Wi-Fi Crime

Looks like a new set of laws will have to be written governing Wi-Fi usage and Wardriving.

"The information age is over. The information is out there," said Jim Guerin, technology director for the city of Dunedin, which will soon be the first city in Florida to go completely Wi-Fi. "Now it's the connectivity age. It opens up a whole new area for ethics, legal boundaries and responsibilities. It's a whole new frontier." There's a dark side to the convenience, though. The technology has made life easier for high-tech criminals because it provides near anonymity....

Last year, a Michigan man was convicted of using an unsecured Wi-Fi network at a Lowe's home improvement store to steal credit card numbers. The 20-year-old and a friend stumbled across the network while cruising around in a car in search of wireless Internet connections - a practice known as "Wardriving."

Lifeblog

Introduced by Nokia, this helps you record and organize your life.

• Nokia Lifeblog automatically builds your diary as you take photos and videos, and send and receive messages.
• To clear up space on your phone, connect to your PC and let Lifeblog save and display your items securely and efficiently.

This would be interesting to try.

Steal (and Share) this Book!

Cyberpunk author James Morris is encouraging people to rip him off -- by buying his book in PDF format and giving it away to as many other people as you want!...

The media establishment is still having trouble coming to terms with the digital revolution. The Internet remains impossible to control, being global, unlike the legal system. The only answer from big content owners seems to be imposing even more draconian restrictions than were in existence before digital technology hit the scene...

Fortunately, Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig is trying to forge a way somewhere in between the total copyright control preferred by the RIAA and MPAA, and the free-for-all of the Bit Torrent sites. His new Creative Commons licenses (creativecommons.org) are starting to win favour around the world. It’s copyright informed by a heavy dose of Open Source. Some types of Creative Commons license even give free rein for reuse in new works, although the original creative works are still owned commercially by their authors alone. In all cases, however, non-commercial sharing is entirely freed up...

This why I have chosen to publish my first novel under a Creative Commons license. It’s called The Escapist, and you can read more about it at TheEscapist.co.uk . Creative Commons doesn’t mean that much for a paper printed work. You can share a book around legally already, and photocopying or scanning an entire literary work is too impractical to be much of a danger. But my book is also available as an Ebook – and not just a non-printable, non-copy-able encrypted digital reader format, but a standard PDF you can print or share as much as you like. The only thing you can’t do with it is sell the copies you make. So, if you like the sound of The Escapist and do buy it in one of its forms, please share it around as much as you like. Be my guest and rip me off!

Buy the PDF for BP 1.99 or get the softcover straight from the publisher.

Jaschan and the Sasser Worm

I find it interesting that they called this young man a "boy". Am I to think he did this all as innocent fun and had no idea what the results could be? And as is noted near the end of the article, he is the son of a computer repair shop owner...hmmm.

UPDATE: Silicon Valley has an interesting blog. Seems he got community service.

UPDATE 2: July 12- Liked this Commentary from NYTimes.
It gives much better sentencing ideas- making the punishment fit the crime.

7/7

Bombs go off in London, and the Internet is there:

A pool on Flickr has started up here -- so far they've got over 600 photos taken in London near the bomb blasts.


A very extensive and comprehensive entry in Wikipedia with all the latest info has already sprung into existence:
7 July 2005 London bombings

The media is wrong to back up Judith Miller

So says FindLaw's Louis Klarevas in this great piece examining existing case law regarding confidentiality of sources and the freedom of the press.

Best quote: It's time to chill out on the "chilling effect" clichés.