El Fon Blog

The Frankfurt court of appeals has ruled in favor of a German citizen, accused of sharing copyrighted music files over the Internet. The defendant had been previously ruled guilty, though he pled that someone else was guilty of the offense, using his open wifi hotspot. The court of appeals recognized that there was insufficient evidence to prove the defendant guilty in the first place, and that German citizens are not automatically guilty of offenses committed by others, using their unrestricted Internet connections. Read this arstechnica.com article

This may be great news for Foneros in Germany who worry about their liabilities, when they provide a Fon hotspot! Fon does not consider their hotspots “open”, but neither do they really qualify as “closed”. Fon hotspots are not encrypted, and Internet access can be obtained instantly, without proving one’s identity. Additionaly, a hacker might sniff traffic in order to capture an Alien’s Fon session cookies, then spoof their MAC address, to continue their valid Fon session after the Alien has shut her PC down for the day.

Unfortunately, there have been similar incidents here in the USA, where the courts did not accept the “open hotspot” defense. So far, none of these has involved a Fon hotspot. It remains to be seen whether Fon will provide evidence which could exonerate an innocent suspect.

An Austin, TX man was recently convicted of child pornography, simply because he was “the most likely” suspect, despite the household sharing an unencrypted hotspot, and all activity taking place using accounts apparently belonging to his roomate. Authorities searched only one room, and decided they had their man when they found some unspecified “child porn” there. Problem was, they didn’t bother searching anywhere else, and decided to move forward with prosecution based on what they had.

This is typical of police in the USA where they cut corners by placing all the blame on the first likely suspect as soon as they find him, in order to create the impression to the public that they bring quick results. They will halt the investigation while they try to coerce a confession, or force the suspect to plea-bargain by piling on ridiculous charges, which they agree to drop if he cooperates. In the meantime, real criminals have time to cover their tracks, and may even be contacted by the authorities who make them agree to remain silent, “in the interests of justice”.

Since the authorities cleverly stopped when they had *just enough* evidence, they can maintain plausable deniability where there is overwhelming, undiscovered evidence to the contrary. Any questions about the quality of their investigation are met with dangerously aggressive indignation; after all, the authorities should always be trusted, since, you know, they get really indignant… Never mind that the evidence was cherry-picked, and obtained improperly. The judge decided to allow it, since to do otherwise would mean to dissapoint the police, and lose them a conviction.

Read the ARSTECHNICA report on this case here. 

We’re back!

Dan Berte of http://www.wirelessisfun.com/ has edited our 3 hours of recorded ramblings into several bite-sized segments. Dan and I were joined by Mike Puchol of tech.am blog, who is also a founder and CTO of http://www.whisher.com/. We’re demonstrating our rapidly improving style, so look out, http://www.kenradio.com/! 

Download segments at: http://wirelessisfun.com/2007/04/09/wif-podcast-2/

SHOW NOTES: 

Court rules Vonage must stop using Verizon patents.Vonage claims it has long prepared for this, and customers have no fear of service termination. Mike Snyder, Vonage’s chief executive officer says “Friday’s events represented one small step in what is sure to be a long legal battle.” Vonage, whose shares fell nearly 26% on Friday, also said the litigation would likely take years, but added that it was confident it would continue to provide service to its over 2.2 million subscribers. Will they license from Verizon? Will they patch their code? Is this death for Vonage?
http://gigaom.com/2007/03/23/vonage-has-to-stop-using-verizon-patents/
http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/2007/03/the_v_battle.html

EarthLink Unveils Wi-Fi VoIP Phone with wifi router built into base…

This appears to be the same “FON Router with Skype Handset” from July, 2006.
http://wifinetnews.com/archives/007493.html
http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/2007/03/earthlink_wifi_.html
http://blog.fon.com/en/archive/gadgets/fon-router-with-skype-handset.html

Fon Blog and Martin Varsavsky release early details of their upcoming “Fontenna”

This will be an external, cable-tethered 7db box.
http://blog.fon.com/en/archive/gadgets/fontenna-update.html
http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/fon/the-secret-is-in-the-fontennas.html

Fon suggests again that their partnership with McAfee makes their product safe.

Deja Vu from Dec 12 last year…
http://blog.fon.com/en/archive//fon-mcafee.html
http://www.mymcafee.com/Partner.aspx
http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/fon/is-fon-safe.html
http://elfonblog.fondoo.net/?p=43

Fon releases firmware upgrades for VOIP phones

They can now log in to Fon hotspots. Is the problem solved? Listener feedback encouraged.
http://wirelessisfun.com/2007/03/23/brief-on-fon/
http://www.fon.com/en/info/whatsNew

Another Fon issue fixed by Apple Computer-

Airport Extreme patch makes it easier to connect to La Fonera now.
http://fonblog.wordpress.com/2007/03/26/mac-osx-patch-for-airport-to-solve-fonera-wpa-issue/
http://wsidecar.apple.com/cgi-bin/nph-reg3rdpty2.pl/product=13259&cat=1&platform=osx&method=sa/AirPortExtremeUpdate2007002.dmg

Melting La Fonera APs…

The infamous YouTube video is probably a hoax, but an expert analysis by Mike Puchol suggests that the electronics may last no more than a year due to heat stress.
http://tech.am/2007/03/17/fonera-overheating-are-we-cooking-yet/
http://wirelessisfun.com/2007/03/19/la-fonera-to-die-in-one-year/

Fon’s upcoming La Fonera 1.5 will have a LAN port

Probably to be based on the slightly better Accton MR3202A 2 Port Mini Router. Since La Foneras have a 2 year warantee, this could mean a free upgrade when the 1.0 fries.
http://tech.am/2007/02/26/new-routers-with-lan-and-usb-ports-but-not-by-fon/
http://www.accton.com/products/product_range/21_weap/MR3202A.htm

Fon will have a Wi-Max/WiFi AP in the future.

La Fonera x will use Wi-Max service instead of Cable/DSL modem.
http://wirelessisfun.com/2007/03/20/fon-wifi-operator-planning-to-deploy-wimax/
http://elfonblog.fondoo.net/?p=19
http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/fon/wimax-and-fon.html

Ericsson halts Wi-Max technology in favor of 3G.

Now only Intel makes the chips.
http://www.wireless-weblog.com/50226711/ericsson_says_goodbye_to_wimax.php

Whisher releases new Mac and Linux clients.

Linux client offers intrim solution to exposed Wi-Fi encryption keys.
http://blog.whisher.com/2007/03/22/linux-version-of-whisher-released/

Mike Puchol, aka “Mother” on boards.fon.com, writes the tech.am blog and is at the DEMO 2007 software convention this week. He’s there to kick-off his new startup company which offers an ingenious new approach for sharing wifi. He probably also wants to kick me for the corny blog title.

I’ve sat on this news for a day while I tried Whisher out, and chatted with Mike about some of the geeky details. Blogs I have read mostly play Whisher as a challenge to Fon, which provides an alternative wifi-sharing solution. Prominent partners in Whisher have previous ties to Fon President Martin Varsavsky, and I fear the digital Press is looking for rivalry and warfare where not much really exists.

It works with any wifi router/AP with WEP or WPA encryption. Sharers have detailed control over who may use their wifi, as well as tools to build social communities while online, and find hotspots that are part of the network.

Whisher was rolled out Jan 30, after being under development for almost a year. Their website provides extensive pictoral and animated tutorials, their hotspot search map, blog, discussion board and software downloads. Disclosure: I am not affiliated with Whisher (yet); I am simply a beaming new admirer.

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