Most people dont leave their front door unlocked, and the same is true of their home Wi-Fi networks. But some believe that preventing access to your wireless Internet actually does more harm than good. Peter Eckersley of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organisation devoted to defending digital rights, is calling for an "Open Wireless Movement" and encouraging people to be "socially responsible" by sharing their connection. Eckersley compares the current situation of locked-down networks to "finding yourself parched(干透的)and thirsty while everyone around you is sipping from nice tall glasses of iced water", and offers a technological solution. We restrict access to our networks for two reasons: to prevent other people from using up our bandwidth, and to ensure our security and privacy. He suggests we can still protect ourselves from both problems by using routers(路由器)that share a certain amount of bandwidth in the open while also providing an encrypted(加密的)connection for personal use, but such technology already exists, and people arent choosing to use it. Perhaps the problem is not technological, but legal, as home users dont want to be responsible for the activities of others on their network. Quite understandable, really. But Eckersley says that "individuals can enjoy the same legal protections against liability as any other Internet access provider", but the law is far from clear in this area and differs from country to country. In a footnote on his article, Eckersley says US law "may" offer protection, but that didnt prevent a man who left his network open from being called a paedophile(恋童癖者)by armed police in his living room this past weekend. Courts in Germany have previously ruled that people can be fined if they allow unauthorised users to access illegal materials through their connection, while in the UK disputes over recent changes to the law leave the matter uncertain. Perhaps these legal concerns can be overcome by turning to an unlikely role-model — Estonia, where access to the Internet is a legal human right. The country is blanketed in a network of free Wi-Fi access points in cafes, bars and other public locations, allowing people to easily get online almost anywhere. So who wants to open up their network first? What does the author say about the Electronic Frontier Foundation?