Thanks, I appreciate the background. Good to know it’s no longer on the books.
You could always turn off SSID broadcast, no one will see your offensive name without some sort of wifi scanner then. Which probably defeats your point in naming it that, but would make it “safer” from “prosecution”.
Because, encrypted or not, they weren’t just coming directly into your TV. You either needed to subscribe to service or steal it to receive their programming. Encrypting is about preventing the stealing. Either way it’s not just arriving nilly willy into the home where sensitive child ears (or worse, sensitive parent ears) will hear the swears. You have to make some effort to receive cable, unlike a broadcast channel (in theory).
tbg, who once swore when falling off a jetski in Michigan and was never prosecuted
It looks like the Feds prosecuted an obscenity case against someone for writing stories that included descriptions of the rape of children. And she pled guilty (both links are to newspaper articles about the case). Not clear whether she would have prevailed in court, but there’s some evidence that text-only things can be obscene.
Not sure how long an SSID can get, but maybe don’t make yours a lurid tale of the rape of a minor.
Interesting that both of these topics came up in this thread, whose title, before I even read these two posts, made me think of this: a few years ago, I joined a gym that was in a shopping center, so there were lots of public wifi networks around. When I pulled out my phone to see if the gym had a wifi network, I saw, among the list of many other SSIDs, two networks called “Fuck niggers” and “Child porn rules.” I assume that this was the work of a prankster, who had discovered that a few of the local establishments had left their routers unsecured, and he was able to just change the SSID, because later one of them was named “Secure your wifi.”
The FCC used to vet radio and TV station call letters, but eliminated the practice in the 1980s. At the time, it said anyone who objected to what they felt was an inappropriate call sign could go through the local courts under the “community standards” argument. So I agree I can’t them getting involved with SSID naming.
Forget the legal system and the FCC, I would think if someone were offended by your wifi network’s name, their best recourse would be to complain to your ISP. Since they provide the equipment for your service, they may be able to force you to change it (and they would have some incentive, since one could argue it reflects on them somewhat - even though they obviously weren’t involved in giving it that name).
I don’t think the FCC ever “decided” not to regulate cable and satellite for decency… it just was never their purview.
FCC certainly does have an opinion about satellite. It may be their opinion that satellite is not their purview (I haven’t checked), but it is certainly a fact that the distinction between satellite phones and cell phones is an artificial one created by the FCC.
The fact that there is a technical distinction between satellite phones and cell phones is a result of FCC catagorisation, not vica versa.
I bought my wifi router from Walmart. My ISP has zero say in what I name my network.
As noted, many people own their router. It usually makes good sense to do so. It doesn’t take many months for the cost to be less than the rental fee for the router. You also get to manage it and give it a clever name.
Also, a WiFi router doesn’t have to be connected to the Internet (and therefore the ISP). Someone might have one set up just for local networking purposes.
Or someone might have a router going to a tethered cell phone. How are you supposed to find out what cell service this person has? Similarly, in general, how would you know if they have Internet connection via a cable company, telephone company, etc.?
Perhaps for some people, but i own all my equipment except for the line itself, so if i wanted to name my router “I_Rape_Children” aside from the fact that i would feel totally assinine, i dont think the ISP would be able to do anything, they would not even be able to see what i named it.
Many many other people own all there own internet equipment as well