Passive-Aggressive Wi-Fi Hotspots

the digital nomad writes "If you've had enough of your neighbor stealing your Wi-Fi connection or letting his dog s#%t on your lawn, there is now a better solution than suffering in silence with your brooding anger: leave your neighbor 'a message!' Passive-Aggressive Wi-Fi Hotspots let your networks say what you cannot. And if you're looking for some great name for your Hotspot, make sure to read this post by Gizmodo."

Or.

[Pojut]

Or you could...you know...actually secure your wifi.

Re:

[BlueTrin]

The above poster is referring to this link [flickr.com] in the article.

Re:Or.

[TheLink]

Not as fun as this:

http://www.ex-parrot.com/pete/upside-down-ternet.html [ex-parrot.com]

You might even purposely not secure your wifi ;).

Re:

[tagno25]

better is upside-down-ternet + kittenwars

Re:

[BattleApple]

he should flip the text upside down too.. http://www.fliptext.org/ [fliptext.org]

Re:

[smartr]

I personally would feel better leeching from a secure connection than my local "tranny hub".

Re:Or.

[digitalhermit]

My wifi is normally secured, but I have some neighbors that are always trying to login. I see their attempts in the router logs and I open the router up every so often just to have fun. I set the broadcast name to "passw0rd" and changed to that password. Sure enough, they immediately log in with that key. I've set the router to deny all traffic except through my squid proxy and all pages redirect to the proxy welcome page until then. I don't care for their personal content, but it's interesting seeing the URLs that show up in the proxy. Many of them set cookies or use other auth so I can't see their content (at least not without changing some settings) but a good percentage use URL encoding so I can pull up their personal sites. The neighbors bounce a lot between facebook, gmail and some news sites. Oh and porn. The bastards watch a lot of porn. I'm probably going to start redirecting those sites to the GOP homepage or a rickroll at some point You can do this by subscribing squid to one of the blocklist sites. Nothing like a dated meme to piss off the neighbors.

Setup of the squid proxy took a few hours.. hardest part was the DNS redirect until they connect to the proxy, but there's tons of instructions now for doing it...

Re:

[furby076]

Network Name "PedoLocalChapter15"

Is it possible to setup a router (e.g. linksys, netgear) to do annoying pop-ups on people's computers who are not on a MAC list? So if someone connects to my network they get a pop-up every X time....I would so spam them, every 3 seconds, with pop-ups to various animal porn sites

Re:

[clf8]

I run my Wifi as a Closed network. It doesn't even show up in people's lists, you have to know the name. Why even advertise a door to begin with?

Re:

[Strange Ranger]

Secure your computers. Share your wifi.

Given the number of visitors and neighbors who have iPhones, blackberries, laptops, etc., it's the friendly thing to do.

Re:

[Taibhsear]

First thing I thought. Gods forbid someone has to type in a password... (honestly if you can't figure out that you should put a password on both your wifi connection and your router you probably shouldn't be playing with those things)

Re:

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

That depends entirely on your definition of "permission". I would say an open AP is more like an "open house" sign on the front lawn, not just an open door.

Re:

[mcvos]

Similarly, using another person's computer resources without explicit permission to do so, even if those resources appear to be freely available, is still illegal.

However, when they advertise the SSID of their open wifi, and respond to your request by giving you an IP and handling your traffic, it's a completely different matter.

They offer to handle your traffic, and when actually requested to do so, they comply. They don't have to do any of that if they don't want to. It's easy to lock wifi. It's easy not to advertise your SSID. It's a bit harder but still quite doable to not give them an IP, or give them an IP and then fuck with their traffic.

Re:

[orasio]

But you neglect the fact that there is a protocol.
By publishing the ESSID, you invite other to connect to your network.
There is no need to publish an ESSID, and you could always lock the network.

If you leave the door open, and put a sign outside that says "come in", people might come to your house. For example, that's how retail works, and that's why we don't put "come in" signs at our front doors.

Re:

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Similarly, using another person's computer resources without explicit permission to do so, even if those resources appear to be freely available, is still illegal.

By your reasoning, if you leave your radio on so loud that the neighbours can listen to your music without having to pay for a radio themselves, then that means they're stealing.

Something tell me that's not how it works either.

Re:

[Myopic]

No, it's not illegal, nor should it be.

Re:

[aurispector]

That's not how I actually spelled it...

Re:

[zappepcs]

Well, you might be right IF it was not possible to accidentally do this. For about a year, my next door neighbor and I were stealing from each other. My wife had blocked our wifi ap in the laptop setup somehow (she doesn't know) and was leaching off the neighbor. When her laptop stopped working, I investigated. Found that it was not set to log to our own AP, and further found that a secondary AP of ours was in a default state, that is enabled and unsecure. Guess who was logged into it? The same neighbor who

Re:

[dwater]

but aren't these people with open wifi actually advertising the fact, inviting you to use it, and telling you how to do it too?

I mean, that's what *I* do with my wifi. How else can I do it without people thinking that they can't without breaking the law?

Re:

[blackest_k]

Trouble with your analogy is that wifi routers default to being relatively secure these days. you would be hard pressed to buy a router within the last few years that wasnt secure by default.

If the owner has made his router open its practically certain that it was intentional.

Re:

[DinDaddy]

How many people own routers from the last few years vs. older routers.

How many people receive their routers from their ISP and never touch the configuration.

You don't really need to be a jerk

[rwa2]

Yeah, some of them are a little bit funny. This would make a good humor post. But it's hard enough to stay on good terms with your neighbors as it is, so consider saying something nice. Like in driving, it's often stupid and dangerous to fight *ssholes by acting like one yourself, thinking you're going to teach them a lesson.

I run an open AP named "nohup", since it's on a UPS and is often the only one still running when the power goes out. (Unfortunately, Verizon FIOS's upstream UPS goes out after 5-10 minutes nowadays -- not the ONI in my house, which can putter along for a few hours, but something upstream of that)

Work with your neighbors to get a wifi mesh going: http://www.olsr.org/ [olsr.org]

If you still really want to dick with people, at least do something more technically interesting with transparent proxy hacks, such as https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Upside-Down-TernetHowTo [ubuntu.com] or running it through a Swedish Chef filter or the ilk.

Nice Guys Finish Last

[jimbolauski]

If your neighbors are assholes holding hands and singing ain't going to happen, it's best just to grow a pair and tell them if you don't have the balls create a login page to your hotspot that plays the recording of you neighbors having sex, or pictures of dog shit from your neighbors dog, just make sure your shit is in-order before you do.

Re:

[Sponge Bath]

Nice Guys Finish Last

"The takers get the honey, givers sing the blues" - Robin Trower

...recording of you neighbors having sex, or pictures of dog shit

"It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood..." - Mr. Rogers

Re:

[Hatta]

If I caught my neighbors using my wifi, I'd ask them how they cracked WPA2-AES.

Re:

[godrik]

I know you are already modded Interesting. but thank you for the info,

For the record, the ESSID of my network is ParasiteNet and is always open (in the honor of C. Doctorow). My neighboor love it. They just receive DHCPNAKs when they start consuming too much bandwidth...

Re:

[RobertB-DC]

My AP name is an obvious email address -- "access@(my domain name).net". If someone wants to access it, that's fine with me... but if they don't want it crashing intermittently, they should send me a note and we'll work out some sort of uptime agreement. This would involve helping pay for a more reliable router. It occasionally freezes, and the kids know that if they're having lag in Halo, they can just reboot the router to kick off anyone leeching too much bandwidth.

As it is, though, my unreliable route

Re:

[rwa2]

Well, nohup pretty much means "never hangup" so I've more or less rickroll'd them already.

spelling correction

[phil42]

that is spelled $#!+

Best way to deal with this is good old Cat5.

[Rod Beauvex]

I'd like to see my neighboor get into my wired network.

Re:

[commodore64_love]

I'm dong that even as we speak.

But seriously I agree with you. If you're in a fixed place like your home, it makes more sense to just plug into a nearby jack (in my case - a phone jack). It will provide a faster connection, and doesn't broadcast your data all over the neighborhood for people to see (like those black BBC vans with the antennas).

Re:

[Rod Beauvex]

Alternatively, nothing says 'stay off my network' like four bands of plastic sheathed cable to the face.

Re:

[Abcd1234]

But seriously I agree with you. If you're in a fixed place like your home, it makes more sense to just plug into a nearby jack (in my case - a phone jack).

Sure... assuming you have ethernet jacks sprinkled about your walls everywhere. Oh, and an ethernet jack on your laptop. And carry ethernet cable around with you. And you don't plan to get up and move around anywhere.

So, yeah, assuming all that, wires make way more sense...

Flamebait? Really?

[Abcd1234]

As an aside, while I think your post is a little ridiculous :), flamebait it most certainly is not...

Re:

[maxwell demon]

I'd like to see my neighboor get into my wired network.

It's easy to get your wish granted. Just invite him to your flat, tell him to bring his laptop with him, and then offer him a cable to connect. Make sure you watch him while he gets into your wired network, because if you don't, you'll probably not see it.

Senile old man

[xbeefsupreme]

You Damn kids, get off my wifi!!

Re:Senile old man

[maxwell demon]

I think "get off my WLAN" sounds better.
Note that WLAN is an anagram of LAWN.

Stupid idea.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Just install some snooper and logger and let the neighbour in, steal the credentials to his bank account, brokerage account, clean them out, and bankrupt him and force his home into foreclosure and buy it yourself using his own money that you stole. Now no pesky neighbour riding free on your WiFi. Instead you come up with some lame network names? Dumb.

Re:

[Doug Neal]

SSL is designed to protect against active man-in-the-middle attacks.

If you use a self-signed certificate, they will get a big scary red warning page instead of the site (even on IE these days)...

If you have your own certificate (slightly more expensive and difficult to obtain) then you stand a better chance of fooling them, as it won't trigger the warning page, but won't stand up to close scrutiny.

Re:

[tepples]

So what do they get if you put up a captive portal with "install this root certificate if you want internet access"?

Re:

[Doug Neal]

I'd guess either "very suspicious" or "very confused" depending on level of technical ability...

Re:

[tepples]

Don't bother, just redirect verisign to your own root server; with your own root certificates.

The use case for TLS assumes that a user already has VeriSign's TLS root certificate installed on the operating system or web browser.

Re:Stupid idea.

[Reece400]

Just redirect them to an unsigned page, 4/5 people won't notice the difference (they've all clicked the don't warn me again check boxes at some point of other).

Re:

[zippthorne]

Well, all the browsers try to make the difference unobtrusive. Oh, a tiny "lock" symbol, or slight change in color, or a special icon in the url bar, or whatever. It's stupid. It should be big and obvious when you're on a secured site.

When you enter the site, there should be giant "steel" doors with some basic details from the certificate printed on them (and made to appear as if stamped or engraved into the doors). That material should include diamond-shaped "warning" placards ment to evoke similar dev

Re:

[KlomDark]

I think you can if you don't bind a SSL cert to your port 443 (SSL) server. Without a cert, it _should_ just behave like normal HTTP. But haven't tried anything like that for years, so modern browsers might warn about it.

Re:

[blueg3]

If you have your own certificate, it'll still trigger a big scary red warning page, unless you manage to purchase a certificate for theirbank.com. Assuming you fail in that endeavor, your certificate for differentsite.com won't work.

Your best bet, really, is to hope they access their bank (or other service) by first visiting a page delivered over HTTP. You can subvert that page so that the HTTPS connection is instead done over HTTP (or subvert it so that it's an HTTPS connection to a domain you control, but

Or Even Funnier

[DaMattster]

Set up your devices with static addresses and set a dhcp scope above the addresses that you need. Then you transparently redirect any http request originating from the dhcp scope to say, www.google.com (or something nastier to be left to your imagination), using the power of iptables. Now, no matter what website the piggy backer tries to visit, he will be greeted with the ubiquitous google.com home page. Watch how quickly the neighbors will learn to leave your network alone.

Re:

[Reece400]

I think a certain youtube video would be most appropriate....

Re:

[furby076]

How does one set this up on say a Linksys router? Then restrict it so anyone who doesn't have their mac address recorded with me would get the routing. For example I would want my friends to connect (they give me their MAC), but someone at the coffee shop can bite it.

I would so name my network "FreeNetwork"

Re:

[Technician]

I have a second router for "leeches" It is unsecured and not connected to anything. It does get connections from time to time. It has DHCP, DNS, and such all set. It has activity quite often as most routers in my area are secure.

Funny Names I have Used

[Jonah Hex]

My favorite is "PirateHacker", which I hope scares the shit out of someone. I've also used "Unknown" and "ImWatchingYou"

HEX

Re:

[satoshi1]

Mine is currently "iwillkillyouall" after I kept noticing other machines on my network. I've sinced MAC secured it, but the name still sticks. I think that once I move to my next apartment I'll name it something a little better, though I have no ideas yet.

Re:

[imakemusic]

My favourites are "Error" or "Corrupted Node: Do Not Use".

Sounds like a job for a VAP

[pak9rabid]

Finally, a fun use for my wifi card's VAP functionality =D.

My SSID is BALLNASTY

[L3370]

It's questionably vulgar. And I know all my neighbors are seeing this.

The best thing about the name was when my girlfriends mother stayed over for vacation. She brought her laptop and asked for the name of our WiFi network. My girlfriend said it to her in a mumbling embarrassed tone.

Easy ways to put people off

[asdf7890]

On of the APs local to me is called "IWillSniffYourPackets" or some such (I'm not at home right now to check). For the time that my SSID was not hidden (for some reason the old man's laptop refused to connect to the AP if the name wasn't visible, a problem that went away when the AP died and was replaced) I used "ReceptionError" figuring people would bypass a secured AP with a name that implied it wouldn't work in favour of the unsecured one called "Netgear" that was in the vicinity.

Did anyone notice....

[bickerdyke]

some of these screenshotes were made while beeing connected to the not open "passive-agressive" networks...

Convo with SSID

[zcold]

This is funny only because I once had a conversation with someone using SSID. It was back and forth quips everyday about how my house is better than theirs and so on and so forth.. I realized how incredibly interesting it was to have a "conversation" with SSIDs and how incredibly geeky it was..

A dupe, and not even a good one

[damn_registrars]

We've seen this before, ways to push people away from your WiFi without actually securing it. But previously we had creative things to do with the users, like reversing their pages or directing everything to pictures of kittens. This isn't anywhere nearly as inspired.

there is one in my area

[MickyTheIdiot]

One where I live is called "NotYourNetwork". Not quite as good as these, but it always amused me.

I came up with the best name

[wbav]

When people connect to my wireless network with a Microsoft machine, they see:

"Windows is now connecting to the 'Psychic Friends' network."

Makes me smile, every time.

Not passive-aggressive

[michaelmalak]

Sending messages over SSIDs is not passive-aggressive, it's avoidant [wikipedia.org]. It could be considered passive-aggressive in a contrived example, such as if a neighbor makes lewd comments to your wife, your wife demands that you talk to the neighbor about it, but instead you decide to communicate over SSID. In that case, you have a responsibility set up by an authority of sorts, and you have ducked that responsibility by fulfilling its terms perhaps by letter and certainly not in spirit.

"Passive-aggressive" is a catch-phrase that has been broadened in pop psychology, in part because the Internet has permitted so many more avoidant behaviors and people need a name for it and use the one that has enjoyed more use in the popular (primarily entertainment) media.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh shut up you pedantic, humorless idiot.

Relevant Link:

[2obvious4u]

You will find this funny. [urlesque.com]

SSIDs in my building...

[moxley]

SSIDs in my building:

"Grizzlymuff"
"linksys"
"hey 2b I wanna jizz on yr face"
"NDBinternet" ....and yes, the girl in 2b is incredibly hot, I'm sure that's why someone chose to send the entire building (and surrounding bldg's) that incredibly classy message.

I think this is really funny - because what could anybody do about it?

I wonder if there is anything someone could put in their SSID that would actually cause people to call the police? I mean, obvious things like endorsing blowing up federal bldgs or child

I do this already

[Itninja]

The SSID of my unsecured 'guest' hotspot (for friends' cell phone and such) has be called 'keystroke_logger_enabled" for years.

Mine's...

[Nexzus]

Mine's 7JerksAndASquirt, and it's open. It's paid for by my government job, so I figured it's a good way to give back to the little people. If you're ever in the V5R6E6 postal code of Vancouver, Canada, and you need some network connectivity, be my guest.
Linksys N Router on Shaw's 25Mbps connection.

Email as SSID

[clarkie.mg]

I suggest using an email as SSID and chat all night long with your awake neighbour.
Great way to make friends ... unless you live surrounded by jerks.

Oblig Bash.org:

[Weaselmancer]

#202477 +(7983)- [X]

(Mootar) morons.
(Mootar) these people who live in my apartment complex are connected to my wireless
(Mootar) they must think they're super-cool hackers by breaking into my completely unsecure network
(Mootar) unfortunatly, the connection works both ways
(Mootar) long story short, they now have loads of horse porn on their computer

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an asshole. Whatever happened to Love Thy Neighbor?

If I found out you were doing that to me, I'd beat your nerdy ass till it was blue.

Retard. People like you are the reason no one likes their neighbors.

Re:

[L4t3r4lu5]

I don't like my neighbours because they leave passive-aggressive notes as their SSID.

I AM NOT A HOSEPUNCHER! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT IS.

Re:

[snspdaarf]

I don't like my neighbours because they leave passive-aggressive notes as their SSID. I AM NOT A HOSEPUNCHER! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT IS.

That's the guy that take normal garden hose and makes sprinkler hose out of it by punching tiny little holes from one end to the other. The previous job description, "leak maker", has been deprecated.

Re:

[ShakaUVM]

>>You're an asshole. Whatever happened to Love Thy Neighbor?

I don't think it applies when your upstairs-apartment neighbors stomp around over your head all the time.

That's why my friend has a AP called "WalkMoreSoftly"

Re:

[Sandbags]

Yea, actually tried going through the HOA first. Talking to the guy directly was something we'd done before with no success on other issues. He was a real asshole to start with. Kinda felt good doing that.

i also lacked mentioning (since I didn't think anyone cared), that I was primary network support for about 10 houses in the neighborhood, and help a lot of folks with their gear for little or no charge, after they met me at a garrage sale and saw all my used gear and inquired as to my job. If he was op

Re:

[gknoy]

Yea, actually tried going through the HOA first. Talking to the guy directly was something we'd done before with no success on other issues. He was a real asshole to start with. Kinda felt good doing that.

Someone else being a jerk first does not make your actions less rude.

Other SSID

[Ostracus]

"And that creating a "guest" open network was limited only to the most expensive and corporate models that had multiple SSID and radio support (secure or nothing configuration)? "

Multiple SSID [netgear.com]

Re:

[pak9rabid]

I mean, how hard would it really be if every router shipped with a unique SSID and a default random password?

Not very..AT&T has been managing this with their CPEs for at least 4 years. They simply use the serial # printed on the CPE as the default password. Unique and not likely to be guessed.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[PitaBred]

"serial" and "not likely to be guessed" really don't go anywhere in the same sentence.

Re:

[lowrydr310]

I mean, how hard would it really be if every router shipped with a unique SSID and a default random password?

The routers that verizon hands out with their FiOS service do exactly this. They have a unique 6 character hexadecimal string as the SSID, and each has a unique WEP password that's printed on the bottom of the router on a sticker.

Now I know this isn't perfect (WEP security limitations aside), but it's sure as hell better than every single customer in my apartment complex having "Linksys" or "Netg

Re:

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You can get one of the WRT versions running on the verizon router now - don't remember if it is OpenWRT, DD-WRT, Tomato or another one. In any case, the router hardware is great - lots of cpu horsepower. Just s really stupid NAT table size...

Re:Other issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, needless to say, he was a computer moron.

Well, you're the moron who can't get windows XP to connect to your own wireless network.

Pot, kettle.

Re:Other issues

[RMH101]

This is acting like a dick. It's not his fault you can't configure your wife's laptop, and it's not his fault that he didn't know how to lock down his router.
What did your little episode teach him? To come ask the asshole next door (who hacks his system on the sly to annoy him) next time his computer has a problem? Why not just ask him to do it nicely, or offer in the first place? Oh yeah, because you wanted to harass him and make money out of him. Nice.
Hope your plumber/mechanic/etc neighbours pull the same trick on you sometime.

Re:

[NJRoadfan]

I mean, how hard would it really be if every router shipped with a unique SSID and a default random password? And that creating a "guest" open network was limited only to the most expensive and corporate models that had multiple SSID and radio support (secure or nothing configuration)? If everyone's routers were secure, then the only people "stealing" broadband would be people you LET steal it...

2Wire does this with their DSL Modem+Routers..... the problem is the default security they have it set to is.... WEP.... sigh.

Re:

[pebs]

Holy crap, why didn't you just talk to your neighbor to begin with? Talk about passive aggressive. The real moron here is the one who couldn't get the laptop to ignore a wifi network.

Re:

[ceoyoyo]

So what you're saying is that you can't maintain control over your own computers and your neighbor is the dumbass?

If you really really couldn't convince your wife's laptop not to connect to random aps you need to get it fixed, replace it, or use an OS without such serious bugs.

Re:Other issues

[zippthorne]

They were both morons. The neighbor just lacked knowledge, while the poster lacked knowledge, research skills (I'm sure the answer is in knowledge base), and apparently is a sociopath.

I even if solving the problem at the neighbor's router was the best solution, wouldn't it have been more neighborly to just ask him to set the SSID to hidden, and maybe tell him how to secure his router? What's with the BOFH abuse and then charging his neighbor for the privilege. They had a mutual interest in tweaking the router, so they should have been able to come to an agreement which didn't involve money changing hands: turning off SSID makes the router less useful to its owner.

Your neighbors are your neighbors. You're supposed to talk to them, loan and borrow tools and knowledge (within reason. obviously you wouldn't do a free surgical consult). Setting a password is a "do it while chatting over coffee" activity. You wouldn't bill your neighbor for helping nail down plywood shutters before a hurricane and you shouldn't bill you neighbor for helping him type 8-14 letters in a text box and clicking enter.

Re:

[Asic Eng]

So what you're saying is that you can't maintain control over your own computers

Well in fairness: he did manage to maintain control over his computers. He shut down his neighbors network to do it (which is not very nice) but he ultimately he got the result he desired.

Re:

[ceoyoyo]

It's all fun and games until you (a) take your notebook outside the house or (b) have a neighbour who figures out how to set the admin password.

Re:

[operagost]

Your post is missing the part where you first told your neighbor about the problem and offered to fix his router for free-- you know, because it would have benefited both parties. I guess all the aggravation and wasted time and gas was worth $50, right? My mother-in-law had a similar problem (someone moved in who had a router with the same SSID on the same channel) so I changed the SSID, channel, and turned on WPA2 (which I had been looking for an excuse to do for some time).

I've never had the problem y

Re:

[imakemusic]

If you had access to the router why didn't you just but a ban on your wife's laptop to prevent it from being able to join?

Re:

[LanMan04]

So because you can't operate YOUR computer properly (XP connecting to this guy's router), you decide to fuck up his internet?

Asshole.

Re:

[retro128]

Hang on a second. All wireless clients I've see do not automatically connect to an SSID unless its already set up in the wireless profile. The only way I could see the scenario you describe possibly happening is if you and your neighbor had matching SSIDs. Did it occur to you to change yours?

Re:

[religious freak]

You had all kinds of opportunities to do this right, but instead you consistently choose to be a passive aggressive dick to a guy who didn't even have any idea he was doing something which was not completely perfect. Nice job.

Not only that, but you didn't even have to actively help him, you could've just properly configured your wife's XP computer. Good luck in life dude, I'm guessing it sucks for you... perhaps for good reason.

Re:Freifunk

[Abcd1234]

In the real world, it just opens up yourself to litigation if someone does something illegal over your network.

I suppose you have one, single, real-world example where this has actually happened? I mean, you wouldn't just be throwing out frightening hypotheticals, would you?

Re:

[Hatta]

Not yet, but it's just a matter of time. It's already been ruled [arstechnica.com] that illicit traffic going to your IP is probable cause for a search, whether or not you have an open AP.

In particular, they didn't buy Perez's arguments that a "mere association between an IP address and a physical address is insufficient to establish probable cause"...

"In this case it is clear that there was a substantial basis to conclude that evidence of criminal activity would be found at 7608 Scenic Brook Drive," wrote the Court. "[T]ho

Re:

[Abcd1234]

It's very convenient that you left out this little snippet of detail:

The FBI says it found CDs with child porn in Perez's room, the only one it searched. An open-and-shut case? No, because there's a twist: the Yahoo account used to send the message belonged to a Mr. Rob Ram, according to Yahoo's records. Perez had a roommate named Robert Ramos and an open WiFi connection, but that was not enough to convince a federal judge to keep the seized CDs from being used in his prosecution. Perez entered a condition

Re:

[Hatta]

Now, granted, there are obvious flaws with this ruling. But the case was *not* ruled the way it was strictly because it rejected his reasoning that the WAP was open therefore it wasn't him. They ruled that way because they didn't buy his reasoning *combined* with the fact that he had child porn in his frickin' room.

I left out that detail because it's irrelevant. They wouldn't have found the CDs with child porn on them without the warrant in the first place. You can't use evidence obtained from a warrant to

Re:

[Abcd1234]

The only evidence they had that would amount to probable cause is illicit traffic going to his IP. If you have illicit traffic going to your IP, that is probable cause for a search, whether you initiated the traffic or not.

Right. So they get a warrant, run a search, and find nothing. Ohnoes, what a hardship. Meanwhile, the chances of this happening are probably lower than being struck by lightening. So why concern yourself with it?

Not at all. Fortifying your home comes with significant cost. Securing yo

Re:

[Abcd1234]

Sorry, that's bullshit. Try actually reading the act, rather than just reading scare stories on Slashdot or third-hand accounts:

(8) The term ``telecommunications carrier--

(A) means a person or entity engaged in the transmission or switching of wire or electronic communications as a common carrier for hire; and