Am I Being Screened

[RigPig]

Hi Guys

I have a coffee shop which supplies free Internet. We have wireless and anyone can get onto it and I know that some of the shop people in the soi use it and I don't really care, I am paying for it anyway. I am reasonably computer literate and I have noticed on a couple of occasions lately that when I am doing a search for something (I use Dogpile) that the search is being re directed to / through MICT.co.th. (you can see it in the address bar). Which is the Thailand Ministry of Information and Communication Technology. Does this mean my Internet connection is being montored / policed for some reason. Occasianally it causes a timeout error and I have to try again to get the page to load. I don't want to limit access to my Internet connection but I have no control over what others are doing on it, and really, personally I don't care. But I am starting to wonder if I am leaving myself open here with Thai censorship laws.

Anyone out there have any Ideas on this. I sure as he_l don't want to end up in the "Bankok Hilton" (monkey house) as much as I love this country. I also really don't want to password my connection as it is just another drama I don't see as being necessary.

Thanks in advance for any feedback / advice

Tony

[mattcodes]

You should enforce a simple password and change it regularly since people in the soi might downloading movies, music etc.. maxing out your bandwidth, which makes the internet slow for your paying customers (on top of internet already being generally being poo in thailand). As for censorship (in terms of a user posting something defamatory or browsing very dodgy stuff) will you take a scan of customers passports when you give them the key, what if someone comes in orders a coffees and then continues to use it further up the street, how will you link a MAC address with someone's ID, with a basic setup you have no way of verify who did what anyway.

As for the error/rediection everyone is currently being affected, see threads about Royal Thai Police, you are not being singled out.

[Tywais]

You might want to look at this topic on this issue. You are not alone. http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Royal-Thai-P...ck-t290438.html

[monty]

Yes, they can screen your usage.

And, as an internet cafe you are legally required to log identity details from each customer, and keep logs tying the internet usage of those customers to their ID.

Meaning if somebody did something illegal using your internet connection, the cops can come over and deman the identity of a person visited such and such site at such timestamp.

If you cannot provide those details, then firstly you can be held responsible for whatever illegal happened, and secondly you are liable for a fine of up to 500,000 Baht (yep, half million) for non-compliance with the cyber-crime laws.

More info in this thread, when they introduced that law...

[monty]

http://www.bangkokpost.com/130808_News/13Aug2008_news11.php

[RigPig]

You should enforce a simple password and change it regularly since people in the soi might downloading movies, music etc.. maxing out your bandwidth, which makes the internet slow for your paying customers (on top of internet already being generally being poo in thailand). As for censorship (in terms of a user posting something defamatory or browsing very dodgy stuff) will you take a scan of customers passports when you give them the key, what if someone comes in orders a coffees and then continues to use it further up the street, how will you link a MAC address with someone's ID, with a basic setup you have no way of verify who did what anyway.

As for the error/rediection everyone is currently being affected, see threads about Royal Thai Police, you are not being singled out.

Don't really want to do this and haven't suffered any bandwidth problems as yet and am prepared to upgrade the service if necessary. Our Internet connection is pretty good over all. I may be a little strange in this but I believe everyone should have the net for free and as this is just a running cost of the business and it is a fixed cost as long as my customers don't suffer and they haven't so far I don't care. I have been in a situation where having access to free Internet has helped me out and hope that it can do the same for others while I am n the position to provide it. I personally don't agree (with some limtatons) in censorship but don't want to fall foul of the law either. I am sure people are leeching off it but they must have a reason. Most people are reasonable and do buy something even if it is just a bottle of water. I have a time lmit if all the machines are being used but have only had to enforce t once.

[RigPig]

Just read those articles on the laws governing access to the net. Gee I don't know what to say or where to start and it does rub me the wrong way. I will have to think long and hard about this one.

Thanks for your help guys I was totally unaware of this.

Tony

[SurfRider]

Follow these instructions from another ThaiVisa thread for all PCs accessing your router and the problem will disappear.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Royal-Thai-P...66#entry3010866

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