[mdlug] The financial & legal danger of wireless in the house...

[Aaron Kulkis]

Jeff Hanson wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 9:21 AM, Aaron Kulkis <akulkis00 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> A few years ago, I posted on the problems that could result
>> from using wireless networking in an apartment or house
>> (i.e. no "corporate veil" to protect you from personal
>> liability) & lot of people said I was nuts.
>>
> 
> A different opinion:
> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wireles.html
> 
> I have an open wireless connection through IPCop.  It's
> bandwidth-limited in a very secure manner - an ISA Ethernet NIC.  I
> did get a message from Charter about a music copyright violation
> complaint from somebody.  Nobody on the internal network would have
> been interested in the type of music that the claim referenced so I
> knew it was from the WiFI (the traffic pattern indicated it also).


I.e. it was traced to YOUR IP ADDRESS.  You're lucky you
weren't dragged into court... or, since you haven't settled,
they're in the process of filing the papers in court against you.

> The claimed violation was detected in the early AM which matched the
> traffic.  I simply plugged the cable modem into an appliance timer so
> it shuts off between midnight and 6am.  More or less eliminated the
> problem and keeps the address changing.

Basically, you just admitted the problem... and unlike in a
business environment, YOU ARE *PERSONALLY* RESPONSIBLE for
what happens on your network.

If someone sues an incorporated business, and the business
only has assets of $10,000, that's all they can get.  If
they sue YOU, an individual -- you can spend the rest of
your life paying off the damage award.

And remember... copyright damages for this sort of thing
are way out of proportion compared to actually distributing
hard copies (of either copyrighted material or even
trademarked items).