The official Episode 78 thread

Hopefully it'll be out soon... (?)

Indeed it is.

Er, sorry, it is now. My bad.

Don't mix your drinks, kids.

Getting it!

My rebuttals to Rory's arguments regarding WiFi:

At the time of writing, I don't know who won the trial, but man, you so should have recruited me for this one.

Typing this as I listen

Once again, M'lord Reid was trying to misdirect us with faulty analogies.

Garden furniture - It's completely ridiculous to say that someone is stealing the furniture. If you use someone's open WiFi spot, then they still have the service, you are not taking it from them. They still have it, they still have control of it. So the garden analogy should have been comparing using someone's router to sitting on someone's garden furniture, not stealing it. If a stranger sits on it, you still have it, and you can still tell them to bugger off.

Car analogy - There is nothing stopping you disconnecting that rope, just as there is nothing stopping you engaging encryption on your connection.

Girlfriend analogy - If nobody knew what happened and there are no lasting effects, then it has made no difference. It's a non-argument. If I ever did find out, I'd want to ask my girlfriend why she didn't lock the door A better analogy would have been a girlfriend with a chastity belt.

If I left a wi-fi router open, and someone used it, they are not taking anything I have. The only possible thing is my bandwidth quota. But again, if you leave a router open (unencrypted, unhidden), then you are implicitly giving your permission.


Now in terms of criminal intent, the only way you could ever prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone had criminal intent is if they purposefully circumvented measures you put in place to stop non-permitted users from accessing your WiFi.


The main issue that comes up with open WiFi routers is that the "openness" isn't just giving you access to the internet, it is also giving you access to someone's home LAN. This creates an issue of easy network intrusion. However, there are router scheme such as "FON" which address this problem, allowing people to share WiFi access without being able to see inside the owner's home network. This has been given corporate support here in the UK by BT (see a posted item I put on on the Crave Podcast Facebook Group).

Aha, Rupert just mentioned it, damn I'm good.

Rory's summing up - security and privacy is completely the issue. Otherwise, we're just talking about the artificial ownership of whose 1's and 0's are going over who's wires.

Oh dear, I've just heard Rupert's verdict. How could he get it so wrong? Surely the crime of stupidity is on the negligence owner of the router for not making the simple settings for encryption.

Once and for all, when we talk about WiFi, can we PLEASE stop the non-sense of using the word "stealing". If you steal something from someone, they don't have it anymore. If I use someone's WiFi, they still have it, I can never steal it from them. However, what I can do is make unauthorised use of it. Then surely the only way to imply an authorised user is the possession of the encryption key. If there is no encryption, i.e. an open router, then surely universal authorisation is implied.

The only criminal action is if you obtain the encryption key without the consent of the router's owner.

I rest on all your faces.

I hear by declare that anyone who uses the word "Stealing" and "WiFi" in the same sentence must be publicly spanked for not knowing the meaning of the word "steal". Then the spanking must be posted on Youtube.

Where's the T-Shirt thread? My people need it!

Pwned, Rory, pwned.

David.. If you'd sat down and listened to my arguments instead of typing an 800-word dissertation while i spoke, you'd have been swayed by my impressive arguments.

You're spoiling for a fight, sir...

I think we need to go head to head. I'll ask the Judge whether it's possible to appeal the case. If not, we'll clash on something new.

Either way, It is I who will be doing the face restage.