The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including “obscene” cartoons and drawings–or face fines of up to $300,000.
That broad definition would cover individuals, coffee shops, libraries, hotels, and even some government agencies that provide Wi-Fi. It also sweeps in social-networking sites, domain name registrars, Internet service providers, and e-mail service providers such as Hotmail and Gmail, and it may require that the complete contents of the user’s account be retained for subsequent police inspection.
Before the House vote, which was a lopsided 409 to 2, Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Texas) held a press conference on Capitol Hill with John Walsh, the host of America’s Most Wanted and Ernie Allen, head of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Allen said the legislation–called the Securing Adolescents From Exploitation-Online Act, or SAFE Act–will “ensure better reporting, investigation, and prosecution of those who use the Internet to distribute images of illegal child pornography.”
The SAFE Act represents the latest in Congress’ efforts–some of which have raised free speech and privacy concerns–to crack down on sex offenders and Internet predators. One bill introduced a year ago was even broader and would have forced Web sites and blogs to report illegal images. Another would require sex offenders to supply e-mail addresses and instant messaging user names. continue reading…
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Tag: wi-fiJust like it has in so many other instances, Fon has coaxed yet another company into signing the line, and this time it’s Time Warner taking the bait. While the two firms had been in talks for some time regarding a potential partnership, today the duo made things official by announcing that “Time Warner Cable subscribers could become Fon community members and create Fon access points via their home or business broadband connection.†Additionally, “the same subscribers would enjoy free WiFi access around the world, wherever Fon has partner ISPs,†but the bulk of said partners sadly aren’t found on American soil. Still, you won’t find us bickering about free internet access, but for those anxious to hear details about this endeavor, it sounds like they’ll be testing your patience; there was no word as to how soon TWC customers would be able to join the Fon bonanza, but we’re sure that bombarding your local office with these inquiries could get the ball rolling.
The city of Cullman has been awarded a $30,000 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission to help provide free wireless Internet service at points around town, U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., announced today.
Shelby, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the money will be matched by the city with another $30,000 for the free Wi-Fi access project, according to a press release from Shelby.
The project is part of the Appalachian Regional Commission’s Telecommunications Initiative, a program to help improve broadband access to promote economic and human resource development in the region.
“Quick and easy internet connectivity will allow Cullman to be on the cutting edge of technology,” Shelby said in the press release. “Wi-Fi is important to our cities’ infrastructure as it helps attract and support jobs and businesses.”
Most laptop junkies have done it at one time or another: opened up the laptop in a high-density, well-to-do-neighborhood, and found unencrypted networks just waiting to be surfed. Will your neighbor ever know you’re surfing on his dime? Probably not, as long as you don’t download hours and hours of video and slow his connection to a crawl. Is it legal? Well, as it turns out … it’s not. Furthermore, according to Technewsworld, the law is murky enough in this area that if someone is borrowing your WiFi and doing something illegal on it — pirating music, say, or downloading kiddie porn — you could be liable. On the other hand, there are those who argue that $60/month/household for DSL is ridiculous, considering how painless it is to share a connection. Hence ShareMyWiFi.com, a kind of match.com for lonely (and budget-conscious) ‘net surfers. It only makes sense, I suppose, in this infancy of the internet, that people would sponsor such workarounds. One day, perhaps, we’ll all have municipal WiFi — for a small fee, say $10/month for super-broadband — just like we have trash pickup. We can dream.
(Pictured: a municipal WiFi router.)
The leading national collection of free WiFi hotspots lists Alabama in the TOP TEN on their list of states alongside Ohio and Oregon. The dynamic list, published by AnchorFree in Silicon Valley, puts the state at #8 as of press time for this newsletter.
While the City of Birmingham now sits at #12 nationally, it has also consistently ranked in the top 15 nationally as long as we have tracked the index. Cities with a similar number of hotspots include San Diego and Indianapolis. Birmingham ranks ahead of Los Angeles and San Jose, both in California. The City sits at the top of AnchorFree’s list statewide with Hoover, Homewood, Mobile, and Huntsville making up the top five. Birmingham also shows a higher per capita installation of Free WiFi than the City of Atlanta with 2.88 for every 10,000 residents vs. 2.71 for our neighbors to the east.
Meanwhile, the local list of ALL public WiFi hotspots surpassed 300 late last year. It currently sits at 328, up from a start of only 40 back in November 2004. Visit BhamWIFI.com to see the whole list and let us know of any additions. The website is hosted by IPSA, the Internet Professionals Society of Alabama, in partnership with TechBirmingham.
It appears that the automatic system upgrade that happens the first time you get onto wifi is straight up breaking some consoles.
GhostsandDreams of girl_gamers reports that the error code received is 110213.
The error appears after updating the Wii using WiiConnect. The error message that appears reads “Error Code: 110213 There is a problem with the WiiConnect24 service. Please try again later.”
Solution:
Nintendo asks that you call them at (800) 255-3700. The gamer who encountered the error 110213 was told that this was an hardware error and that he would receive a new system. The only thing that is not working is WiiConnect24 which means you will be able to play all games but not be able to upgrade the Wii.
Currently, Nintendo has two options in place to resolve the problem. If you do not have any data saved to your system that is important to keep, then you can contact Nintendo customer service and they will ship a new console to you in 3-4 business days. However, if you do have important data saved to your system, then things get a little trickier. Data like game saves and Miis are not disastrous to lose, but Virtual Console data is. While Virtual Console games are re-downloadable should you delete them, the data saved on your console regarding which games you have downloaded is tied to your system. In this situation, option #2 is the way to go.
Option #2 requires that Nintendo send you a shipping label which should take 4-10 business days. Once you receive the shipping label, you can use it to send the console to Nintendo for repairs, after which they will send it back to you. Sadly, this process takes 8-12 business days, meaning that if you choose option #2, you will be Wii-less for a good long while. source
Unverified Fix
If you reformat the disk the system might be able to connect to Wiiconnect24 again. (taken from the comments from the link above)
One gamer reported that a manual reboot did help to complete the update. (taken from the comments from the link above)
So you can get a new console, or if you really need your saved data, you can send yours in to be repaired. The good news is if you go the new console route Nintendo will ship your new Wii out BEFORE you have to ship the old one back. They just take your credit card info, ship the new Wii, and you ship the broke one back in the box you got the new one in. You have 21 days or else they charge you for the new Wii on your credit card.
A Singapore teenager charged with hopping onto his neighbour’s wireless internet connection faces charges punishable by up the three years imprisonment.
Garyl Tan Jia Luo, 17, is the first person to face charges under Singapore’s Computer Misuse Act, the Straits Times via AP reports. The teenager also faces a possible fine of up to 10,000 Singapore dollars ($6,425) if convicted despite the lack of aggravating factors to his alleged crimes.
There’s no suggestion he did any mischief beyond allegedly freeloading his neighbour’s net connection without permission.