Another Bad EU Ruling: WiFi Providers Can Be Forced To Require Passwords If Copyright Holders Demand It

from the really-now? dept

For quite some time now, we've been following an odd case through the German and then EU court system, concerning whether or not the operator of an open WiFi system should be liable for copyright infringement that occurs over that access point. Back in 2010, a German court first said that if you don't secure your WiFi, you can get fined. This was very problematic -- especially for those of us who believe in open WiFi. The EU Court of Justice agreed to hear the case and the Advocate General recommended a good ruling: that WiFi operators are not liable and also that they shouldn't be forced to password protect their access points.

The ruling, unfortunately, says that WiFi operators can be compelled to password protect their networks. It's not all bad, in that the headline story is that WiFi operators, on their own, are not liable for actions done on the network, but that's completely undermined by the requirement to password protect it if a copyright holder asks them to.

In today’s judgment, the Court holds, first of all, that making a Wi-Fi network available to the general public free of charge in order to draw the attention of potential customers to the goods and services of a shop constitutes an ‘information society service’ under the directive.

Next, the Court confirms that, where the above three conditions are satisfied, a service provider such as Mr Mc Fadden, who providers access to a communication network, may not be held liable. Consequently, the copyright holder is not entitled to claim compensation on the ground that the network was used by third parties to infringe its rights. Since such a claim cannot be successful, the copyright holder is also precluded from claiming the reimbursement of the costs of giving formal notice or court costs incurred in relation to that claim.

However, the directive does not preclude the copyright holder from seeking before a national authority or court to have such a service provider ordered to end, or prevent, any infringement of copyright committed by its customers.

Lastly, the Court holds that an injunction ordering the internet connection to be secured by means of a password is capable of ensuring a balance between, on the one hand, the intellectual property rights of rightholders and, on the other hand, the freedom to conduct a business of access providers and the freedom of information of the network users. The Court notes, in particular, that such a measure is capable of deterring network users from infringing intellectual property rights.

The details here are especially troubling. As legal experts are noting, this ruling basically says that the times when an injunction can be ordered for password protection, the reason is for the sake of identifying users:

In McFadden the CJEU appears to have decided that password protection would be effective only if the user is required to provide identity details to the service provider so that the user cannot act anonymously.

Now that should raise some very serious concerns about anonymity and privacy -- things that we thought the EU supported. Instead, the CJEU basically seems to be saying you have a right to anonymity in connecting to the internet up until the point a major copyright holder doesn't like it any more, and they can now force WiFi operators to lock up their WiFi and/or demand identification to use it. Yikes.

This also punches a HUGE hole in the previous day's announcement by the EU Commission that there would be open WiFi across Europe. Under this new CJEU ruling, that may no longer be possible. It's fairly incredible how, between the European Court of Justice and the EU Commission, they seem so oddly confused about copyright and related issues that they seem to be messing absolutely everything up in just a few short weeks.

Filed Under: cjeu, copyright, eu court of justice, injunctions, liability, mcfadden, open wifi, passwords, wifi

NYC Kills Internet Browsing At Free WiFi Kiosks After The City's Homeless Actually Use It

from the better-neither-seen-nor-heard dept

Earlier this year, New York City undertook one of the biggest free city WiFi efforts ever conceived. Under the plan, an outfit by the name of LinkNYC is slated to install some 7,500 WiFi kiosks scattered around the five boroughs that will provide free gigabit WiFi (well, closer to 300 Mbps or so), free phone calls to anywhere in the country (via Vonage), as well as access to a device recharging station, 311, 911, 411 and city services (via an integrated Android tablet). The connectivity and services are supported by a rotating crop of ads displayed on the kiosks themselves.

The only problem? As part of the initiative, the city and LinkNYC attached an Android-powered tablet that lets anyone browse the internet for as long as they wanted. This, as you might expect, has resulted in some people camping out for long periods of time actually using the free service. That includes, unsurprisingly, New York City's ample homeless population. As Motherboard notes in a report, after spending much of August tracking usage of the kiosks, a snapshot view of daily use doesn't make for shiny marketing fodder:

"My small sample of Link users that Saturday afternoon suggests these kiosks are indeed mostly used by the city’s least privileged. Of the 15 people I saw using a Link, only two or three of them would be likely to appear on LinkNYC promotional materials (i.e., one well-dressed woman making a phone call, or one middle aged, casually-dressed tourist waiting for his phone to finish charging).

Again, this shouldn't really be surprising, especially since the city has consistently claimed that one of its goals is to close the digital divide. Since June there has also been a lot of breathless hysteria about the fact that some of the homeless users have been using the tablets to watch porn. In response, LinkNYC began implementing internet filters that, as internet filters tend to do, didn't seem to work.

Responding to public complaints, LinkNYC announced this week that it would be discontinuing tablet browsing functionality at the kiosks:

"...Some users have been monopolizing the Link tablets and using them inappropriately, preventing others from being able to use them while frustrating the residents and businesses around them. The kiosks were never intended for anyone’s extended, personal use and we want to ensure that Links are accessible and a welcome addition to New York City neighborhoods.

The announcement notes that the internet browsing will be disabled, but other services will still work:

"Starting today, we will be removing web browsing on all Link tablets while we work with the City and community to explore potential solutions, like time limits. Other tablet features—free phone calls, maps, device charging, and access to 311 and 911—will continue to work as they did before, and nothing is changing about LinkNYC’s superfast Wi-Fi. As planned, we will continue to improve the Link experience and add new features for people to enjoy while they’re on the go."

While countless news stories suggest that the move was primarily in response to overwhelming porn consumption, there's no real evidence that this was an epidemic of any real scale. While there have certainly been documented instances of public masterbation at the kiosks (this is NYC after all, and occasionally viewing a homeless person's gentials is not a new concept), LinkNYC has suggested that people camping out around the kiosks (sometimes bringing chairs, couches and crates with them) was the larger source of complaints by locals.

The real problem appears to be that the service put the city's homeless population on stark display, making them more difficult for city residents to ignore. On one hand it's understandable that homeless populations camping around the kiosks isn't great "optics" or olfactory ambiance for the city and local business owners, but at the same time it's not clear what one expects to happen when you provide the city's 60,000 homeless residents with free access to technology they otherwise lack access to. LinkNYC says it's working with the city on a solution, and may restore public browsing at a later date with tougher filters and access limitations in place. Given the fact that filters historically don't work, it seems more likely that the free browsing will be gone for good.

Filed Under: homeless, kiosks, new york city, nyc, porn, wifi

University Tracks Students' Movements Using WiFi, But Says It's OK Because It's Not Tracking Students

from the slippery-slope dept

One of the many revelations from the Snowden files was that Canada's spy agency has been tracking people as they connect to WiFi in different public locations. And if Canada is doing it, you can be pretty sure the NSA and GCHQ are doing the same, since neither is known for being backward in using whatever means it can to snoop on huge numbers of people. Of course, you'd expect spy agencies to be up to these kinds of tricks, and you might also be unsurprised to learn that shops are also tracking you using your WiFi connection. But we might have hoped that universities would have been a little more sensitive to privacy issues than the following news on the Australian ABC News site suggests is the case:

The University of Melbourne has moved to allay privacy concerns amid revelations it is tracking students through their wi-fi usage.

The university said the practice, which looked at where people were moving around campus, helped institutions improve retention rates and the experience of students.

According to the article, the university is using the data for the following reason:

The university is trying to work out where people move across the campus to help with planning the new Metro Rail project, which will run through the middle of the campus.

That's certainly a reasonable goal, but the university seems blissfully unaware of the privacy dangers of its data gathering. In particular, the fact that it is interested in which campus room students are in at any given time means that it could probably work out the identities of those using a particular WiFi system by correlating the rooms visited with the different courses taken by each student. The university would then have a record of where all its students went during the day, who they met, and for how long. Apparently meaningless location information is actually incredibly revealing.

There's no suggestion that the university is doing anything like this, or even thinking about doing it. But once advances in technology mean that something is theoretically possible, the pressure to put it into practice can become irresistible, as other students have discovered.

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Filed Under: australia, privacy, students, tracking, wifi
Companies: university of melbourne

BBC Now Training Its Secret, Likely Imaginary, Fleet Of Detector Vans On Your WiFi

from the is-this-really-a-good-use-of-resources? dept

Nearly a decade ago, we wrote about the fact that the BBC supposedly has a fleet of totally secret "detector" vans that drive around trying to figure out who was watching the BBC without paying for it. As you probably know, if you live in the UK, you're forced to buy a BBC license if you have a TV or a TV turner card. And, for years, they've claimed to have had these magical detector vans. When we wrote about them in 2008, it was because a freedom of information request to find out about the vans was denied for the most ridiculous of reasons: revealing the details of the vans "would damage the public's perception of the effectiveness of the TV detector vans." In other words, the "vans" -- if they exist at all -- were more about scaring people into paying, rather than actually detecting those watching the BBC without a license.

Either way, those vans are back in the news, after the Telegraph reported that the vans have now been outfitted with apparent WiFi detection tools as well to go after people watching the BBC online without paying:

The Telegraph can disclose that from next month, the BBC vans will fan out across the country capturing information from private Wi-Fi networks in homes to “sniff out” those who have not paid the licence fee.

The corporation has been given legal dispensation to use the new technology, which is typically only available to crime-fighting agencies, to enforce the new requirement that people watching BBC programmes via the iPlayer must have a TV licence.

A researcher interviewed in the article suggests -- without actual knowledge -- that the system could work in a manner in which the BBC's iPlayer deliberately sends packets of certain sizes, and then the van could use a packet sniffer to look for matching sized packets, without actually capturing any of the actual internet traffic. In other words, it might make use of certain forms of (you guessed it...) metadata. Of course, this is all speculation, and given the earlier reports on the van's Potemkin Village nature, it pays to be skeptical that the vans really do anything at all, beyond trying to scare people into paying licensing fees. After lots of people ran with the Telegraph's original claims, it now appears (thankfully) that at least some reporters are finally skeptical of these special new "WiFi snooping" vans.

Even if the vans don't really work (or exist), it still should serve as a clear reminder of how surveillance efforts are at least a constant temptation for those in power, allowing what was officially put in place for "national security" to creep into totally unrelated areas. If media companies could actually build a van to cruise around and sniff WiFi looking for pirates, does anyone really think they wouldn't do so?

Filed Under: detector vans, surveillance, tv, tv licenses, uk, wifi
Companies: bbc

French Prime Minister Says Government Not Considering Banning Open WiFi, Tor Connections

from the that-proposed-encryption-ban,-tho dept

The French government has issued a statement indicating it will not be participating in the nation's law enforcement agencies' perversely masturbatorial power fantasies. A few days ago, Le Monde published a few "highlights" from a law enforcement "wishlist," crafted in response to the terrorist attacks in Paris.

Among the many, many things law enforcement jotted down in response to a call for input on future terrorist-related legislation was a ban on public WiFi, Tor connections and encrypted communications. This was in addition to requests for warrantless/consent-less searches of people and vehicles, and the power to arbitrarily set up roadblocks for the purposes of executing even more warrantless/consent-less searches of people and vehicles.

The French Prime Minister has now confirmed that at least one of the items on the disturbing list will not be implemented. (via the Daily Dot)

A ban on Wifi internet access will not be introduced as part of new security measures in response to the Paris attacks in November, the Prime Minister has said.

There also appears to be no government interest in banning Tor connections, although this was stated a little less firmly. And the whole "demand encryption keys from third parties" request goes entirely unaddressed, suggesting the French government still has an eye on inserting itself into encrypted relationships as a "trusted partner."

Interestingly, Prime Minister Manual Valls appears to have not seen the same document Le Monde did.

The prime minister denied any knowledge of such police requests, adding: "Internet is a freedom, is an extraordinary means of communication between people, it is a benefit to the economy."

Mr Valls said he understood the security services' need for tough measures to fight terrorism but stressed that those measures had to be "effective".

This could be taken to mean that the law enforcement wishlist compiled by the police liaison office isn't viewed as an "official" request in any way, shape or form -- that it may as well have been drunken scrawls on the back of a cocktail napkin as far as the Prime Minister is concerned. It could also mean the Prime Minister isn't yet willing to go on record as to the numerous other, unaddressed requests made by law enforcement, most of which deal with the terrestial realm, rather than the more ethereal 'net.

France is still under a state of emergency, which has already given law enforcement increased discretionary powers. The government will likely move forward with harmful legislation because that's what governments tend to do in response to violent attacks. But, for now, it appears law enforcement will have to make do with the arbitrary house arrests and warrantless searches it's already engaging in.

Filed Under: encryption, france, freedom, law enforcement, manual valls, public wifi, surveillance, tor, wifi

FCC Fines More Companies For Blocking Convention Center WiFi, Says Hilton Obstructed Investigation

from the anti-competitive-shenanigans dept

Over the last year, one of the FCC's major crackdowns has been on companies that block customer WiFi at convention centers in order to drive visitors and exhibitors to the center's own, absurdly-priced WiFi services. It began last year when the FCC fined Marriott $600,000 for blocking user WiFi to force them on to Nashville convention center services costing upwards of $1,000 per day. Marriott feebly tried to argue it was simply protecting consumers from security threats before it gave up the fight, realizing that both the law and public sentiment were both decidedly against them.

The FCC has since fined other companies for similar behavior, including a $750,000 fine levied against a company by the name of Smart City Holdings for doing the same thing at a string of convention centers all over the country. Now the FCC says it has levied yet another fine of $718,000 against a company by the name of M.C. Dean for blocking user access to their own WiFi while visiting the Baltimore convention center:

"As the exclusive provider of Wi-Fi access at the Baltimore Convention Center, M.C. Dean charges exhibitors and visitors as much as $1,095 per event for Wi-Fi access. Last year, the Commission received a complaint from a company that provides equipment that enables users to establish hotspots at conventions and trade shows. The complainant alleged that M.C. Dean blocked hotspots its customers had tried to establish at the Baltimore Convention Center. After receiving the complaint, Enforcement Bureau field agents visited the venue on multiple occasions and confirmed that Wi-Fi blocking activity was taking place."

In all of these instances the companies in question used hardware that sent de-authorization packets to user mobile hotspots and tethered smartphones, confusing the devices and disrupting any attempted connection to them. In M.C. Dean's case, the FCC found that the hardware it was using in the Baltimore convention center was powerful enough to disrupt WiFi connectivity for people simply passing by outside. As with everything the FCC does lately, only Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly (think the Statler and Waldorf muppets but much less funny) opposed cracking down on this behavior.

In perhaps a more interesting companion announcement, the FCC notes that it has also fined Hilton hotels $25,000, but for obstructing the FCC's investigation into similar behavior. According to the FCC, Hilton ingeniously tried to deflate any investigation into WiFi blocking by simply refusing to answer the agency's questions:

"In August 2014, the Commission received an initial consumer complaint alleging that the Hilton in Anaheim, California blocked visitors' Wi-Fi hot spots unless those consumers paid a $500 fee to access Hilton's Wi-Fi. The Commission has also received Wi-Fi blocking complaints involving other Hilton properties. In November 2014, the Bureau issued Hilton a letter of inquiry seeking information concerning basic company information, relevant corporate policies, and specifics regarding Wi-Fi management practices at Hilton-brand properties in the United States. After nearly one year, Hilton has failed to provide the requested information for the vast majority of its properties."

Surely playing mute will work? In all cases, the FCC states these companies are violating Section 333 of the Communications Act by maliciously interfering with or causing interference to lawful WiFi hotspots. Marriott had initially tried to argue that the definition of "interference" in Section 333 was ambiguous enough to create doubt over FCC authority over unlicensed spectrum here, but after regulators, the public, Google, Microsoft and wireless carriers all started yelling at Marriott in unison, it became pretty clear that trying to argue the point (just to defend clearly anti-competitive behavior) just wasn't going to be worth it.

Filed Under: blocking, convention centers, fcc, hotels, wifi
Companies: hilton, smart city holdings