The feds went to bust a suspected pedo but it turns out it was a grandmother with an open WiFi network in an apartment building who was none the wiser to the activity. If you follow RIAA logic in the music file trading sector, grandma would be responsible but fortunately the courts are beginning to see this as overzealous.

“We’re not sure yet how to combat that,” said Kevin R. West, a federal agent who oversees the computer crimes unit in North Carolina’s State Bureau of Investigation. “Free wireless spots are everywhere, and it makes it easy for people . . . to sit there and do their nefarious acts. The fear is that if we talk about it, people will learn about it and say, ‘I can go to a parking lot, and no one will catch me.’ But we need to talk about it so that we can figure out how to solve it.”

The Washington Post article goes on to report on open networks as mostly being a negative thing from the authorities point of view. Articles like these don’t seem to get the point of free, open internet access to everyone yes, even the bad guys. Just the web is filled with content from the bad people — and I’m all for taking these people down — bad people will use open WiFi networks.

The Waving Cat is disappointed with the article:

What freaks me out is how badly research the article is. Not a single counterstatement, or alternative point of view to be found. Is this the same Washington Post that’s been around for ages and is well-known for good journalist practice?? I’m so sick of journalists buying one-sidedly into conservative policy rhetorics as far as technology is involved.

Dan Gillmor smells a possible police agenda:

They want to stamp out open networks, period. And as they see cities starting to offer WiFi, they want to prevail on governments to force a registration system that will track everyone who uses such municipal systems.

Let’s compare an unsecured WiFi network to a park. Anybody can visit a park. What if drug dealers start visiting the park? The cops can make more trips to the park, but does this mean they should put up security cameras everywhere? I’m sure some/many/all are not going to want to visit a park where drugs and seedy types are hanging out. I’m probably not going to take my family there.

It’s all about choice. The park isn’t to blame for where it’s located no more than the open WiFi is to blame for who uses it. The police need to do a better job going after the people producing illegal content and way, way, way down the list of priorities should be what to do (nothing IMO) about unsecured WiFi networks. If the illegal content isn’t being produced and available, there is nothing for these sick bastards to find and trade among themselves over grandma’s open WiFi.

The police have repeatedly said they are outnumbered in the fight against illegal content the internet. So the solution when you are in a fight like this isn’t to widen the net, parden the pun, and create more things for less people to try and police. The whole fight against gambling on the net to me continues to be very ill-advised and what it has to do with terrorism is a whole other story. There are far more important battles to be fought taking down illegal content than worrying about somebody playing blackjack in their knickers.

The solution is to focus.

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