Fear (Score 1)

Maybe geeks in Oz need to start their own campaign. Knock on doors and educate people why everyone should open their router? I recently visited Australia and was amazed at how hard a time I had finding open access points with my ipod. I didn't have a notebook or 3G phone on me, I was backpacking and trying to keep the weight down. The problem is not much better here at home, in Canada. I live in a neighbourhood of dense housing and can see about 20 wifi networks broadcasting, but mine is the only open one. (I call it KarmaNet.) Most connections to it are iphones, and the occasional neighbour that uses it regularly. In the two years I've had it open and uncapped, I've noticed no change in my overall bandwidth consumption.

Yes, there is a miniscule chance that someone will use it to do something truly nefarious, like posting kiddie porn. This common argument is very lopsided relative to the amount of good it could do to society as a whole if everyone had an open network, even if most had capped public bandwidth to something relatively small.

Yes, I know it's against most ISP rules. We should be pushing to have laws that force ISPs to remove this clause from TOS agreements. This should be on the agenda of the growing Pirate Parties of the world. It's something the average person can relate to, even if they have no interest in the copyright issues on the current Pirate Party agendas.

I know I'm preaching to the choir, and I know slashdotters and generally too complacent to actually go door to door and educate people about this (I know I am). Seriously, though, why not bring the subject up with our non-techy friends (many who now own smartphones or other portable wifi devices and can easily relate to how wonderful it would be to not rely on 3G networks). Get people thinking about this "what if" scenario.