Wi-Fi Freeloader Arrested

The arrests have led to plenty of confusion in the media and among law enforcement over what constitutes a crime.

It seems quite clear to me. Freeloading is theft, period.

If people would secure their wireless APs this wouldn't be an issue.

- Dan

I like that!

Makes me feel like a movie character! It'll work! Thomas Crowne stole jewels, I steal bandwidth when I pull up next to a building to check my email.

And, we have some pineapple politician who wants to make open hotspots illegal?????

Folks have too much time on their hands and the cops are obviously running out of donut shops.

NM

Should I put that next to my flange valve and left handed spoon?

Stupid f**king people piss me off.

that was a different guy

Read the first sentence.

Was he surfing the web or was he downloading porn like in 2003? I do not see an issue with wi-fi freeloading if it is legal and not intrusive on bandwidth consumption. I always pop on free hotspots when on business trips etc.

I may be wrong here with my simple mind here, but in my opinion if you receive broadcast waves such as tv, radio, cb, etc. that is in the public domain. If you broadcast wi-fi in your house and it reaches outside your home how would this be any different than receiving signals?

Yes you could make the argument you are connecting to a private network which is intrusive, but in reality is it intrusive to obtain an ip address? Come on think about it for a second, it is just a number.

I've seen analogy's of people mentioning that using free open wifi is like walking into someones house and going in their fridge and eating their food and all sorts of crazy things. Lets bring it back to the main issues here people.

#1. There is no current FCC or governmental regulations on wireless in the home sector. If you wanted to start your own radio or tv station THEN they have issues, but wireless or wifi is just like a cordless phone or any other home signal that does not affect the mass public and therefore is not regulated by any agency.

#2. I do not see how the receiving of signals is any different than radio, tv, or cb etc. etc. There are no costs involved for listening to radio (other than the commercials you hear), and if you wanted to have that sort of idea with open wifi I'm all for it. But other than using a private number or ip address to search the internet does not seem like a huge issue for me.
Granted there are those who say you are accessing private information and that is just like breaking and entering, then those who are for it say your door is unlocked, and they come back saying the whole fridge analogy about it being unlocked does not give you the right to access it. This simply comes down the fact that some people see data security and open wireless as their own private domain and they do not want people to encroach and use their connections.

If people are that concerned about it lock it down and do not broadcast an open WEP or connection it is that simple. And as others have mentioned that if you are too dumb to leave it open you deserve nothing less. To those that say that I say you have a moral dilemma and it comes down to what is really truly right and fair not what is "technically" legal.

Overall I would advise you to proceed with caution, but I truly honestly can not see any issues with using wireless other than using a private ip address and nothing more! If you use it for legit mate purposes I have no problems at all.

--SSX--

If you have a sign outside of your door that says "free money" and a huge pile of money next to it. Are you going to arrest everyone that comes up to grab some cash and yell "thief!".

I see wireless access the same way. Everyone knows that this little device allows *any* computer to connect to it and get Internet access. If you don't want that, then you secure it, even if it's just plain old 64 bit WEP, it's better than nothing. If someone breaks into it and then starts stealing bandwidth after you already put in the "no freeloaders sign" encryption on, then I can see it being a good reason to arrest someone for stealing.

Anything else is just media hype and people looking to get 15 seconds of fame as far as I'm concerned.

.... and let the usual banter of...

1) It's stealing
2) Secure it in the first place
3) It's there so I will take it
4) ... insert 1 of a thousand things we've all heard before.

Guys... come up with something new. This thread is already a bore with 9 messages.

True, it can't be helped. It's about as exciting as claiming that people that come into your home and breathe are stealing your air. Some people go off on the subject, people like me just laugh and shake our heads and go on with life.

You're contaminating my air with your radio waves. Legally I am allowed to receive those airwaves (the same way I can use my scanner to listen to police, taxi, etc). Now there may be an issue regarding the fact that in order to use a wifi hotspot you have to also send radio waves to the access point. However one could argue that that is no worse than you sending your radio waves into my property to begin with.

I'm not saying that I agree with "stealing bandwidth", but I just don't think it's as cut and dry as you make it sound.

The problem is when you use somebodies home wireless conenction.

the people who own it pay money for the internet conenction that you are using. They can get introuble fro mtheir isps if you use up all their bandwidth.

If i left my door open does that make it right for you to come in and steal all my stuff?

nm...

If i left my door open does that make it right for you to come in and steal all my stuff?

No, but if you bring all your stuff into my house, should I assume that I'm not supposed to use it? And would it then be a crime for me to use your stuff, since you are the one that brought it to my house in the first place?

I don't see how it can be considered "intruding" into someone's network when it's their freekin' access point that's offering the access. It's basically like their network is standing around and shouting "hey, internet access over here!" and offering up an invitation to other people's computers.

<standard reply>If they don't want to offer public access, then don't! Secure the network.</standard reply>

Perfect world answer: No

Reality: Yes

*sigh*.. If you left your door open, and you left a sign saying 'please take a drink of water', would that be stealing? What if you left a sign that said 'watch my tv', would THAT be stealing? What if you left a sign that said 'listen to my music'. Would THAT be stealing?

No, no, and no. *(except the **AA's consider a TV set visible from the street, or music that can be heard by anyone except the purchaser, to be theft, so, YOU, the homeowner would be guilty of theft)

Why does your cat kill birds? Why does your dog chase squirrels? Because that's how they are wired to work (instincts). Why does your wireless card connect to open hotspots automatically? Because that's how it's wired to work. Don't like it? Become a genetic scientist, and create your own cats or dogs, or just train them. Don't like the way the access points works? The secure it. You have NO RIGHT to demand that SOMEONE ELSE change the nature of THEIR wireless access card. By setting your access point to give an IP address to anyone who walks by (no encryption, open access), you have implicitly stated that you want them to use your access point. If you secured your access point or didn't give out an IP address, then their use would be stealing.

What if it's by mistake? Sometimes there are 2 or 3 wifi networks in the neighbourhood, and you may not know which one to connect to (someone else may have set up your network, and when something goes wrong, you don't know what the network is called).

Happened to my friend. Turns out, for 2 years or something he'd be connecting to his neighbours (cause it was so strong) and neither knew it.

What happens then?

I wish they would drop the whole issue already. I'm running out of free WIFI spots in my neighborhood. Awareness is becoming an issue now lol.

It's a quote from the damn story! How is that misleading?

And yet a another reasoned, yet debatable argument wrought impotent by a rehashed metaphor.

Welcome to BBR.

A bunch of righteous dingbats at BBR spout off about it with great conviction.

If hardware manufactures can't at least configure their devices to come with some default security, then maybe everyone could agree to come up with another type of flag that makes it clear if you want to share your access or not, and then that flag could come default saying no you don't want to share and be public.

Sounds simple enough to me. It doesn't make it hard for the idiots to understand, and it makes it very clear to anyone else looking to hop on an open access point.

After all, some people really DO want to share, and short of having to try and find them, how do you know what is, and what is not open to the public?

If someone doesn't patch their Windows computer, it gets hacked, and CC #'s stolen....

who is wrong? Isn't that just an invitation to take data? It's the exact same argument, just a different piece of hardware.

In this case, the user of the unpatched computer left a sign on it saying "Here, have my credit card number".

No difference.

I would have to agree with you in your statement that you have a simple mind.

You are NOT just receiving a #. You are transmitting data back and forth over a connection that is bought and paid for by someone other than yourself.

You are using their resources without them knowing and against their will. In addition you are doing so knowing full well that you are taking something that does not belong to you. Chances are you are also violating the TOS of the ISP and causing the person you are stealing to violate it.

You "theives" can sugar coat it, pass the buck on to the user that didnt secure it, or justify your wrongful acts all you want. However, you are still taking a resource that is not yours and without question you know it is not yours.

And to all of you that want to try to justify this by comparing it to TV and radio, there are couple hugh differences. 1.) TV / Radio is being broadcasted so you can pick it up knowingly by the person sending it. Thus you have their permission and even their encouragement to do so. 2.) You are only receiving the TV / Radio signal and are not using any of their resources in doing so. That signal will be there and their resources will be just as taxed whether you choose to get it or not. That is not true with wireless networking as you are using up system / connection resources.

Your #1 point is just stupid and has no bearing. However it does bring up something... and that if you free load and intercept my phone conversation or use my cordless phone line for your personal use without my knowledge and consent even though it is freely passed over into your airspace then you are violating the law.

#2 I have already proven the stupidity in this statement above.

This isn't even a gray area. It is as black and white as it is night and day. If you knowingly take something that is not yours, then it is stealing. It doesn't matter how or why it got there. If you take it without consent then you stole it.

I found it interesting that there is proposed legislation that would make operating secured hotspots a priority:Granted, it only applies to businesses, but it acknowledges that a)leaving networks unsecured is a data risk that affects more than the operator of the wireless router and b)the responsibility of wireless network security needs to me shifted more toward the hotspot operator. The education of and assitance to the public is also a definite benefit.

If people don't want their signal "stolen" then SECURE it. PERIOD. How lazy do you have to be to not do that?

As far as the library thing. Well it's a PUBLIC library paid with PUBLIC tax $$ so what difference does it make if someone is using the signal from inside or outside?

thats BS, using someone else's connection without permission is stealing whether or not its secure. If I park my car on the street and accidentally leave it unlocked, does that make it right for someone walking by to take my laptop on the seat? Signal theft is wrong, its taking something you are not paying for.....

quote:

---

If someone doesn't patch their Windows computer, it gets hacked, and CC #'s stolen....

who is wrong? Isn't that just an invitation to take data? It's the exact same argument, just a different piece of hardware.

In this case, the user of the unpatched computer left a sign on it saying "Here, have my credit card number".

No difference

---

There's a huge difference there: Intent. There's nothing nefarious about jumping onto a neighbor's wifi and surfing the web. It is highly unlikely that the neighbor who set up the unsecured access point would ever know it was happening. Bandwidth currently isn't charged by the byte, it's use it or lose it. I obviously wouldn't condone large file downloads or other activities that will cause noticeable slowdowns for the paying user.

If you take someone's personal info and use their credit cards, they WILL know, it WILL cause them hardship, and it IS theft.

I equate using an open access point for light tasks as someone pulling into my driveway to do a 3 point turn-around real quick. Legally it's probably tresspassing,and it's something one probably shouldn't do, and is not real courteous, but no lasting harm is done so I just tolerate it. No harm no foul.

just wait until your neighbor starts charging you rent because your wifi signal is inside of there house.... ha ha