The topic for this debate is “WiFi Should Be Free For Everyone.”

N. Tesla will be arguing the pro position and will open the debate.
peacejet will argue the con position.

Each debater will have one opening statement each. This will be followed by 3 alternating replies each. There will then be one closing statement each and no rebuttal.

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Hello there Peacejet, memoryshock, and readers.

Well enough with the formalities. The Internet is a marvelous tool. It connects you to people all around the world and brings you closer to them. It gives people information. Wikipedia, Weather, And even ATS are all informational websites. By denying people internet you are denying them knowledge.

Technology is at a point know where its very cheap. Routers cost less then 20$ yet to get it working you need to pay 50$ a month for internet service. This is ridiculous. We get free over the air television so why not free internet. We don't get as many channels but the same would apply with the internet. It would be obviously slower but still better then nothing.

Installing a wifi point on every block will not be too expensive and would provide everyone with access to the world. Of course people would still have the option to pay for their service and get faster speeds much like we do now but people who use internet just for browsing will be content with the free somewhat slow internet.

So bring it on peacejet. I wanna see your reasons for why we shouldn't make people happy by allowing them access to information.

Firstly, I would like to thank MemoryShock for arranging this debate and N.Tesla for being my opponent.

Now, I am going to argue that wireless internet should not be free and should be restricted to homes and offices alone and not to other public places like malls, railway stations, tourist spots.

Though, I can agree with my opponent regarding the cost of the routers coming down over the years and wireless internet becoming faster, there is no gurantee that your are safe while browsing in the network on a wireless connection.

As mentioned, routers could be placed all over the block allowing free access to anyone moving around the block and people who use the internet just for browsing educational sites like wiki or even ats will find it useful.

But, it must be understood that the world is not a bed of roses, there is a ugly side of everything and wi-fi is no exception, basically, wi-fi connects to a single server in the end and all the traffic is routed through that, so, as in any site, the cookies and IP address of a visiting user is noted and stored to take handle any problem which might arise, and all might have been aware that even our ATS stores IP address, which is for the benefit of all the members.

So, since most of the members browse from home, even though they might browse with a wi-fi connection, the IP belongs to the telephone address in the home, and anything can be traced easily. But in the event of free wireless access the IP address is that of a public center and since thousands of people might visit a public place, and they will browse under the same IP, it will cause anonymity and in case of any problems, it is difficult to trace the user of the specific website in that location, unless there is a provision to make a note of the MAC number of the computer and try tracing through the company which manufactured the computer/laptop.

Security while browsing is a prime concern these days, and even safe browsing isnt 'safe' enough for the average user, there is phising and hacking. And wi-fi being available to everyone, a security issue arises. So, my question that arises is how safe is the public/free wi-fi, when compared to the wi-fi connection in the private home?




[edit on 14/12/08 by peacejet]

Can i disprove it? you betcha.

first off terrorist don't need open wi-fi to send threading emails. any library has free public computers to use, most can walk in there showing no more than a library card (that can be obtained easily) and feel free to do what you wish. also if a terrorist is smart enough to build a bomb, blow it up, and not get caught then he probably knows some ways to crack the easily breakable WEP codes that most wireless user don't even know how to set. (there is about 5 open networks that i can access right now from the comfort of my couch)

as for the price well then all i can say is WOW. here in America to get something at that speed you would need to purchase T1 that runs about 150 dollars a month if not more. here you usually get about 1mb of speed for anywhere between 30-50$ and that 1mb is usually very rare and only on good days.

now for Starbucks. i personally have seen people sitting outside Starbucks at night when the store was closed just for the free access. it is free to anyone in range.

well as for price well then think about this. we as taxpayers pay for, everything. we fund NASA and all 3 letter government centers. they put a rover on mars for our money, and bought tanks for our money. now its time we get something back. obviously this will be paid for by tax payers money but think about this.

there is a program or firmware of some kind called chillispot, or sputnik that makes your router into a free for all wireless provider. and they pay you to keep it free. how? simple. all people that use your router as an access point will we subjected to more ads. inconvenient? yes. money making/saving definitely.

the internet has been misused since the beginning (porn?) but saying that terrorist will be having a field day over free wi-fi is too much. and fixed lines are just a minor inconvenience. a few wires and a few tools and you can have free internet too... not that i know anything about this.


i apologize for the edit but i typed it in notepad and the spelling was atrocious

[edit on 12/15/2008 by N. Tesla]

Well, I can do accept your opinion regarding the usage of public computers by the “bad people” in libraries for their work and leave off without any trace, but you must first understand that in most public libraries, the security measures are stringent, and the library card cannot be easily faked as most of the libraries ask for a address proof which is verified by the concerned department or the local police(this is according to my knowledge) and also, as a stepped up security measure most libraries also ask for a recommendation letter from any of the existing library members(which you might say can also be faked).

Well, if all the above measures fail, at least in the library there are surveillance cameras all over and since the MAC number of the computer is noted along with the cookies sent, the time stamp of the sent e-mail and the camera video of the persons can be seen and the persons can be somehow traced, but in the public since hundereds of people are on at a same time, it is difficult to trace.

Sorry, if the above was a bit off topic to wi-fi, but I wanted to mention the security measures in public libraries and all.

And coming to the wi-fi part, if the “bad person” was smart enough to crack the WEP code, then you must first understand the steps involved in the cracking of the WEP. I have seen some videos of how WEP is hacked and I wont mention how it works and post the web links because it will break the T&C, but I can say that it does not prove successful most of the time and is difficult and has only a low success rate, I am mentioning the problems involved with hacking WEP alone.

Anticipated Problems
There are lots of problems that can come up that will make the above fail, or work very slowly.
• No traffic
o No traffic is being passed, therefore you can't capture any IVs..
• MAC Address filtering
o AP is only responding to connected clients. Probably because MAC address filtering is on.
• Can't Crack even with tons of IVs
o Some of the statistical attacks can create false positives and lead you in the wrong direction.
• Still Nothing

Though the solutions for the above problems was mentioned, the link itself stated that it isnt fruitful most of the time, as I mentioned earlier.

And with the new technology of non-static keys makes it makes it difficult to hack into the network. What you say will be suited for the old networks.

If the key is not static, then you'll mix up all your IVs and it'll take forever to decrypt the key.

So, closed wi-fi is secure, but that will not be accesible to the public as a open wi-fi, and hence the purpose of your argument of free wi-fi gets defeated as the closed wi-fi does not come in our discussion regarding open wi-fi.

And regarding, your opinion of funding of NASA and all the three letters, you must realize that the, science exploration is the pride of a nation and security analysis is the most crucial for the well being of the citizens and we cannot compromise on both, so for wi-fi, with the current economic crisis, it is difficult to get funding both from the government and from the Service Provider side.

And with regards to the firmware, most of them are illegal and you are actually not allowed to insert ads and pop ups other than those in a particular website itself and it is illegal and would be a breach of the rules, by both the company advertising it and the provider itself.

I cant see the purpose of why you mention porn here. The world has become so bad regarding this that nothing can be done, and the porn causes a social security concern alone, which can be managed through proper counseling in all the schools and the general media, but the “bad guy” can cause a problem to the national security, which is bad and being untraceable, it adds to the woes on open wi-fi.

And as for the wired internet connection, I know that there are lots of wires, but is is more safe and reliable as I had mentioned.

I hope that I have cleared your queries regarding the security, if not I would be glad to explain.

Well Tesla, I think you have become an expert in this stuff. But as you mentioned here, those keys were very strong and actually, if you see the screen shots provided in the link you will, see that the key mentioned is a static one, and I already mentioned the advantages of the non-static key in the closed wi-fi systems and how difficult it is to break and you must see that though the poster of the article in the website was able to hack into the network, but I am sure that he could not have got enough speed and able to work normally in that.

As I mentioned earlier, the technology to prevent hacking has also improved, but if you take a look at the screen shots you provided, you will see that the WEP code is in upper case, now a days the WEP codes use a combination of both upper and lower case, making it almost impossible to hack into.

And further, you must see that the hacking system used windows binary codes, and that hexadecimal codes didn’t work, but now a days with regards to security concerns, nearly all keys work on hexadecimal values, because of the added permutations required to strike the correct key.

From your link,

To complete the experiment, I tried decrypting the pcap captured packets. The wep_decrypt program didn't like my hex key (format to supply wasn't clear, and I didn't take time to read the source). When I supplied the passphrase the keys were generated from, Ethereal had no joy reading the packets, so maybe a header file constant was off when I compiled the code. The 80211ether Windows binary program worked very quickly and the results were clearly cleartext.

And Ill like to thank a friend of mine, for providing some information about the working of hex codes as I couldn’t find a suitable web link.

And if someone doesn’t fix a WEP key, it is their fault, and they will be the sufferers, and though there are thousands of WEP key breakers, you must realize that all of them work on binary codes, and if the wi-fi system works on hex system, the program wont work.

And further I would like to know the reason, why are you so focused on the “bad people” part I mentioned once and making me explain on that point alone and drifting to closed wi-fi.

And are you stating that just because closed wi-fi is hackable, it should be made open? It makes me laugh, and sounds like asking, just because there are some shop-lifters all the shoppers should be frisked.

Anyway, this is out of topic from the debates open wi-fi discussion as we are currently talking about closed wi-fi system and how to hack it. And to everyone, the rules of debate state that, a straightforward answer must be given to a question, and hence, I am posting answers to off topic questions, please excuse.And Tes, please get back on topic.

Well seeing as how this is my closing argument i guess ill address everything you have stated.

First of all i mention the bad people because that seemed to be your whole argument. From the beginning you have stated that free wifi will be abused. That is why I have been arguing it.

Next, I in no way think that people that pay for their wifi shouldn’t block it I never said that and its very wrong to put those words in my mouth. What I said was that people who are inexperienced with computers will be unable to make a hack proof key, or even a key that isn’t easily broken. Now as for that source I posted if you read down you would see that the top part was from 2005. He later added more to the bottom recently and it stated

"WEP key discovery has gotten very sophisticated". Both articles explains the tools and some of the clever ideas they're based on. In particular, the ------- program uses packet replay to attack a single packet one bit at a time and decode it, exploiting the lack of replay protection in WEP

So as you see the technology of wep key cracking got even better and more sophisticated.

Now , you stated that it would be impossible to track people down if everyone uses the same wifi access point that is not true. All computers have a mac key that is unique to each computer. So if anything free wifi would be better because all the bad people could have there mac ID’s saved and can be traced later.

In closing I would like to say that free wifi is not only a good thing but a necessity. It will be the best thing the government has done for us in awhile and considering how cheap it is I’m sure that many people would agree with me.


[edit on 12/17/2008 by N. Tesla]

Well, as you mentioned since this is the closing statement, Ill also explain my stand clearly.

I first stated that the prime concern of open wi-fi was security, and I mentioned that in regard to open wi-fi alone and not closed wi-fi, but the discussion deviated into the easy hacking of closed wi-fi. But I can stress the point of security alone, open wi-fi allows easy access, without any key, that as I mentioned, can cause security problems not only with the bad guys, but also with some miscreants launching malicious codes and viruses into the system and infecting all the computers accessing the network, and closed wi-fi takes time to break in as you mentioned, and since it takes some time, if somehow a monitoring software was installed in the network, we can easily detect any intruders and block them off successfully, and there are some softwares which along with the hack proof (at least in my opinion) allow a setting of only a set of computers with a particular MAC number access it, and those who don’t know how to set a fool proof WEP key can use that to prevent any head aches that might arise.

And you have stated in open wi-fi the MAC number can be save dand the bad guys traced later, but it will be next to impossible, because the bad guy might change location, which makes difficult tracking or worse still, destroy that computer all together, rendering it impossible to detect them.

And so, finally, I can conclude with the above points I mentioned that wi-fi though cheap should not be free.

And I thank Memory Shock once again for arranging this debate, and Tesla for being my opponent and all other ATS members for following this debate with patience.

Thanking you all,
Peacejet.

The judges rulings are in!!

peacejet wins this by majority decision; congratulations to both Fighters...

I’m sure that I’m like other judges that you use, in that I put a reasonable amount of time an energy into reading each post, comparing it to previous posts, following up on links and research and in general trying to do the best job that I can. When that happens it is natural to place yourself in the position of the participant. How would I have tackled this? What would my response be?

I was shocked at how the large, overriding concerns were ignored or minimized. Who would pay for the services and infrastructure? Why should they be forced to do so? What benefit would it provide to society in general (as opposed to individuals)? Would it help give a society a competitive edge in the information age? Should it be considered part of a national infrastructure and treated as such (like bridges, dams and roadways)? Would it facilitate cheaper or free secondary education for citizens? How would it be evenly distributed? Would you prioritize who gets the system implemented first? How would rural areas be handled?

It has come down to who had the weaker arguments, and that was Tesla and therefore peacejet wins.

Challenge Match: N. Tesla vs peacejet: Wireless Access For Free?

The topic for this debate is “WiFi Should Be Free For Everyone.”

N. Tesla
While a fairly short opening he did manage to outline his intent very nicely.

Very nice first post in addressing the business advantage, yet as we will see, peacejet killed in answering the Socratic Questions Tesla asked.

Peacejet
I felt that peacejet restricted himself initially in his opening by addressing only one issue surrounding the topic.

Home run to peacejet on his first reply. Perfect example of the use of “answers” to Socratic Questions. This shows why using Socratic Questions should be considered long and hard prior to just asking them.

Peacejet’s insertion of the terrorist aspect was brilliant in his later posts.

Final Thoughts:
Over all a nice debate although I felt that Tesla could really have put more into it. There were several aspect that Tesla could have hammered home, such as the cost issue, that he really never sunk his teeth into, while peacejet effectively argued his position and defended Tesla’s assertions quite nicely.

Win; hands down to peacejet

I cant believe this. I won.

I would like to thank all the judges for this, and also tes for bringing up this topic in chat which led to the debate here.