[Ninux-day] A law question

[Ramon Roca]

I'm just now getting back from taking legal advice on this issues... Is 
very frustrating for me to have to focus on legal issues while having 
many todos...
At least I'm in the hope that all the works and experiences could be 
reused ans usefull for all.

Maybe I'm now too tired to go for all the questions deeply and sorry if 
I miss something, but still want to say that take this with patience, if 
not you'll get paranoic. Nobody can ask you for something you can't 
afford, and although the bas press that the EU telecomm package has 
because is very much ACTA oriented, still there is the compromise for a 
general authorization and a free market, so we are perfectly entitled to 
build networks.

Al 11/01/10 09:51, En/na Mitar ha escrit:
> Hi!
>
>    
>> Although I assume that every community network has the aim of being
>> public, legally if that network isn't formally public, is a "private"
>> network of those who are enjoying it.
>>      
> Yes, this was one idea I got. To write on our captive portal (which is
> there just to inform people who connect to the network about the idea)
> that this is network only for everybody participating in the project
> (like we interconnect and form our network) and by entering you are
> confirming that you are in some way connected (not in technological
> sense) to the project (like being a part of a family of somebody
> participating in the project, a big big family). So we are not public
> network and we just have lousy enforcement of access to it. And if
> somebody does not like to lie he/she can always join our project in
> multiple ways, like just registering on our web page.
>
> The drawback is that we would really like to advocate free access to
> Internet as a basic access right for everybody (like air, water, love
> ...). But maybe it is not yet time to do it like this. Let us first
> grow. :-)
>
> I have also not found anywhere definition of "public". Like how
> secure/closed should a network be, to not be public? If I say to my
> grandma to connect to it she will not know how to do it - so there is
> already some "closeness" - technical barrier (sadly). If we add some
> encryption and write password into SSID? Is this open or closed? If we
> use weak encryption? Hidden SSID?
>    
A public telco also restrict the access to their customers with a 
contract. To become public does not relate on how do you 
control/register/publicise the access, and if is to all the public or 
not, is about having a contract available to the public.
>    
>> Might be differences between states regarding to this, how do you
>> register, fees/taxes etc.
>>      
> Problem is also that by running a "public telecommunication network" and
> registering it you also have to retain traffic logs about your
> customers. But this could be an interesting question as we do not have
> "customers". How do you log then? Let me check what is written.
>    
Double check, "traffic" is not the same as "IP addresses" etc. Nobody 
can ask you something impossible.
> So it is written that you should log IP, connect and disconnect time,
> name and surname of a costumer or registered user who made traffic. So
> if we use NAT everybody will have the same IP. :-) And when exactly user
> connects to the ad-hoc network? I think it just starts transmitting. :-)
> But the interesting thing is that there is nowhere written that we
> should enforce our users to be registered. Probably for commercial
> networks this is normal as they want to get money, but for us ... So if
> the user is not costumer and not registered we do not have to produce
> name and surname? So we just log that somebody started transmitting at
> that time and then stopped. OK, we are planning to do this already for
> statistics. :-)
>    
Is their problem. Everybody worldwide does NAT because of many reasons :)
> So you become a part of our network by registering on our web page but
> you do not need to login or anything to our network so there is no
> username connected to your session. So whichever interpretation somebody
> would take we would be safe. What do you think?
>    
Safety is a problem of either the user, or the government. We are not 
the police.
>    
>> If in Slovenia you pay a fee, that might be a problem depending on
>> the amount and needs to be reasonable/proportional, because don't
>> have to be something which blocks new players into competition.
>>      
> We are also not formal organization. So everybody participating should
> register? And everybody should pay? Eghm...
>    
I will be very happy if sometime our work at guifi could be reused for 
lowering those entry points. We are rewriting our license also looking 
for that.
> I have been searching now for an hour but could not find any document
> about how they calculate how much you have to pay. They calculate some
> points and every point is 1+ EUR, but there was no concrete formula what
> counts. Maybe it is really something very low if you do not collect any
> money.
>
>    
Should be...
>> Also, in order be a considered as a public, thre has to be no doubt that
>> we do provide connectivity services to the public, i.e. not to just our
>> friends, and describe how is managed etc, so the "Commons" here becomes
>> a key piece on that, and those days we were very busy reworking on that,
>> we have now an almost finished a much more detailed revision (but still
>> the same), by now only in Catalan.
>>      
> Yes. Maybe we could rename/present ourselves as "common wireless
> network" and not "open wireless network". "community" is also a good
> word, but has closeness connotation.
>    
Yes, I like open, neutral, free... and public. And also based on 
commons... too many words, but every one of those has a relevant 
meaning, sorry for not knowing how to abbreviate ;)
>    
>> In short, formally, everyone have to choose between become public or
>> not. If you don't go public, is private regardless if you feel the
>> opposite...
>>      
> The question is how our regulatory agency feels, not how we feel. I
> think this is the problem. In law there is nothing useful written. So it
> is left to its interpretation. And there could be some day some other
> interests which would like to block us. And if we do not have ourselves
> covered...
>    
Regulatory might be heavily influenced by lobbies, so we have to take 
care... but deal with them.
>    
>> Again, for us there is no choice: We have to become public, if not we
>> might be blocked to deploy NgN, access to the interchange, etc... I
>> understand that might be other point of views on that, i.e. in Slovenia
>> if you already have a good FTTH, don't know, maybe is not a priority for
>> you now, in my opinion if we want to grow as an alternative and develop
>> new, alternative, fair, sustainable and user friendly networks to keep
>> the network neutrality etc, there is no doubt that community networks
>> must be also public networks at all effects.
>>      
> Yes. At some point in the future for sure. But for now I think such
> administration and bureaucracy could just take too much time and energy
> from very limited number of people actively participating. You are much
> further in this. Good luck.
>
> If you will need any help like writing letters of support from abroad,
> tell us. At least in Slovenia officials magically change their attitude
> when they see that issue is bigger then they though and that people from
> abroad are following.
>
> I have just this days noticed that although so many of us have 20/20 (or
> more) Mbit/s fiber at our homes there was only one experimental Tor node
> running from whole Slovenia. This is very sad. Because running relay
> nodes has really no risk. And is quite simple. People really do not know
> how could all this bandwidth be useful.
>
> I have setup now two nodes to rise this number a little bit.
>
> There is so many ways how we could cooperate.
>    

YES!!! act small, but still think big... and take it easy ;)
>
> Mitar
>