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Comments on news posted 2006-03-10 15:15:34: Ontario Provincial Police charged a 25-year-old man last week under Section 326 of the Criminal Code - "Theft of Communications," reports a local news outlet. This follows arrests in St. Petersburg, Florida and the UK last year. ..
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  TheGiantNext Year Is Here.
join:2001-03-28
Augusta, GA | I see it this way If you have a 50in TV and I stop on the road and watch a while its the same as using your Wireless Internet that is wide open. Shut the curtains, secure your wireless. Now if I download kiddy porn or wack off in my car while watching your TV then I have committed some kid of Crime. | |
| RaydrPremium,MVM
join:2000-11-19
Carrollton, TX
1 edit | Theoretical Question I'm all for making it against the law for people to use an internet connection that isn't theirs, but let's look at it from another angle for a second:
Your porch light. If you leave your porch light on, and I use it (without entering your property) to read my newspaper, am I stealing your services?
After all, it IS a utility you're paying for, and now I'm using it. I can commit crimes using it (now I can see and load my gun using your light). I haven't asked you for permission. Oh, and both light and wifi signals are just...electromagnetic radiation. The same exact thing, just different frequencies.
So, why should one be illegal, and the other not? | |
| | | unfortunately it's illegal just because I leave my house unlocked doesn't mean you can come in unless I allow it. Say I leave my hose on outside my house all day long. You're not allowed to take a drink from my water without my permission.
LLLL, it's the permission that is the issue. The only reason encryption is needed is people like you and me. It's to keep people's data and connection safe from wardrivers that are illegally searching for open networks.
And the others... Just because someone is foolish or naive doesn't mean that it is legal to take their stuff. The 7-11 car example is really, utterly stupid. Yes, it is still a crime to take someone's car EVEN IF THEY LEAVE THE KEYS IN IT WITH THE ENGINE RUNNING. In the eyes of the law you should be in control of the impulse to take what is not yours, even if it is right in front of your face, wiggling its tight little butt.
Even if someone drops their ATM card and the pin is 1234 doesn't mean you can take their money.
I do the occasional hop-on to open networks around my neighborhood just for fun, but I don't have any illusions about what I am doing. I know that it is illegal just as when I cut the coax running through my apartment building and installed a splitter for 6 months of free cable. I don't have to justify what I am doing.
Free hotspots are another story all together. | |
| | | wifi well in my opinion i find it to be illegal or perfectly fine depending on the activity at the time person was found using wifi if they were downloading warez/etc it would piss me off if they were just a person from another city or country sending an email or some im's home i wouldnt care my cousin used to prop her laptop up on window cill and she would pickup someones wifi connection (this is in spain) and then in a way she kinda got her punishment in a diffrent city. sitting on steps kids stole her laptop probally the people owning the connection saw her using it and called the kids up to go get it. but in reality nobody knows. so my opinion if your using it for something kosher go ahead use my wifi but if your pulling something illegal just keep off my connection | |
| | | Where's the common sense here? Geez, with all this arguement going on, it looks like too many people aren't reading their products' Users Guides. In the case of Linksys wireless routers, it's right there in the user's guide - stating the importance of securing the Wireless Access Point, and how to do it. I took that to heart with my WRT54G and did these:
1. Changed the SSID to something obscure (I used a Japanese word written in bad english plus some numbers, and it gets changed every week)
2. Turned off SSID broadcast
3. Disabled Secure Easy Setup
4. Enabled WPA and used a randomly generated passphrase (which is a jumble of numbers and letters over 10 characters long, and gets changed every week)
5. Enabled MAC Address Filtering (I have 2 Linksys Wirless NIC's, one for each of my 2 notebooks, and the WRT54G will only accept the MAC addresses of those two NICs).
That way no one's going to use my WAP without my permssion and it's physically impossible to break in, unless someone has a really sophisticated hacking machine that does some really powerful cryptographic attacks (which would be illegal of course, since it would violate the DMCA or other applicable law against cracking secured/encrypted stuff). | |
| | | bah humbug Lets play devils advocate:
So if I go to my neighbors house and tap into his phone line its ok too? The box is just sitting there and nobody told me I can't do that.
If my neighbors car is running, but they are in the house, can I use it to go grocery shopping?
When everyone abuses things, they make laws against it. | |
| | | what to do? I just wish my neighbors would quit parking their cars in my driveway and putting food in my refrigerator. I hate the intrusiveness. Plus, it's taking up all my space. | |
| | | Wi-Fi Well I'm in the camp that thinks they should secure, if they don't they relly cant complain if someone piggybacks on it. Of course, I work tech support and there are some stupid people who have no business having internet or a router. Try to get one of them to understand WEP, fuggedaboutit. | |
|  IridiumPremium
join:2003-04-02
Los Angeles, CA
 ·DSL EXTREME
| Sitting out infront a public library is illegal? I do this all the time. I am waiting for the phone company to fix my pots lines so I can get DSL again so I just drive down the street and connect to the librarys wifi. They leave their connection on 24/7 so I can always get on.
On the whole issue, if you dont want anyone to go on your network, don't advertise your SSID, and keep your encryption on. Its real simple to even have WEP, a monkey can do it. I go wardriving in my neighborhood rotuinely since I have no DSL, and it seems that everyone with a 2Wire router/modem has encryption on, so don't tel me it is hard.
--
Start the Revolution, download Opera, »www.opera.com | |
|  CharliebrownSmile Its Nearly FridayPremium
join:2001-07-17
Australia | Usual Ranting and Raving As always there are the usual attacks and counter attacks from members against each other on this subject. We are all entitled to our own opinion on the subject but the bottom line is still the same.THERE IS NO CLEAR AND CONCISE LAW ON THE SUBJECT. We can all declare what our version of the law should be and how it should be implemented, however until a bill is passed stating the exact parameters of what Wi-Fi abuse really is what is the point in shouting at each other about it.
Chill out, if you freeload then you freeload, if you dont then you dont. We each have different morals. | |
| | | it is not theft Theft: the act or crime of stealing somebody else's property.
Is a signal property? I could make an argument that it is NOT property.
IT IS NOT A TANGIBLE OBJECT.
I don't see a signal being a property, and therefore, someone who is logging onto a unsecure network could not be commiting an act of theft.
Sure..it may be immoral, it may be made illegal..it still wouldn't be theft. | |
| | | How can you steal electrons? Theft - n : the act of taking something from someone unlawfully.
What exactly are you taking. Electrons. Pure and simple. What is the value of those electrons?
Those electrons only exist for a short period of time. If they do not transmit information, they are lost, forever!
If you connect to an unsecured WiFi system, what are you really stealing? If you only use the WAP to connect to the Internet, how are you stealing anything?
You can say that by using the WAP you are trespassing.
Trespass - To commit an offense or a sin; transgress or err.
Law. To commit an unlawful injury to the person, property, or rights of another, with actual or implied force or violence, especially to enter onto another's land wrongfully.
To infringe on the privacy, time, or attention of another.
So how can you trespass? If the system is open, it is open. It is like typing a URL and connecting into a web server. If the server is not a public server, there is some kind of "lock" to prevent unauthorized use. If there is no "lock" then how can you trespass? By comparing the act of leaving your door unlocked to WiFI theft is not a true analogy. There is a physical barrier (whether locked or not) when you enter a place that you have no business being there. By crossing the threshold, you are committing a crime. When it comes to WiFI, there has to be something that announces that the system you are accessing is not public.
If you have a WiFI router and do not want it to be a public system, then lock it up. If you don't know how, or do not understand how to do it, then find somebody that can do it. If you own land and want to keep people from crossing into it, you post signs, or at the very least put up a fence.
Now I am not saying that accessing an unknown WAP is legal, but it is hardly a crime. I have a WAP and it is a public system. I allow anybody that connects to it to have access to the Internet. The way I see it is that if I don't use it, at least somebody can use it. If someone abuses my generosity, I can easily remove him by using his MAC address. If he "clones" a MAC address, he will still show up, and he will be removed. I have had an open system for about a year (I also ran a BBS in the 80's and early 90's) and have had over 100 systems connected to my system. Even the systems that connect constantly do not slow down my connection that I can tell. So stop bitching about people stealing electrons. If you do not agree, lock up your system. If you do agree and have a WAP, I hope that you will share your bandwidth with others. It is your bandwidth, but how can you put a price on an electron. | |
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