I think all wifi locations should be open to the world. The exception being free riders taking all of the bandwidth. . . aside from saturating the WIFI link, there is no real downside; free riders create a complete defense to the RIAA and their ilk.

Open the WIFI ports after hours. Turn off the systems with serious data and let the carrier(s) that we pay provide the bandwidth that we pay them for 24/7 on a 24/7 basis.

The only problem I see is the pr0n idiots (no mail servers are EVER available) taking advantage of the free ride. Of course, killing the first moron found downloading kiddie pr0n with his hands on his joystick rather than the wheel when he hits the building will have the effect of diminishing their numbers (literally). It will send a damn fine message to the rest (or not -- shells are cheap and the world needs fewer child molesters) that the WIFI port has a lethal limit.

Public service heaped upon public service...what could serve the public better in any circumstance?

John Ashcroft, our fearless Attorney General, found a few minutes to task the DOJ with policing fraud on the Internet. Starting October 1, 2003 and announced on November 20, 2003 his little enforcement action netted ~124k victims and lord knows how many cons.

I'd think they could have done the same study by compiling the FTC complaints and cross-referencing them with Spamhaus' known spammer list.

What rocket science?

The law exists to protect us from criminals and to keep a civil society (e.g. nothing like what we see in the gory shoot-em-up movie / TV genre). The problem is that the cyber criminals are consuming the bandwidth available for relevant data and our community will, eventually, cease to exist or else engage in acts that are themselves illegal. Unless the application of the law to the cyber community does more to assure us of protection from the predators, the community will shift further and further away from civility. It is the Tragedy of the Commons (Garrett Hardin, Science 1968) all over again.

While we are at it, respect for the law require that the law have some validity and the way copyright is used as a bludgeon certainly does not inspire much in the way of making us feel secure.

Because they think more victims = success.

These lawsuits call for Amici briefs from everybody. When the litigation reaches the applellate stage it's time to turn their tactic back on them and bury them in so much legal argument that they would have to hire 3rd world attorneys just to keep up with the filings. Let's see how a small company deals with a world-wide legal backlash.

Well, a 9th Cir decision was cited in an article today. I'd say that 2/3 of the folks responding were attorneys. Why?

I'm one. But I'm also a chemist & biologist with a long history of working with big iron and programmable lab calculators.

What can be driving all of these other legal types to read /.?

Are they all science geeks? What attracts so many? Is the porch light still on?

POT to start my navel-gazing experiment (to the world at large, that is Plain Old Text not weed). /. seems fairly close to the early days on BIX. I haven't looked around enough (in the backwaters) here to determine if /. has anything like the early WELL discussions.

Thus far I've been lurking for a year. In the past month I've created a new persona (hey, I got a new laptop - I NEED a new persona) and have posted a few replies. No flame wars yet.

I'm fairly clear on the freeform nature of /. and it has retained my interest through several high-work months. I guess that is the gold standard: can I keep current with a new area while keeping current with the work?

I'm really enjoying the SCO suit comments here. The Linux world has mostly passed me by -if only because I haven't had to mess with the 486-based Linux server (3.x something of the Penguin) since I got it running ~ 2 years ago!

So, now I have these new Mac's & old PC's and a law practice and my own journal at /. :- ). I didn't say anything bad about Safaris. . . I wonder why?