Posted on 04/24/2011 9:10:24 AM PDT by decimon
When they come for you ping.
Thugs in blue.
My advice to law enforcement: Make sure you know for sure who is to blame or else you may find yourself getting sued. BIG TIME!
On the other hand, if you don’t password protect your router and the data in question is not on your computer, it’s a great way for a pedophile to cover his tracks if he has a special off-site “porn” computer.
If your router is not password protected, and they can find none of the documents in your possession, this is the perfect argument.
No, I’m not into pedophilia or porn but I do use a local businesses wi-fi for all my access and have for over a year. In my case it was about saving paying comcast $75 a month. Youtube’s are a bit slow, but it’s a small price to pay. It also means that if I ever DID do something illegal, they would have to do some triangulating, site tracing (e.g. these posts), etc. to find out who and where I am.
This is a bit like having a car that your friends all use and getting a red light ticket in the mail where the face is not clear. You’re off the hook.
Idiot. Gee, I wonder who she voted for.
Sue the hell out of them!
>>My advice to law enforcement: Make sure you know for sure who is to blame or else you may find yourself getting sued. BIG TIME!<<
This.
I heard a year or so ago that there was a company offering really, REALLY cheap wi-fi routers, but the catch was that you could not protect access. If it were ever to become fairly common to have a world of unprotected routers, it would be tough for cops to do this without more evidence that the owner of the router is the perp.
When Zer0 and H0lder come to shut down the Internet, how is a network supposed to work without a wireless backup system?
AFAIK in Germany individuals are obliged to protect their Wi-Fi connection. Owners are fully responsible for traffic they have.
But a SWAT Team?
Where was the expection of an armed resistance
necessitating the use of drawn arms on forced entry?
Sue them? For what?
If the government can establish that it's an IP assigned to you that is downloading child porn, then that EASILY established probable cause to search your home. There's absolutely no cause for action.
Imagine your car - a car that is not reported stolen - is found at the scene of a fatality accident with no driver around. The police are absolutely going to be able to go to ANY judge/magistrate for a search warrent of your premises, and that search warrant will be granted.
I used to admire and intensely respect the police.
These home invaders are criminals in blue.
“If it were ever to become fairly common to have a world of unprotected routers, it would be tough for cops to do this “
Or it would be much more common for bad guys to use unsecured routers, and this “explosion” of cybercrime could be used by the police as a perfect reason for more “dynamic entries”.
Plus, like the Michigan State Police who find it useful to download smartphone files for later use, the police might find such laptop and desktop data useful for later use. My first thought is “hate crime” investigations.
On the third hand, if you do password protect, and someone gets past your password, you look real guilty.
Maybe kicking in doors is the wrong approach to all but crimes of imminent menace.
All I’m sayin is you should make sure the evidence you have is solid. Open routers are common all over the place, including restaurants, bars, retail stores, you name it. It doesn’t mean that the owner of said router is doing the crime.
I’ve only got one neighbor who might be close enough to use my wireless and that’s probably stretching the range a bit.
If anything, open wifi (in a residential setting) is becoming less common. Open access used to be the factory default but now it requires extra steps.
They threw the guy down the stairs.
And, all I'm saying is that the evidence WAS solid.
"Open routers are common all over the place, including restaurants, bars, retail stores, you name it. It doesn’t mean that the owner of said router is doing the crime."
But it does mean that probable cause is established to search the owner's home and computer.
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