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German Court Says Secure Your Wi-Fi or Get Fined 
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Be responsible netizens, says Germany.

If you live in Germany, then you'd better put a password on your wireless router now.
A German court ruled that those with internet connections hooked up to a wireless access point must put a password to secure it or else face a fine of up to 100 euro, or around $126.
"Private users are obligated to check whether their wireless connection is adequately secured to the danger of unauthorized third parties abusing it to commit copyright violation," the court said, according to the AP.
This ruling came after a musician sued an internet user whose open wireless connection was used to illegally download music over a file sharing network.

The courts, however, will not be holding users responsible for what happens over their wireless network. So, it seems that making a password mandatory is the sensible measure of legal responsibility to put on internet subscribers.


http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/german-wifi-wpa-wep-password,news-33474.html

At what level of court was this done at and I wonder if it will be appealed

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Fri May 14, 2010 10:53 am
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IIRC, this is just enforcing the rules anyway - I seem to remember big_D talking about it :|

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Fri May 14, 2010 11:03 am
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It is one reason I prefer wired connections, no need to go through all this trouble. That said my wireless is WPA2 and with a randomly generated password of 20 characters, which reminds me I must try updating it to 30 characters.

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Fri May 14, 2010 11:15 am
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You have basically been responsible for everything that goes over your network. If you run an open wi-fi connection, without a password, you are responsible for keeping a track of which MAC addresses connected to the connection and what they did - in case the lawyers or police come a calling.

Users have basically had to have a password for the last half decade, if they wanted to avoid trouble. But some were trying to use it as an excuse for avoiding standing up for their own "wrong-doings". It cost the courts time and money, which could be better spent elsewhere, so now you have to secure your wi-fi or pay a fine.

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Fri May 14, 2010 11:40 am
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So open hotspots do not exist in Germany then?

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Fri May 14, 2010 12:57 pm
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Amnesia10 wrote:
So open hotspots do not exist in Germany then?

Yes and no, spots at places like Starbucks exist, as does T-Mobiles cloud spot or whatever it is called. But these are set up properly, have the relevant logging in place etc. If you want to run an open hotspot, you have to take the responsibility.

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Fri May 14, 2010 6:04 pm
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hifidelity2 wrote:
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"Private users are obligated to check whether their wireless connection is adequately secured to the danger of unauthorized third parties abusing it to commit copyright violation," the court said, according to the AP.


Hmm - not sure if this is the right reason - people get rather upset about copyright violation, but I would have liked to have seen other reasons in that judgement too.

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Fri May 14, 2010 6:30 pm
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Google admits wi-fi data collection blunder
Google has admitted that for the past three years it has wrongly collected information people have sent over unencrypted wi-fi networks.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8684110.stm
Here is another reason :D

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Sat May 15, 2010 7:03 am
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AlunD wrote:
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Google admits wi-fi data collection blunder
Google has admitted that for the past three years it has wrongly collected information people have sent over unencrypted wi-fi networks.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8684110.stm
Here is another reason :D


Quote:
Dr Ian Brown, an expert on privacy and cyber security at the Oxford Internet Institute, told BBC News the wi-fi data collection was part of an idea to accurately map a user's location on Google Map and Street View.

"The idea was to use to the different signals and strengths from wi-fi and phones to position a users - think of it as a sort of GPS.


I think part of that is missing, but it reminded me of The Dark Knight :o

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Sat May 15, 2010 12:06 pm
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