Is it safe to use a stranger's WiFi channel ?

on 11/21/2005 2:00 AM Galen said the following:

Great, now that you agree that it's about copyright, we can talk about whether your claim has any merit. Your claim to be able to prevent copying http servers is not covered by the "copymyths" site. Neither is the material aspects of your claim. You should read carefully what the author does _not_ say.

Copyright does give you certain rights to control use of a work. That does not mean that it can be just anything you want. For example, can you have a book with a restriction: 'May only be read in libraries on the south side of the street'? Of course not. Once you publish, you put a book into a system where any number of uses will be made of it. Including being purchased by libraries. In fact, you can not, AFAIK, restrict sale of your book to libraries. That is one of the normal uses of books.

How about an example closer to home: "This post may be distributed through all news servers except those operated by Giganews". Can you do that? Of course not. By posting, you give implicit permission for your "work" to be published (and therefore copied) throughout the Usenet system.

Now how about your actual signature. Making Usenet archives available for browser based searching is, as has been amply discussed by others in this thread, not materially different from making the same materials available in Usenet news servers. Furthermore, it is a well known practice, similar to the sale of books to libraries. (please don't latch onto the "sale" thing unless you can demonstrate that anyone pays you for your posts.)

It is not true, as some have asserted, that Usenet posts enter the "public domain." As the "copymyths" site suggests, public domain is something different than simply being available to the public.

Here is a thought for you: If your claim were valid, who do you suppose is doing the "unauthorized" copying? I would say it is the operator of

*your* news service, not the web sites you complain of. They are, after all, the ones given a legitimate copy of your posts and are passing it along to the "infringer". What do you suppose your news server company would say if told that you wanted them to make sure that they do not allow infringing copies of your posts? My guess is they would say three things at most: "Thank you for your concern", "You will receive an email confirming your account termination", and "have a nice life". The first and last only if they want to be polite.

OK, I'm done playing in this particular sandbox. Have a nice day . . .

John Hyde, JD

There is *nothing* about NNTP that defines Usenet. Posting to Usenet in *no way* indicates that NNTP transport is more or less acceptable than any other form of transport.

Usenet had been around for a few years before NNTP was created, and it is just one of many transport mechanisms used with regularity by Usenet. Posting to Usenet is implicit permission to distribute an article as part of Usenet by *any* mechanism. That includes web pages, web browsers, CDROMs, or 8 inch floppy disks too.

Easy. DO NOT POST TO USENET if you don't want it distributed to Usenet.

John is merely looking for a way to get out of a discussion that he can't tolerate. He made the same comment when I pointed out that one of his statements was absurd. It *was* absurd. But that is why he wants and excuse to close it off without having to simply say, "You've got a good point that I hadn't considered."

Hello all,

I think we are running in a closed loop as questions and answers keep repeating and as this thread has nothing to do with alt.internet.wireless or any other, please just accept the fact that there are people with different way of looking at things and conform with group topic.

regards,

-aljuhani

In news:dm07lp$f47$ snipped-for-privacy@canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca, Walter Roberson had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

I took the current Netscape for a spin. I don't know where your finding that option. A search of the Netscape help site (oddly their help's online) didn't reveal any such options and using the email settings didn't enable news. This is version 8 that I am using. In all fairness I can, on the other hand, use newsgroups in Opera so your point basically remains the same though I'm not entirely sure what it is? In Opera, for example, we are still pointed to an NNTP server, not taking the content from it's original format and changing it to another language, not making any pretense of the source of information being at a site, not charging access to it by itself (and I do consider the space on my monitor being taken up by ads as a form of payment as would be submission of personal information for permission to post, etc), and would not bother me at all. So, should someone develop such a critter that functioned like a browser and accessed newsgroups I'd not have a single problem with that. Why? Because the domain is still the same, the content hasn't been altered. There's no pretense that they're the owner/creator of the content, there's no effort to rebrand it, and they're still going to the same address that the content was posted to. A search of your email address at Google brings up 1530 results - I'm betting that the vast majority of those are sites which are leeching newsgroup posts. While you may not care or you even enjoy it (did you know those get harvested so that you get loads of spam?) the point is that they're doing so without your permission UNLESS you gave it to them. The basic human (and legal I suppose but I'm not worried much about that) act would be to ask before taking. While this isn't a tangable property it's still a property and I suspect that if this were a physically manifest property being stolen from you that you'd have an entirely different view. The truth is that you DO own this and you CAN place restrictions on it if you want. My point isn't at all about restrictions - it's about at least being given the common decency of asking before taking something. A task that is well and beyond what a person can accomplish. I will also note that I make exceptions for cross-posted in that when they are I have no control over that and accept that as having been my choice to knowingly post to a cross-posted response though even then MY permission has not been granted to do any more than to propagate that post to that specific group.

It is my opinion, and this is just my opinion, that a simple human effort would have been acceptable and trust me I've searched to see if any of them have ever done so. If I were to own a site and wish to leech the newsgroups (a great way to get traffic and thus make money from ads so it's not really a bad idea) I would note the groups that I wanted to include. I would then post a message in an announcement format showing my site and announcing my wish to copy the posts. I would then read the responses and judge from those responses as to my options. If it seemed that the vast majority (I'd likely insist on it being a complete agreement from at least the people who took the time to respond) agreed to this then I'd go ahead and do it. If someone didn't want me to do so (regardless of their reasoning) then I'd filter out the username of anyone who had a problem with it. Additionally, I'd go so far as to state CLEARLY that the information had not all come from the site, I'd clearly label it as newsgroups, and I'd provide a method of contacting me or automatically removing your posts based on your username, email, or IP address range. For a site to take the content and use it to generate an income from ad impressions or click throughs this is not an unreasonable request in my opinion. I'm sure that there's other ways to filter out people who don't wish to BUT (just like the no-archive) the point is that if they don't want to they shouldn't have to. It should not be an opt-out service at all, it should be an opt-in service. If someone takes something from you and then tells you that you have to go through some process/work to have it given back to you that doesn't make it any less a theft. But, well, that's just my opinion.

was just a note ! not personal

enjoy,

regards,

-aljuhani

ABSURD.

Please don't inject useless distractions into a serious discussion. You *know* (or should know) that what you are saying is *absolutely* *not* *true*, *never* *has* *been* *and* *never* *will*

*be*.

NNTP is merely one, and probably the most used, transport mechanism by which Usenet articles are distributed. It is by

*no means* the only, nor was it anything close to the first or the only transport mechanism.

Don't say stupid things if you don't want someone to point out that the statement is in fact stupid. If you think that is an insult, you need to rethink your definitions.

If I had said, "Your statement is wrong, therefore *you are absurd*", it would be an insult (perhaps not gratuitous, but an insult never the less). I didn't say anything about you at all though. I merely said that your statement is absurd; which is an obvious *FACT*.

Get used to it. (Or make sure of your facts before you post absurd statements.)

Claiming that NNTP defines what is Usenet is absurd, period.

This is closer, but, as you also say, still not quite there.

Galen's point is that the *content* (i.e. his posting(s)) is on a web-*server*, which is not owned by Microsoft (or (perhaps) Google).

So the sentence should make that clear. If you just say "via a web page", then you, as you say, include legitimate web-access to a normal NNTP News server (i.e. the content is on a NNTP News server, not on a (HTTP) web-server). Saying "via" or "on" "a website" is also ambiguous, because it could still include the legitimate web-access to a normal NNTP News server.

Perhaps someone knows a way to get the "if the content is not on a Microsoft(/Google) web-server" clause into the sentence. I won't try because my limited English already got me into trouble in this thread! :-)

Please respond in an interspersed manner like everybody else. It makes communication easier and this 'discussion' is already 'progressing' slowly enough, so we don't need to make it any more difficult by not following Netiquette. Thank you.

I 'missed' it, because you never wrote it. You continuously complain about Google, how evil they are, how they abuse your postings, etc. and you are doing it again in the below quoted parts.

So you *do* mind what Google Groups does.

Yes, I have difficulty admitting that I'm incorrect, for the simple reason that I'm not. As explained many, many times, by *10++* people in this thread (and with *no disagreement from anyone* (except you)) your (claim in) your signature is so utterly ambiguous that it is non-sense.

So, please tell us why we should accept your opinion over that of 10++ others?

Huh? Am I supposed to address the parts which I have *no* issue with?

Anyway, the only part which I have not, at least not fully, addressed is:

Which part do you want me to address and why?

[And more complaints about Google:]

Sorry about that! I checked it over before posting and thought that it was OK, but it obviously wasn't.

What I *meant* was that *Galen* whined about it. In no way did/do I think that *you* whined. My "also" refered to the fact that you both talked about it. In hindsight I see that my use of "also" was incorrect. It was one of the few times my non-native language failed on me.

So please ignore the "whined#######" part and respond. Thank you.

This time I will just address one single point and ask one specific question.

Please read this carefully and answer clearly and as 'terse' as possible. Thank you.

[much deleted]

There is no need to "develop such a critter", because, as we have said, such 'critters', web-access to NNTP-based Usenet/News servers,

*already exist*. *One* such provider is NewsReader.com .

So do you agree that if someone uses NewsReader.com to access your postings on a normal NNTP-based Usenet/News server that the claim in your signature is incorrect?

I.e. the user *is* "reading this in a browser and the domain is not owned by Microsoft", but the user *does* have your permission, because your article is on a normal NNTP-based News server (which is also not owned by Microsoft).

[deleted]

I understand what you are saying, but the solution is quite simple: If you do not want to read something, then don't read it. No-one forces you to read this (sub-)thread. If you do not want to *see* new postings, then use a real newsreader with killfile capability, i.e. don't read with Google Groups.

As to "this thread has nothing to do with alt.internet.wireless or any other", that's true (except for, indirectly, the microsoft.* group), but the fact is that the discussion is taking place in these groups and, after all this time, we can not leave out groups, because we do not know which posters read which group(s), let alone which readers read which group(s).

So bottom line: 'We' will continue as and as along as we see fit and you are free to happily ignore 'us'. Fair enough?

In article , Galen wrote: :In news:dm07lp$f47$ snipped-for-privacy@canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca, :Walter Roberson had this to say:

:> You don't seem to have replied to my point about Netscape Messenger, :> a browser with a built-in newsreader.

:I took the current Netscape for a spin. I don't know where your finding that :option. A search of the Netscape help site (oddly their help's online) :didn't reveal any such options and using the email settings didn't enable :news. This is version 8 that I am using.

Netscape 4. See

:In all fairness I can, on the other :hand, use newsgroups in Opera so your point basically remains the same :though I'm not entirely sure what it is?

It's a browser, is it not? And "the domain" involved (if one can isolate it down to one single "domain" for the process) is not owned by microsoft. Under your correct-in-every-way signature, that access would not be allowed.

:In Opera, for example, we are still :pointed to an NNTP server, not taking the content from it's original format :and changing it to another language, not making any pretense of the source :of information being at a site, not charging access to it by itself (and I :do consider the space on my monitor being taken up by ads as a form of :payment as would be submission of personal information for permission to :post, etc), and would not bother me at all. So, should someone develop such :a critter that functioned like a browser and accessed newsgroups I'd not :have a single problem with that.

But your signature would still prohibit it.

We have three choices here:

- we ignore your signature; or

- we second-guess what you probably wouldn't mind if you had thought about it; or

- each and every one of us that uses that kind of setup and whom *might* encounter a message from you with your signature, writes you email and asks for specific permission to use the specific software setup. And we do the same for EVERYONE who posts (or might post) in any newsgroup we ever use, on the grounds that they -might- at some point decide to add a similar signature to yours. This -must- be pre-emptive, because if we wait until we actually see the signature, then we might find that the signature denies us permission to read the signature to find out what we were prohibitted from doing, and that it also denies us permission to read the email address from the headers in order to find out where to write to ask for an exemption!

Do you have time to evaluate a few tens of thousands of requests for exemptions? And since each of us -might- put a signature like yours in our postings, do you have time to write to several hundred thousand people asking for permission to ignore whatever reading restrictions they might choose to add in the future?

:A search of :your email address at Google brings up 1530 results

:(did you know those get harvested so :that you get loads of spam?)

The hits you found amount to roughly 2% of the occurances of my email address available via google, and about 3/4% of the postings I have made (or so google claims). As for spam, I personally get about ~200 per day, but acting as postmaster for our legacy domains (which I have been the only active user of for the last 3 years), we are peaking at about 10,000 spam per day.

:While this isn't a tangable property it's still a property and I suspect :that if this were a physically manifest property being stolen from you that :you'd have an entirely different view. The truth is that you DO own this and :you CAN place restrictions on it if you want.

That would depend upon jurisdiction, of course, but in USA and Canada, because you are knowingly releasing the message without controls over where it goes, what you are doing legally amounts to an "implied contract" that would be unlikely to stand up in court (e.g., it lacks the elements legally known as "acceptance" and "consideration"). If you wish to impose copyright controls, you must do so -before- publication; for example, you would have to contract with Microsoft that your postings would not be retransmitted outside of Microsoft servers. Effectively, an "implied contract" can -reduce- normal publication restrictions, but not -increase- normal publication restrictions.

What about this response to your response: "You've got a good point that I *had* considered!"? :-)

Please don't preach to the converted! You are making the exact same points which I already made, especially the 'Usenet/News predates Internet/NNTP and does not require either' one. See for example .

What I *was* trying to do in my above quoted posting, is to try to help Walter, and thereby Galen, to make a signature-sentence for Galen, which at least made *some* sense (as opposed to his current one which makes absolutely no sense).

I.e. I don't think that Galen is ever going to realize/admit that he is totally wrong, so I don't think he will remove his current claim, but perhaps he is willing to change it to something which is somewhat better / less bad. *That* was what I was trying to accomplish.

...!mcvax!hpuamsa!frank

I respectfully disagree. NNTP has clearly become the defined mechanism for transport (copying) of Usenet articles.

FYI, because of that insult I'm not going to respond further to you on this topic, no matter what you might claim.

I'm referring to the earning of ad revenues, both from Sponsored Links and from context ads, both in the viewing of current Usenet content (as in the case of commercial use of radio and TV broadcasts by bars, etc.), and in the viewing archived Usenet content (which clearly falls outside of normal Usenet usage).

The key issue is that the value of the ads (as reflected in the price that Google charges) is tied to the value of the content -- without "Googlesense" (ads appearing based on accompanying content) the price would be much lower. So Google is making money from copyrighted content that it hasn't licensed.

That Google Groups is on shaky legal ground (much like Google Print) is reflected in the fact that Google will remove material on request, and won't archive material when so flagged. Part of the problem is that copyright law has been based on "opt in" whereas Google is using "opt out".

Again, I respectfully disagree -- Google is serving up a copy in a distinctly different way from either transmission or normal Usenet access.

Caveat: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.