Mark,
I follow your reasoning there. I'm not that interested in what other
people choose to do (and would notice the otherwise unaccounted for
traffic volume on my network were they doing any meaningful volume of
it), so I was only looking at this in terms of securing my own
machine and data.
Realisticall, this phantasm that everyone's worried about on their
network will have to be fairly physically proximate, even with the
range extending antennas[1]. My point being that if there is someone
out there doing something it would terrify you to have associated
with your ISP account, you've already got something of a problem in
that they probably live next door to you.
Anyway, while everyone's points are clearly valid, especially from a
technical perspective, I'm just questioning where the line really
falls here between the actual versus imagined risks and am keeping in
mind the general benefit of being able to find unsecured wifi service
when you are out and about.
For this reason, I've left my wifi network unsecured, even though I
live in the city. To date, the garbage tumbleweeds continue to cause
me far more aggravation than any network misuse issues.
-vin
[1] and with a directional antenna I suppose they'd be easy to locate.
On Jan 23, 2008, at 4:03 PM, Mark Andy wrote:
>
> I think you might be missing something...
>
> The "danger" is that in addition to someone gaining access to your
> machine, someone getting onto your network at home is very likely
> using it
> to get out to the internet via your connection to an ISP. So if
> they're
> sending spam, uploading child porn, sending terrorist threats, or
> whatever
> you possibly are responsible for their actions.
>
> This isn't a problem if you aren't the one providing the network.
>
> I don't know that its been tested in court yet however. AFAIK,
> there's
> no standard "good enough" protection that absolves you of
> responsibility... A reasonable person might conclude that wide open
> wireless in a rural setting is good enough. They might conclude
> its not.
>
> For me... The hassles of securing stuff outweigh the benefits at my
> rural
> location. I might eventually change my mind, but I'm pretty stubborn.
>
> :-)
>
> Mark
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