others figure: someone who’s lost and needs to GoogleMap their way out of trouble. I’ve done it plenty of times… often, if I’m driving down I-95 in rural North or South Carolina, I’ll pull into a cheap motel that offers "free internet" and borrow their connection for just long enough to find what I need. I am in tune enough with my connection at home that if some was suddenly doing warez P2P or porn I’d find out about it pretty quick (and they’d find out how crappy my router is under heavy load).
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#42 posted by Takuan , January 10, 2008 2:32 PM
So… I suppose I could use my rural-situated connection as kind of a trip wire for noticing those distressed travellers….. a-yep, some of them got pretty mouths….
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#43 posted by Beaver , January 10, 2008 4:05 PM
I have the cradlepoint router, if someone wants to use my connection they can ask via chat from the router, pretty nifty. They can connect to my network and it loads a chat page. No one has asked yet. I would say yes if someone did.
I use a sprint wireless card(canned Time Warner after a massive F up and generally shitty service) and the above router as my only source of net. It bogs down pretty easily so I keep mine closed….maybe all of you fancy high speed having mofos can be so generous….but when your bandwidth ain’t so wide….
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#44 posted by Takuan , January 10, 2008 5:33 PM
Sony pictures "Untraceable" comes out soon. Watch the number of unsecured networks drop suddenly.
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#45 posted by sebastian6 , January 10, 2008 5:46 PM
I just did posted an interview we did with Bruce Schneier on the future of security. Really interesting stuff. He also did one of the keynotes at our annual conference (EDUCAUSE).
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#46 posted by trebor , January 10, 2008 5:51 PM
If the world is filled with the likes of Cory Doctorow, then I certainly wouldn’t mind sharing my bandwidth so that they can check their e-mail, lookup directions, read boingboing to pass time, etc. But our world isn’t like that. Where I live, my President and government think basic rights, like due process, innocent until proven guilty, etc., do not exist especially if it involves any notion of terrorism or "national security." And we have, for good reasons, very little tolerance for child porn, but we’re pretty quick to judge, and very slow to forgive and reconcile.
So if some sicko happens to surf for kiddie porn, or visit/blog a "questionable" (especially if it looks Islamic), and my friendly government authorities just happen to get a whiff of it, I would be royally fucked. Schneier even admits that with prosecutors being less than tech savvy, I’d probably be charged with a crime despite my innocence, and in cases of child porn cases, most defense lawyers recommend plea bargain (ie., plead guilty), which means, as a registered sex offender, your choice of finding living quarters will be severely limited (provided you survive your prison term), and you certainly will have a hard time getting back to where you were in life before the cops burst through your front door.
I disagree with Schneir when he says he doesn’t think it’s much of a risk. It IS a big risk, since the consequences of being labeled a kiddie porn sicko or a terrorist often mean months or years behind bars, financial ruin, and general destruction of a person’s life. It would be far better to die in an airplane crash. Maybe a well known guy like Bruce can amass good lawyers and publicity, but for most Joes, their lives will forever be ruined. You may have a higher chance of dying a horrible death in an airplane crash, but I’d rather suffer that and lock down my network than to suffer the hell innocent people go through when they’re wrongly labeled a criminal.
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#47 posted by Crash , January 10, 2008 5:55 PM
Schneier’s reasoning for the risks of keeping an open home wi-fi are "farfetched" sounds similar to Jeremy Clarkson’s reasoning for why fears of identify theft are "hysterical".
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#48 posted by zephoria , January 10, 2008 6:05 PM
What are good options for modulating bandwidth?
I’m a huge believer in open WiFi but a few weeks ago, I had to shut mine off. Someone in the neighborhood appears to be a huge bandwidth hog, making it impossible for me to do my work. I hate having locked WiFi, but I don’t know how to make certain that I can get what I need and leave the rest for anyone who wants it.
My ideal situation would be that when I’m online, I get to be the complete bandwidth hog. When I’m not online, everyone else can duke it out. I have an Airport Extreme and a Mac. Is there anything that I can do to intelligently control the bandwidth so that I don’t have to close down my network?
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#49 posted by justanotherusername , January 10, 2008 6:16 PM
German prosecutors are investigating 12,000 suspects in a child pornography network. (AFP Dec 24, 2007)
You may want the world to be perfect, it is not. You may want everybody to be nice, they are not.
Cory Doctorow is famous and might not fear this, I for one do not want to get accused or arrested for child porn, thank you very much.
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#50 posted by Takuan , January 10, 2008 6:23 PM
neeehh..
http://blog.itsecurityexpert.co.uk/2007/11/uk-wifi-theft-is-rife.html
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#51 posted by Stickarm , January 10, 2008 6:40 PM
@Pork Musket (Nos. 5, 11 & 14)
It doesn’t seem like anyone has really replied to the point you’re raising, so I’ll give it a try. I have to say, though, it seems that if you have read Schneier’s article, as Mr. Doctorow implores you to do, you are misunderstanding the point being made and, hopefully unintentionally, introducing a degree of FUD to the discussion here.
As has been pointed out, and as you observe yourself, the example you provided isn’t terribly malicious. It’s on par with trying to connect to what appears to be an open network only to find that it doesn’t provide a connection to the Internet. No big deal.
But the point you’re trying to make, obviously, is that if you’re using an open network and you enter your bank account information, that information can be recorded by people running the network you’re using. Okay, that seems intuitively plausible.
But so what?
This situation means that when one is using an open local network as an Internet connection, one should avoid transmitting sensitive information over that connection. That seems like good advice and is a kind of low-level common sense for using the Internet on par with "Don’t double-click on unexpected attachments that purport to be naked pictures of Martina Navratilova," et cetera.
No matter how useful, I think we can get off the "Can we really trust the Internet?" train of thought at this point — that is not what is being discussed here.
Schneier and Doctorow are writing about running an open network, not accessing one.
To the extent that he addresses being vulnerable while using one’s own open local network, Schneier actually uses exactly the argument you’re raising, except in reverse — you should be focusing on securing your computer, not your network. From his article:
"[M]y computers are much more at risk when I use them on wireless networks in airports, coffee shops and other public places. If I configure my computer to be secure regardless of the network it’s on, then it simply doesn’t matter. And if my computer isn’t secure on a public network, securing my own network isn’t going to reduce my risk very much."
So the point Schneier and Doctorow are making stands — the risk of running an open local network is lower than it may seem to be and the benefits largely outweigh that risk.
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#52 posted by number14 , January 10, 2008 7:12 PM
say i bought an old product, an original airport express for example, and there was no way to get the software to secure the router if you were running windows vista, even though there was software available that would work. Say, just for the sake of argument apple refuses to make the latest version of the software downloadable. Say you even emailed them and asked for it and they told you they couldn’t help. if you got arrested and locked up for downloading child porn and could later show it was someone else using your unsecurable network, would you have a case against apple? because i might just have a get rich quick plan.
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#53 posted by pork musket , January 10, 2008 8:28 PM
@51 – thanks for taking the time to reply. I certainly did not intend to add FUD, I know many people that aren’t familiar with network architecture and how things work, especially wireless. I just wanted to add a warning since the article portrays open and unsecured networks as typically run by happy folks willing to share, with good intentions. While mostly true, there’s no harm in warning and educating folks that may not be as computer oriented.
Please don’t perceive this as more FUD (the article gives a nod to folks like Schneier), but here is an example found on Slashdot of a man who was arrested for using another man’s unsecured network. The network owner obviously didn’t educate himself on wireless, and other parties paid for the owner’s ignorance.
I’m a trusting person, but I’m also skeptical. Learn everything you can about the decisions you make. You can’t manage risk if you don’t know it’s there.
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#54 posted by togetherless , January 10, 2008 8:36 PM
Along with #48, I would like to be pointed in a tutorial direction. I have left my router open and named "linksys" for as long as I’ve had it. I agree with the principle of leaving it open, but it’s also because I don’t fully understand how to manage it otherwise. Plus, as has been said aplenty, when my friends and mom come over, they turn on their laptops and go. seems so easy.
but seriously, can someone point me in the direction of where to learn? I obviously know how to type in boingboing.net, but more than that I… um… not have way.
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#55 posted by pork musket , January 10, 2008 9:03 PM
WikiHow has a decent summary of the things involved in securing a network, although you may want to keep google handy as a glossary (define:term searches are great). This is a high level view – for specific procedures you’d need to look in the manual for your router. I would definitely recommend checking to see if your router supports OpenWRT, which is essentially an embedded linux install that replaces your router’s OEM firmware, and typically opens up MUCH more functionality like bandwidth throttling and Quality of Service (QoS) filters. I know that all sounds daunting, but it’s not hard. Start here: http://wiki.x-wrt.org/index.php/Installation_Guide
If anyone has questions, feel free to email me at brawest@gmail.com. One caveat is to check that your hardware can handle the encryption you use. Older adapters may not play well with WPA/WPA2.
Another option is to secure via MAC address, which allows you to only allow chosen wireless adapters to connect. It can be tedious to implement if you have a large network, but if you add mom’s laptop’s MAC address, it will always ‘just work’. Also, wireless encryption is relatively easy to crack, so MAC address lists are an additional, effective layer.
Hopefully some of that is helpful!
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#56 posted by Porori , January 10, 2008 11:21 PM
We run an open wireless network – but it`s a bit different from the situations talked about here. Our router is an older, but very nice model. It doesn`t natively support wireless. We use a separate wireless router. It`s not technically part of our household network, as we don`t really use wireless for anything other than game consoles. They don`t require access to our file server, etc. And if someone feels the desire to hijack our online gaming, good for them.
We have a 100Mbps (although we only get about half of that in reality) connection with the wireless limited to 8Mbps which is more than fast enough for any valid uses. We definitely never feel any slow-down as a result of someone using our connection. As it`s used mainly by kids in our building, we call it "room-101 free wireless". We occasionally are thanked, and have even gotten a note put into our post by a thankful person who needed to look up a map to get to their sister`s wedding.
I doubt I would continue it though if it was included in our household network. I like keeping our file server open and on 24/7, which would have to change if our networks situations changed. (Not that we have anything particularly sensitive on it.)
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#57 posted by CJ , January 11, 2008 3:24 AM
Wow, you guys live in nice countries. Here in ZA, bandwidth is so expensive, you don’t dare let anyone else use even just a little bit of it. Plus, the average cap is just 1Gb, so there’s really not that much to go around.
That said, even if was really cheap, I don’t think I would leave mine open, for all of the reasons listed above.
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#58 posted by Simon Greenwood , January 11, 2008 3:31 AM
I’ve gone with Fon to share my connection. The la Fonera router limits the connection speed to 512k, can be configured to allow 15 free minutes in return for an advert, and allows a bit of optional profit sharing if someone buys a pass from your AP. Fon has done a deal with BT where members can use their Openzone service for free (actually, this might just be for BT ADSL customers – I haven’t checked it), as well as free connection to other Fon hotspots. The downside is that I live in a residential area and the range of the router isn’t brilliant, even with the extender, and my village isn’t exactly a hotbed of technology. Looking on their maps confirms that this is the case for much of Leeds, and I presume many other cities in the UK and elsewhere that have a large suburban population. Still, as ‘open’ wi-fi goes, it’s a good compromise between truly open and locked down.
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#59 posted by Narual , January 11, 2008 4:04 AM
My apartment complex originally had our connection open for the whole neighborhood, but we got tired of people taking it down using p2p irresponsibly,and unfortunately because of the way the system was set up, blocking them by MAC didn’t work.
We finally locked it down and required all the residents who wished to use it to change their network IDs to match their apartment addresses. Anyone not named properly gets IP blocked, and anyone caught using P2P (which only happens if it slows the network down enough that the owner or I notice) gets blocked at least til the owner talks to them and they promise to stop.
Oh, and we use QOS and so on, but that doesn’t stop the excessive wireless traffic from taking the router out (though at least with the latest firmware patch it reboots itself instead of just hanging til someone power cycles it).
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#60 posted by sevichase , January 11, 2008 7:40 AM
Thank you for saying that there is little danger. I have always said if those people who are super security conscience about their network connections applied the same overkill to their home security their houses would be fortresses. All the windows would have bars or even lock down metal screens, the doors would be metal and they would have 6 locks with 6 different combinations!
vc
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#61 posted by Joe MommaSan , January 11, 2008 8:33 AM
To me, it’s basic politeness. Providing internet access to guests is kind of like providing heat and electricity, or a hot cup of tea.
Any of which I’ll be more than happy to provide to an actual guest whom I’ve invited into my house. If they’re my guest, I’ll gladly give them the SSID (which is not broadcast on my wireless network) and the passphrase. But I don’t go out into the street and chase down random passers-by to offer them a cup of tea – why would I do the equivalent by allowing them unrestricted access to my wifi?
In a perfect world, I’d agree with Cory. But in case you haven’t noticed, it’s a long way from a perfect world. I’m not willing to take this kind of risk just so I can do some stranger a favor.
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#62 posted by ankh , January 11, 2008 5:44 PM
I recommend this thread:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r18517795-Hosting-a-WiFi-hotspot
started by Dane Jasper of Sonic.net
Sonic.net customers can put a wifi access point up that lets neighbors log in directly to Sonic. Most of those are up around Santa Rosa, CA, but the’re scattered throughout the customer base elsewhere as well.
Mr. Jasper distinguishes this from FON, and has commented on the problems that a system like FON create for ISPs like Sonic.
He’s continued to participate there and answered a good many questions.
(He also has a blog now: http://corp.sonic.net/blog/ )
I know FON has some cooperative projects with ISPs, but I’m still wondering how a small ISP can survive if a lot of its customers start sharing their connection via FON. The business model has to be priced based on some expectation of how much use each line is getting.
I’m guessing (pure uninformed guess) that FON will have to start setting up its own ISP connections to feed the network of FON devices eventually — won’t individual people figure out that once the system gets dense enough, they can just keep their FON device and cancel their own personal ISP and use their neighbors’?
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#63 posted by ryuthrowsstuff , January 12, 2008 12:35 PM
My dad’s a cop. He does child porn investigations, and while he’s never heard of anyone being mistakenly arrested because of an open network he has had a few cases that hit a brick wall. If the cops have any sense at all your not going to get arrested or even really investigated if a pervert jumps your connection. its just going to make it difficult to find the pervert in question.
Besides that in college I ran an open network, as did my neighbors who were good friends of mine. they’re internet went down and they never bothered to fix it so they ended up jumping my connection for around two months. the added burden of three extra computers running WOW left my connection running at a crawl whenever I went to use it. I probably wouldn’t have minded if they had told me about it or made any effort to have their connection fixed before I yelled them.
For these two reasons I run a closed network now.
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#64 posted by adam , January 14, 2008 4:40 PM
I run an open network in part for the reasons that Cory and Bruce point out.
Plus, it’s an interesting IT exercise. I have a good firewall (astaro) and the AP is on the DMZ. I’d never really get an opportunity to run a three-netted firewall without something useful on the DMZ.
I can monitor usage (well, at least it get logged), and if a cop knocked on my door about child porn, I’d be able to find the MAC address of the offender from firewall logs (DHCP logs). If I were inclined, there’s a way to limit the bandwidth on the DMZ or prioritize non-DMZ traffic, or etc.