Wireless hitchhikers branded as thieves. Nokia has condemned as thieves anyone who uses chalk to mark where there are wireless internet connections. [BBC News | TECHNOLOGY]

Heh.  And imagine how angry they're going to get when they start losing marketshare to handsets that do VoIP over 802.11.  Unlicensed spectrum is going to rock Nokia's world.  They better learn to love decentralized carrier networks.  It's their future.

These corporations just don't understand that sharing isn't theft.  Or, at least, that it doesn't have to be.  People will share bandwidth and form not-for-profit community networks.

The problem Nokia describes -- where open networks get swamped -- is a technical problem with technical solutions.  That technical solution is called "traffic control," and modern networking equipment can guarantee that the timely delivery of important traffic is not affected by low-priority traffic.  (In fact, the latest Linux kernel does a great job of this, and it's free.)

10:07:32 AM