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Comment by nly | Hacker News Reader

Guest network anyone?

A distinct SSID, WPA2 password and subnet dispatches with most of the personal risk.

Not really. You'd still be liable for any misuse happening from external users. Or if not liable, you'd at least have an uphill battle to fight in order to prove that it wasn't you that did the thing that got you into trouble.

Additionally, depending on your ISP, you might violate the TOS by providing a public WiFi. If you live in a place without real choice of ISP, that would be bad if they then cancel your account.

This is true, but if guest networks were the norm then individually you'd be less likely to be exploited by criminals, because of the greater spread, and the issues surrounding them would be better appreciated by the authorities and law makers.

ISPs should be getting onboard with providing public access points. Why wouldn't they welcome me using my home as a basepoint for their public service?

A big porportion of Dutch routers is actually creates a secondary independent network that provides free internet access to users of the same provider, across the country.

Same in Serbia with Serbian BroadBand (SBB) UniFi.

Comcast[0] does this in the US. It's opt out as I understand.

[0]http://www.extremetech.com/computing/184263-comcast-turns-50...

BT in the UK does this. As far as I know pretty much all BT wifi routers are part of a FON network unless you change the configuration.

Because when your home gives free access, sharing the connection (and cost) with your neighbors becomes easier.

Yes, it's possible now already, but now we're all afraid the others may abuse our connection.

Abuse how??

> you'd at least have an uphill battle to fight in order to prove that it wasn't you that did the thing that got you into trouble.

Aren't you innocent until proven guilty? Simply saying "I have a guest network" surely constitutes reasonable doubt, in the absence of any other evidence against you.

Sadly, the way Justice System is working nowadays is that majority of cases end with a plea due to overwhelming pressure from the prosecutors.

So, theoretically one could ride the reasonable-doubt-train all the way to court but at that point, the prosecutor would stack any charge possible leaving the jury to deliberate on all them. Modern day juries still most likely are not computer savvy so, merely stating "IP Address" would most likely be enough to convict. It is also needs to be added that if the charges are severe enough, even though every defendant is innocent until proven guilty, in reality it is the opposite way around if the said crime is vehemently disliked by all.

Do they use juries for these matters in Italy?

No.

> Aren't you innocent until proven guilty? Simply saying "I have a guest network" surely constitutes reasonable doubt, in the absence of any other evidence against you.

You'd still face an average of 6 years of legal wrangling and attendant expenses.

In France at least they made "insufficiently securing your home network" an offense. So you could argue that you have a guest network (or were hacked) but you would still not be in the clear.

That is insane. Think about real world parallels:

- Leaving a window open, or a door unlocked, thereby allowing someone to enter through it, and while on your premise conducts a crime. Is this crime your fault for not sufficiently securing your home?

- Someone enters your yard because the gate wasn't locked and sells some pirated movies or drugs. Again, is it your fault because you didn't sufficiently secure your 6 foot fence from intruders?

Yes, you absolutely can be liable if your contributory negligence enables someone to commit a crime or get hurt. This is decades or centuries old law.

It genuinely saddens me that providing an open Wifi guest network for my guest's convenience is considered 'negligence'.

Interestingly where I leave a major Canadian ISP provides unsecured wifi networks across the city. To get access all you need to do is register your ethernet address to your account. As we know it is trivial to spoof an ethernet address. So, I suppose this ISP could be liable as well? Oh, wait--they are just the pipe. So, why is the consumer treated different? Sigh.

Of course. It will cost a mere $300k in legal fees and 6 months in court to prove yourself so.

No, you are still liable as the operator of any public network you provide. In Germany they tried to create better legal protection for public wifi providers, but it is still not clear that you are completely off the hook.

> Or if not liable, you'd at least have an uphill battle to fight in order to prove that it wasn't you that did the thing that got you into trouble.

If everyone had guest networks, I doubt this kind of thing would even make it to court.

Doesn't mean you won't get police showing up with a warrant and taking everything electronic to check for child porn because someone on your IP was distributing it.

An earthquake puts everything deep into force majeure. Contracts are basically out the window. Only the most heartless of judges would allow a case to move beyond the simple assertion that what happened was due to the quake.

If rescuers ask people to open their wifi, they can open their wifi. In such situations those same rescuers are free to bash down doors, raid pharmacies for needed supplies, cut into water pipes to 'steal' water, commender heavy equipment and generally do anything they reasonably feel will keep people alive. Just remember to lock the router back up once the emergency is over.

I'm guffawing at how benignly naive your characterisation of the Italian legal system is.

Isn't this clearly FUD.

Of course if someone from your IP address is committing crimes and the authorities start an investigation they'll start looking into you and your family, you might be inconvenienced as the investigation goes on (e.g. have to park farther from your house because of that annoying white van that always seems to be parked in front). But, IP address is not sufficient evidence to take you to civil court nor charge you with a crime (at least in North American courts).

Regardless, has there ever been a single case where someone was committing a crime by connecting to an open wifi network?

They can seize your gear for a year while they decide whether to charge you and you petition to get it back.

That sounds rather draconian. Is the American justice system really this bad?

I'm aware of the Kim dotcom case that was arguably supporting piracy and the operator knew he was skirting laws. So, I understand (but don't agree) with how the justice system is making an example of him by taking away the servers.

But, does the justice system really pull the nuclear option (take your property and keep it for years) when upon investigation all evidence points elsewhere?

well... yeah.

I'm not sure how often it happens, but it definitely happens. You'll be lucky to EVER get it back.

> You'd still be liable for any misuse happening from external users.

I think he meant risk to the network itself or to attached resources. I don't think anyone in the area is currently thinking about torrents.

That was my first thought as well. Simply removing your WiFi password can have unintended consequences, especially for people with little technical skills.

There would be a sizeable portion of devices that do not support a second ssid or a second network. Also if you have more than one access point, the underlying switched network would have to support 802.1q vlans to separate the two networks, a sci-fi in home network switching.

Guest access approach adheres to best practices, but isn't as simple or as ubiquitous.

I generally keep my Network locked down but i would enable a guest network for a situation like this.

Although ideally it would be nice if every router had a button to enable/disable something like that in case of emergency.

It would make it a lot easier for average people to do it and it wouldn't expose them to too much of a security risk.

What about FON ? My provider did automatically setup an account for me when I got registered with them (opt in).

Why Wifi does not support opportunistic encryption on open networks? This seems to be a poor design choice.

Because it'd be little more than window dressing. Hijacking the initial connection is too easy on an open LAN.

It would still be useful to thwart passive eavesdropping.

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