This morning at BoingBoing.com there was a clipette about how paranoid and clueless the Vancouver CA police have become about WiFi and computers.

Vancouver cops hate WiFi

Vancouver’s cops have espoused vague, technologically ignorant objections to city-wide WiFi. They argue that the ability to communicate anonymously will help criminals (cough pay-phones cough) and that WiFi is all about people stealing each others’ connectivity. It’s like the Vancouver cops have never even considered the possibility that people might deliberately share their Internet connections with their friends and neighbors just to be neighborly.

    Police are concerned that unrestricted wireless access would give criminals an advantage by making it more difficult to track them…

    “In this particular project, we’re not concerned about the project in itself. We will mitigate risks properly. In the general sense, however, we have concerns. You can go by coffee shops and even people’s houses and piggyback on their wireless,” he said.

LINK

That last line just frosted me - like there is something wrong with people using WiFi in coffee shops or curb side? What is the matter with these people? Where did they get the idea that using the stray signals from someone’s Linksys wireless router is a problem? What if I dare to read by the excess light spilling out of their house at night? Is that an offense?

I keep running into folks who have enabled passwords on everything and firewalls on the rest. They live in complete fear that some one will steal their internet service, invade their computers or put viruses on their Macs. Naughty WiFi!

Let me explain this one more time - once you pay that flat rate fee for the internet connection then run it through your router - you are done with it. Nothing anyone else does to that signal will degrade, diminish or wear out your connection. Bit’s are not things. Bits are not things. Bits are not things!

How can can you steal something that is still there when you’re done?

If you have a Mac and use a good password then no one can get into your computer. And (pay attention now) no one cares about what’s on your computer. Really! You’re just not that important. Paranoia is a pathology, not a hobby. Get some help - instead of paying for more security software.

The only security problems most of us have are with our own conscience. We’re just not that important and with a Mac we can’t even get infected with viruses or spyware so invading our networks is futile.

Now if you have a huge collection of robot or animal porn on your computer then you may have something to worry about. Not that any one really gives a flying dildo, but the guilt alone may drive you to extreme and irrational behavior, which is a symptom. You don’t need a FireWall; you need therapy or a good anti-depressant. If you’re cheating on your taxes or your spouse, then you might want to lock up your router so the space aliens or the Illuminati don’t find out. Covering your computer with tinfoil will help.

So what are the police in Vancouver hiding?

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 15th, 2007 at 8:57 am and is filed under News, Fools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.