[geeks] Unsecured Wifi connections now illegal in part of India.

[Shannon Hendrix]

On Jan 13, 2009, at 20:33 , Lionel Peterson wrote:

> You've got it backwards, the "bad guys" went to a neighborhood and  
> used, say, your insecure home WiFi hotspot to send emails, when the  
> Gov't tracked the IP address to your home, they assumed YOU were the  
> terrorist, and acted accordingly.

No, I don't have it backwards.

If they cannot find unsecured access points, they'll just slightly  
inconvenience themselves by using "safe house" communications of the  
wi-fi variety, much like they have been doing with other forms of  
communication for a very long time.

> If your home hotspot was "secure" they would have avoided that  
> confusion, since the "bad guy" couldn't use your Internet connection.

You mean terrorists are magically prevented form using tools that  
teenagers in the rest of the world use all the time?

> Securing WiFi is an attempt to deny "bad guys" that particular form  
> of annonymous Internet access.

It's a feel good that I doubt can be enforced, and even if it can,  
it's going to be expensive.

> The "bad guys" aren't running hotspots, either secure or insecure  
> ones...

Ignoring the erroneous assumption that they don't run their own  
hotspots, they certainly would as soon as it became impossible or  
difficult to use easier methods.


-- 
Shannon Hendrix
shannon at widomaker.com