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Privacy in the world of [Google Glass] and wearable computing . . . and wifi, apparently
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What is the cost though? All we are saying is you add a public flag going forward.
What are your thoughts on the cat-5 distinction?
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Yeah, I've never seen a router that didn't default to open network.
I think the cat-5 distinction is a silly one. But if you want an answer, and you want it to be at all analogous, let's assume that cat-5 cables are sold with little tags that say, "Open network, help yourself!" By default, the tag is sealed in a little bag along with information about what an open network is. You see a cat-5 cable dangling out a window with the "Open network, help yourself!" tag attached. Is it okay to connect? Yes. Is it possible someone is just ignorant and stuck it on there on accident? Sure, but that's not my problem. The person has gone out of their way to communicate that their network is fair game, when the default is to make no such communication.
When I see a plate of cookies at work that says "Help yourself!", I take one. I don't worry about whether the sign might have been meant for a different plate, or whether the owner of the cookies speaks a different language and doesn't understand what "Help yourself!" means.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
Dropping on a wifi network to check your email for a second isn't a mortal sin tho
The routers I've bought have been open as default, but I've seen routers that come as part of a TV/phone/broadband package that are secured as default and have the password printed on a sticker on the side. I don't know if that's something specific to UK though.
Cost is that using a device from another country, or before the public flag was fully adopted puts you at risk of criminal proceedings (if we're treating it as trespassing or theft) - or that you've made it a lot more complicated to move about a city making use of public wifi networks.
What's wrong with making open=public? It's a lot more backwards compatible and should be considered a very basic part of internet safety education. Pretty much all positive with far less negative effects.
Because there is no "internet safety education" and open =/= public when it comes to your router in our culture.
I don't think you are responding to what I am saying. I agree that if something says "help yourself" then it is fair game. I am saying that if your network is open but not flagged as public then someone saying "it's open, so it's ok to just connect and use the owner's bandwidth" is unacceptable. I think that the cat 5 is exactly analogous to the unsecured private network. It's sitting there, and you can use it because no one has taken an affirmative step to stop you from using it, but that doesn't mean that you have permission to do it or should do it.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Happy?
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
You are accepting this, and I agree, but there are people in this thread who are arguing that the former is a fine behavior. None of them have said whether they agree that they are analogous, or about whether it is wrong to plug in the random cat-5.
The broader point that I am trying to get people's takes on is whether using someone's bandwidth is ever ok. This is a distinct issue from connecting to a wifi network, which people (for reasons I still don't understand) seem to think is wholly exceptional within the range of possible human activities.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
I was thinking about this yesterday and I realized one of the points that was bugging me. Even in the scenario where you are using my bandwidth and you can 100% prove it has 0 effect on me, there is still the issue of unequal pay. You are getting a service for free that I have to pay for. So even if your use has no effect on my cost, and is in no way limiting my ability to do whatever I want, you are still getting that service for free because I am paying. That doesn't seem right.
I agree completely. I have paid for it, and for that reason alone, I have an entitlement to use it. You have not paid, and so you have no right to use it, and in your use, you harm me by abridging my exclusive right to the service I have paid for.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
I think the details matter, though. In your cookie analogy, is it alright for me to just take all of the cookies? I mean, it says, "Help yourself!", right?
A lot of the time, people jump onto unsecured WiFi and just throttle the shit out of the bandwidth (partly because routers aren't very good at efficiently splitting bandwidth between different users), so the person paying for it no longer has access (or access worth half a shit). I can agree with, "Well, everyone should be passwording their shit," but there's still a large demographic that doesn't understand what things like 'bandwidth' or 'WEP' mean while using the technology. Do we just tell these people, "Eh, too bad for you. Leechers gonna leech." ?
Pretty much every person has already indicated that taking all of your bandwidth would be wrong. There's no debate to be had here. The only remaining question is if it's still wrong even if there is no discernible effects. Is it still wrong if you literally cannot even tell if someone else is on your network (like with an auto-connected phone that is using a negligible amount of bandwidth for app statuses or whatever)? I would say yes.
I would also counter the argument that it creates more negative effects by policing this auto-connect scenario by pointing out that if it is morally wrong we can always apply appropriate punishment and enforcement levels. If push came to shove I would probably agree that jay walking is bad for society. That doesn't mean I think jaywalkers are the scrounge of the earth and that we need to up police levels by 1000% to seriously cut down on the jaywalking. In this case it just so happens that the negative impacts of jaywalking are so small that it just is not worth almost any action to counteract it. That's not the same thing as saying it's totally legit and you are not in the wrong if you do it.
I find that law a little odd and frankly I don't really agree with it. Quid brought up recording video at a park. His intent is not to record other people, but it happens. And even if his intent was to record the people, it's a totally public place. I don't see any moral harm in doing so and I don't think a law against that kind of activity is justified.
Note: I don't think that is true for every location and situation but I don't agree with a blanket law against recording without explicit permission.
Also, what about cops? We absolutely should be able to record cops and whatnot without permission. Does your state's law prevent that as well?
I think there needs to be a reasonable balance here.
This is more or less where I come down. Using someone's bandwidth without their permission is wrong, even if it doesn't harm them in any tangible way, but it's such a little wrong I'm not going to give any fucks about it, as compared to some others who seem to be giving all the fucks.
FWIW, I don't see any harm in taking the whole pile of cookies from the Help Yourself tray, unless there is a specific statement that says "Just take one," or something, or if you know that it's a reasonable expectation that you would only take one. Taking all the cookies from the breakroom at work is kind of a dick move; taking all the cookies from a plate on the street is not.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
That's right. No one is saying we should mobilize the police with scanners to detect connections to unsecured networks or anything. We are just pushing back against the "it's ok to steal bandwidth because its all radiation floating in the air" techceptionslism claims that people are making here. It's really no different from thinking piracy is wrong but not wanting to arrest pirates.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
I think all routers should be secured out of the box, and there should be a card with the network name and password in the box when you buy it.
The first time you connect to the internet with the router using that info, it will redirect you to an internal page that asks for you to name your network, and enter a WPA2 password of your choosing.
It will then tell you to join your new network, and reboot with your settings.
If all the main manufacturers (linksys, cisco, belkin, trendnet, buffalo, etc) all agreed to do this on all new firmwares and all new models, this problem would self-correct in 5-7 years; which is plenty fast enough considering that wearable computing will probably only just begin to be popular by that time. the mass market will not embrace wearable computing until the devices shrink beyond the obvious, or can become an acceptable fashion accessory and not 1/3 of a Geordi LaForge.
Why isn't it a dick move? I'd argue that the difference isn't the dickery, but the potential for accountability.
Well, look - if it's just some dude leeching 0.5 kb/s to check their e-mail, yeah, who gives a fuck?
But is that anyone's experience with leeching? My experience has been that nine times out of ten, leechers do bullshit like firing-up 500 kb/s torrents, stream HD video, play games, etc. And hey, why not? It's not like it's their bandwidth. I haven't met these 'courteous' leechers that make sure they're not infringing on your ability to use the service.
Back in my first attempt at college the school had leasing agreements with an apartment complex. Back then it was WPA or bust. I happened to live with and around a bunch of Linux using Netsec students who were cracking the WPA passwords or finding open ones (in 2005 it was much rarer to see a secured router) and using them under the auspices of "information should be free". And then they'd play Battlefield 2 or download torrents by the bucketful. So maybe my experience with WiFi users is tainted.
It was so bad that even though I paid for my internet I didn't tell them about it and had a single hard line to my tower with the cable modem located underneath the left foot of my desk so you couldn't see it.
Ugh.
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Check it out.
This was my experience up until my most recent router which was a pleasant surprise. Though it's also Verizon's and not mine.
No. Nerdy would be advocating for Blizzard to make a Glass version of WoW and start selling costumes.
Yeah, I just got a new FIOS router recently and it defaulted to WPA 64-bit.
But that's not the norm, I don't think.
Also, makes me think of those dudes in Serial Experiments: LAIN.
Also, the Borg.
no need artificial eyes really. The military is already working on systems to project a HUD directly onto your retinas. So basically Google Glass with no actual glass.
I figured he was concerned more abuot the capacity of functional prosthetic eyes to record picture and video surreptitiously.
Reminds me of, say, Interceptors
I have a tumblr.
Check it out.
This is why you never update the software.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
That's only a HIPAA violation if the medical records are accessible to any old person using Glass.
Hell, I can even see setting it up so they can give electronic consent via a thumbprint on the practitioner's smartphone or something to OK those records being forwarded to necessary parties.
I doubt very much that the hardware has the right encryption to satisfy the HIPAA security rule. Anything google related probably does not.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Are you talking about storing the data on the device, or securing it while it's being transmitted to the headset? I confess I'm not exceptionally well informed on the storage requirements mandated by HIPAA, but the most you need to transmit PHI is https with valid means of insuring authentication (user credentials, SSL cert, etc). And I would be pretty surprised if Glass doesn't support that.
As to storage, I would assume the app itself can be programmed to handle the necessary encryption/decryption for compliance.
I'm concerned about two things. First is storage, but second, like all google products, presumably there is information capture from google.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
It would have to be setup in such a way that google can't see the actual contents of the records while their in transit. Like, you use their face recognition software to generate a name, then you send that name and your credentials over HTTPS to whatever vendor is housing the records. The transmission of the data is totally doable in a compliant way.
Of course, I'm assuming that once the records are actually on Glass that they're not being reuploaded to Google's servers simply by virtue of viewing the data. But that would be an issue for anything remotely private (financial data, private correspondence, etc) that you wished to view over the headset, so I feel like there has to be a way to control that built in.
Maybe that's a naive assumption though?
Have you read a Google EULA? There be dragons in there.