Security guru Bruce Schneier is certain to kick up a lively discussion today with his essay in Wired extolling the virtues of wide-open home wireless networks.
I'm not going to quibble with him on the security aspects of unprotected Wi-Fi, but I will take exception on another point in a moment. First, Schneier writes:
Whenever I talk or write about my own security setup, the one thing that surprises people - and attracts the most criticism - is the fact that I run an open wireless network at home. There's no password. There's no encryption. Anyone with wireless capability who can see my network can use it to access the internet.
To me, it's basic politeness. Providing internet access to guests is kind of like providing heat and electricity, or a hot cup of tea. But to some observers, it's both wrong and dangerous.
Schneier spends most of the piece addressing the security concerns associated with having an unsecured wireless home network. In short, he argues that the risks are minimal - both to the network and legally - and that those risks are easily outweighed by the benefits of an open net.
Reasonable people can disagree.
But it's on the point of ISP terms of service that I believe Schneier's case falls. First, he expresses no concern whatsoever about others stealing his bandwidth from his open networks - "pay it forward," he suggests. But then he notes:
Certainly this does concern ISPs. Running an open wireless network will often violate your terms of service. But despite the occasional cease-and-desist letter and providers getting pissy at people who exceed some secret bandwidth limit, this isn't a big risk either. The worst that will happen to you is that you'll have to find a new ISP.
But bandwidth isn't the only issue here, at least not from the ISP's standpoint; it's lost revenue. The reason ISP terms of service forbid customers from sharing bandwidth with neighbors is as much or more about the provider's need to turn a buck as it is the finite nature of the product.
And we need not stray too far to find the appropriate analogy: cable TV.
I've got Verizon FiOS at my house, which (when it works) means bandwidth to beat the band. Plenty to go around the neighborhood, should I choose to follow Schneier's altruistic path. But if providing my neighbors with free wireless Internet access is OK, why not cable TV service? Oh, sure, that would be technically more challenging (beyond me, actually) but certainly not impossible and just about perfect for this academic exercise.
Does anyone want to argue that two or three families paying a single cable bill is OK? Maybe a dozen in an apartment building? (And I mean argue other than on the grounds that cable providers are greed-heads; we're talking right and wrong here.)
Seems to me you'd have to mount that argument in order to climb aboard Schneier's bandwidth-for-all bandwagon.
Ah, but I hear the free-for-all advocates saying, "We aren't talking about that level of extracurricular network sharing; it's only for the weary traveler, 'emergencies' and outages."
Says who? If your net is open it's open.
"Steal this Wi-Fi" is the headline on Schneier's column.
Well, whose Wi-Fi is it being stolen?
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It Depends On Who You Are
I've always liked the idea of sharing resources, even with neighbors. I did just that back in the day when I didn't have much money. However, it's stealing no matter how you look at it. You can rationalize that the big bad ISP doesn't need all of your money anyways, but that doesn't change the fact that if you have an agreement with them that you'll use their bandwidth for personal use, and then you share it with other neighbors (their potential customers), you're diluting their market and stealing from them. Being in the business of providing a service (account based) business, I really can't look at it any other way.
I disagree
Well running open wireless should not violate any service agreements because the service provider isn't providing you a wireless service. What they are providing you a network connection. YOu are extending it to wireless services ( which I don't think violates any agreement ) and then service provider is not providing you the security infrastructure and/or expertise + support for your wireless network. Its the cable modems selling you and because of competitive advantage and marketing purposes they are trying make configurations easy or embed new security protocols in the device they are selling. These vendors are also by no means required to do so.
I don't think this should violate any service agreements.
Right and wrong on sharing
"Does anyone want to argue that two or three families paying a single cable bill is OK? Maybe a dozen in an apartment building? (And I mean argue other than on the grounds that cable providers are greed-heads; we're talking right and wrong here.)"
I'd say that you are accepting the cable companies definition of how much you can share. If I subscribe to a magazine and then pass it around to my friends after I've read it, is that wrong? That's lost revenue from the magazine's point of view.
It comes down to the language of the fine print on whatever agreement you've signed. If the cable company says you can't share it if you're going to be a subscriber then it would be wrong to do so. But that's the only reason. The same is true for your internet connection.
Wrong analogy
The cable TV analogy doesn't hold up. When you pay for a faster internet connection, you're paying for more bandwidth, or more information per second, or a certain amount of data per month. No matter how many different people use a connection, their total bandwidth cannot exceed that maximum. You've paid for it; it's your bandwidth. If you want to give it to other people, that's frankly none of their business, no matter what their terms of service are; in fact, if you want to call something right or wrong, in a moral sense, their terms of service are wrong, because they attempt to dictate what you can do with something you own.
The ISPs complain about people doing this, but they're doing something worse. They sell people high-speed internet access which they pretend in the marketing will reach a certain speed, but then they sell more capacity than they have, going by that pretended speed. This is equivalent to the airline practice of overbooking, which is almost universally condemned except by the airlines, and rightly so -- it's simply the practice of selling something you don't own.
On the other hand, the ISP
On the other hand, the ISP bases their pricing on estimates of actual usage, that is to say, the assumption that most people will not be capping out 100% of their allotted bandwidth 24/7. There's no sense arguing about morals here. You enter into a contract with the ISP, and if it says you can't share the connection with others, that's what you've agreed to, and that's what you're paying for. If you find an ISP that doesn't care if you do share, great. But don't expect those FIOS lines to remain very affordable if ISP pricing policies shift to the assumption that a significant portion of their customers WILL actually be using their bandwidth to the hilt at all times.
But what the ISP bases their
But what the ISP bases their pricing on is immaterial. If they're going to use networks largely paid for with public money and facilitated with public grants for the right to use land for poles and lines and so forth, and base their businesses on what is effectively a legally mandated monopoly, they should at least play ball by not jerking us around on the bandwidth we're paying for.
What's next? They put in the contract that you can't play World of Warcraft? That eats up some bandwidth. So do internet phone providers like Skype. They can (and some of them already are) try to limit what services you can use. And we can't get out of it because, once again, effectively our choices for ISPs are limited by geography. That's why net neutrality is so important.
You're right that the morally correct thing to do is to go by the letter of the contract, but once the other party abdicates the moral high ground by betraying the whole idea of your side of the bargain -- getting internet access at the stated rate -- the contract is, morally speaking, in abeyance. Essentially, to paraphrase every child everywhere, "they started it." When you enter into a business arrangement with someone, you can either try to shaft them, in which case you deserve what you get in terms of them trying to shaft you, or you can enter in good faith and try to stay true to the spirit of the agreement. The ISPs, by bullying people and threatening net neutrality, have already entered "screw them if possible" mode and left politeness -- and the moral high ground -- in the dust.
Actually based on your
Actually based on your comments the analogy does hold up.
When you pay for cable TV you are paying for better signal, more channels or a certain amount of channels.
I've paid for it, so why can't I share it?
My cable company doesn't have a problem if I have 10 tv's in the house, so what if I have 5 tv's and let my neighbor "use the other 5"? what if my cable company charges me $10/tv? What if my neighbor pays that charge?
The reality is that if someone wants into your network there are ways to get in. just like if someone wants into your house. That doesn't mean you take down your doors and hold full time open houses.
Not to mention the fact that the risk of someone doing illegal activities while connected to your network is real. Bruce Schneier seems to dismiss legal investigation and RIAA lawsuits as insignificant little annoyances. Ask someone who has had either thing done to them if they are little annoyances.
Now if you are already doing any illegal activities on your own, then it wouldn't matter if you have an unsecured network as much, because you are putting yourself into the situation anyway. regardless of how you feel about the RIAA and music/software sharing or going against the "big evil corporations", right now, in our society it is illegal. Nothing else matters. "Sticking it to the man" is not a valid legal defense.
I think the real issue that
I think the real issue that you are missing here is the economics of network distibution. I do not mean the commercial/business viewpoint. If it was legal to share your bandwidth via WiFi with your neighbors, ISPs would probably make more money. Incumbents rarely wish to risk change to a working revenue stream. Ultimately per-usage charging is the only real economic way to determine the value of network access. If a neighborhood could pool resources to purchase bandwidth collectively, then adoption and usage would increase. There are all kinds of collective strategies for finding new efficiencies. Setting artificial barriers to access($X / household) doesn't approach anywhere near the level of granularity of actual demand for services. This is why chip makers sell under-clocked / soft-disable hardware. Some people have a price barrier they will not / can not cross. Until the ISPs actually offer an extremely varied spectrum of access plans, why not let the end-users sort it out locally?
PS: Cell phone plans come in tons of different varieties, and cell adoption in all income classes is pretty high/fast because they can find an option that fits.
OTGH...
I'm subscribed to an unlimited plan, that was once unlimited. When they imposed a data cap and a speed cap they effectively changed the deal to x amount of internet per month for n dollars. As far as I'm concerned, I'm free to do whatever I like with that allowance, including splitting my bill (and allowance) with my neighbours. If it comes to the point where either of us wants more internet, then we pay for it.
It is, however, a somewhat different situation if your unlimited plan really is unlimited, as there's no incentive for high users to get their own plan...
Here's an analogy: if I buy a thickshake at my local fast food joint, I'm allowed to share the finite amount of liquid with whoever I want. However, try doing that with a bottomless coffee and you'll soon find yourself dining somewhere else..
My ISP
"But bandwidth isn't the only issue here, at least not from the ISP's standpoint; it's lost revenue."
Let me cry up a river for my ISP. I think they'd live.