Reallly? REALLY?

Sexy Beast

Sexy Beast

Poster Extraordinaire
Joined
Apr 23, 2008
Messages
2,641
England just passed a bill on the Digital economy. One of the stipulations of this bill is that Open Wi-Fi is now against the law. Meaning that Wi-Fi service you enjoy at your local coffee shop is now against the law in England.

Also the government will not exempt universities, libraries and small businesses providing open Wi-Fi services from its Digital Economy Bill copyright crackdown, according to official advice released earlier this week.

My point of view:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu7vySQbgXI[/ame]



Source: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,1000000085,40057470,00.htm?tag=mncol;txt
 
Yeah, there's gotta be a reason for this. And what does the classification of 'open' mean? Does that mean that there has to be a password on it? Ok, if so, so what?

In the U.S. there are a bunch of places with password protected wi-fi that list the password on your menu, or is told to you by employees. That's not technically open, but if you're a patron then you have access.
 
Cool, on the road to a totalitarian/socialist state are we england? Would expect this in china, north korea and the middle east but england? Like sexybeast already said, "really england, really?"
 
Just stick the Wi-fi password on the coffee shop's door so everyone can access it. It's not open anymore.
 
foxhound-KD- said:
Cool, on the road to a totalitarian/socialist state are we england? Would expect this in china, north korea and the middle east but england? Like sexybeast already said, "really england, really?"
Click to expand...

I would write a book here, but we should discuss such politics.

Anyway, if business owners really don't like it they'll do something about it. Such as posting the password on the door, etc. If it were me in England owning a cafe which has provided open wi-fi for several years. I would post the password on all of the tables and the password would be something like "digitalbillssuck" :)
 
D.T.S. said:
Yeah, there's gotta be a reason for this. And what does the classification of 'open' mean? Does that mean that there has to be a password on it? Ok, if so, so what?

In the U.S. there are a bunch of places with password protected wi-fi that list the password on your menu, or is told to you by employees. That's not technically open, but if you're a patron then you have access.
Click to expand...

"Even if they password protect, they then have two options ? to pay someone like The Cloud to manage it for them, or take responsibility themselves for becoming an ISP effectively, and keep records for everyone they assign connections to, which is an impossible burden for a small caf?."

That sucks..
 
Until it comes on the BBC's site, im not believing anything!

Yes, i love the BBC and think it is the only news provider in the world :P
 
Darth said:
Until it comes on the BBC's site, im not believing anything!

Yes, i love the BBC and think it is the only news provider in the world :P
Click to expand...

I agree, the BBC is probably the best source for news in the world. The issue is that the Outlawing of public WiFi is just a small portion of the Digital Economy Bill.

As of right now ZDnet seems to be the ones reporting on it, but as I posted above the BIS released a fact sheet on this issue.

Here: http://www.openrightsgroup.org/asse...niversities,_and_Wifi_Providers-Factsheet.doc
 
Meh just something blown out of all proportion by the gutter press, thier just closing a loophole in the copyright law while using open WiFi.
 
Right Stop That! It's too silly. Time for a cartoon!

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhJQp-q1Y1s[/ame]
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top