People have been successfully prosecuted with a Criminal Offence in the UK for sitting in cars and using wireless access without permission.

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i didnt think this thread would reach page 3

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We can only hope nobody asks "If I use 0.9999999...% of my neighbours bandwidth am I using all of it?"

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What's granting permission? The router or the owner? The chain of command isn't him->his server->your computer->you, it's him->you.

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Wireless internet is so new that the laws vary from location to location. In more developed areas of the USA there are entire cities that allow free internet access through their wireless transmitters. Fullerton and Hermosa Beach in California, for example.

Bear in mind too that hooking into somebody else's unsecured internet will allow that person to hack into YOUR computer, too...providing they have the know how.

Also, turn this around, should someone who is hacking into / piggy backing off of your wifi system access illegal material, such as child porn, the authorities would trace it back to the owner of the wifi, and you could face prosecution.

Which is why you should always secure your wifi


If people did that, then this becomes academic, as only authorised people have access.

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It is NOT an analogy. Both a web server and your linksys are servers. That's not an analogy. They're the same thing. They're equal. You have no answer for this argument.

Sure, maybe the law makes it a felony to access one and OK to access the other. That doesn't make it stealing. Nor does it make it morally wrong. Where I live, the law says it's illegal to sell alcohol on Sunday. That doesn't mean that doing so is murder.

This thing:


Is a server and the service it offers is wireless internet. It advertises itself by broadcasting an SAN. Your computer asks it for an IP, and it gives one out - oh look! it's also a DHCP server!

Accessing it may be illegal. It may also be illegal to marry outside your race. That's completely irrelevant to the question at hand. The question is, is it stealing to connect to a server. The answer is no.

Ignorance of technology is not my problem. The fact is, it's a server, exactly like a web server. It is neither stealing nor hacking to access that server.

Tell me, who gave you permission to access bautforum.com? You pointed your web browser to this address. Your browser looked up an IP address. Your browser sent an HTTP request to port 80. The web server responded. The response of the web server is your permission. If they were to whine about how you hacked into BAUT or stole their bandwidth, we'd all have a good laugh.

Intent comes into it.

There are "green bikes" that some cities place unlocked around the place. The intent is clearly to let anyone choose to take one and ride across the city on it.

Leaving a car unlocked may be stupid, but that isn't an invitation to take it.

(Analogies only go so far, as different situations are, well, different. How about another: two boxers are not arrested for fighting in the ring, but if one were to punch some person on the street, s/he'd be arrested. Is the difference the intent or agreement between the boxers that they may punch each other?)

BAUT is clearly intended to be publically acessible.

Hoping on someone elses (home wireless access point) server, when they don't intend you to, because they were silly/uneducated/... enough to leave it accessible ... is still wrong; and I'd call it theft.

I think the only valid defence would be if you could prove you were not aware you were doing it - i.e. as clueless as the person who left the router open.

(Whether is it is "illegal", but not specifically "theft", seems to miss the point.)

I think it's similar in some ways to illegal downloading of music:
1: The technology makes it so easy, it's easy to overlook that it's theft.
2: It appears to be a victimless crime, so it's easy to rationalise as not theft.

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The reason it is (sometimes?) illegal is that someone somewhere made an argument that it was stealing, probably, so the answer is not unambiguously "no"Depends on location. Were I inside the NSA and plugging in, yeah, I'd be in trouble. The BA and Fraser have certainly given explicit general invitations to access bautforum.com, so it's not the same thing at all. Webpages in general are not always so explicit, true, but there certainly is more of an invitation than from my neighbors's wifi

Covet not thy neighbours wifi.

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Keep saying it long enough you might convince yourself.

This thread is remarkably similar to a recent thread on hacking into online ScienScience Journals.

If you want to steal someopne elses Wifi connection you get on with it but don't expect to convince everyone that it isn't stealing. If you are happy with it and have resolved it in your own mind then good for you.

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My bold. These are places where the access is explicitly granted, probably because bandwidth is paid for by forcing the users to look at ads for local businesses, so are utterly irrelevant to the legality of using someone's unsecured router.

If you're using a resource they paid for without their permission it's theft.

The smelling flowers analogy is invalid, since there's nothing in it to take the role of the used bandwidth from the internet connection.

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In a case like this it is, and this really is the crux of the debate, isn't it? What you are saying is that if somebody else is dumber than you are, it's okay for you to take advantage of their lack of intelligence. That is exactly why we have laws in the first place - society protects those individuals who are either not capable or not bright enough to protect themselves.

Again, the explicit actions which must have been taken in order to put a webserver on the internet are enough to indicate approval. The same actions are not necessary in order for a WAP to be physically "available," so that does not indicate approval.

One cannot be a functioning member of society, if unwilling to grant due consideration to others. The attitude that it's okay to take something if the owner didn't sufficiently protect it is dangerous.

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Phil and Fraser did, by putting it on a public web server and pointing the dns record for the name bautforum.com at it, and mentioning it on their web pages and by stating that you can use it in the terms of service.

None of those actions have equivalents to running an unsecured wi-fi router.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

If there's a breakthrough in Wireless power (Beaming electricity to appliances without wires) is it then OK to steal electricity?

What about satellite tv?

If you come across an old building that looks abandoned, can you just go in and move your things into it and set up shop?

What about a car on the side of the freeway- it's abandoned right?

I'm right, and I'll keep saying it until someone makes a reasonable argument in opposition.

If I buy a machine that performs a certain task, and I configure that machine in such a way that people can access it, I have no one to blame but myself. When people access that machine, they are not stealing - it's nothing at all like stealing.

This is true whether the machine is a WAP or a web server. And yeah, I will keep saying it, because it makes so much sense, it's just obviously true.

Actually, if you read all of my posts carefully, you'll see that right from the start, I said you *shouldn't* take advantage.

But I also said that taking advantage of them ISN'T STEALING nor is it hacking. It's just that, taking advantage of.

That's not a proper role of government. What you just described is called "mommy." The closest proper role of government to what you've described is contract enforcement.

OK, you tell me if these actions indicate approval:
1. I buy a machine - a little black box.
2. I read the documentation for that machine, and I see that it's purpose is to allow public access to something.
3. I plug it into a power source and an ethernet network.
4. I log into that machine via a web browser and I perform some configuration.

Now according to your logic, you should be able to tell from those explicit actions what my intent is. Well, I'm calling you out. What was my intent?

Sure, I agree.

What's wrong here is your insistence on using words like stealing and taking. You know what else is wrong? Staring. It's impolite. That doesn't mean I get to label it rape. If someone corrects me for that incorrect use of the word rape, I might (if I was you) respond this way:

"Once cannot be a functioning member of society, if unwilling to grant due consideration to others (by avoiding the impulse to stare). The attitude that it's okay to rape someone just because they are dressed provocatively is dangerous!"

Connecting to a WAP may be illegal. Maybe it makes you naughty and you wont get any presents from Santa. But it's not stealing. It's not hacking.

public web server = public wifi
pointing dns record = assigning a SAN and setting it to broadcast
terms of service = quality of service setting

That doesn't mean it's legal or moral, it just means that you don't have a logical leg to stand on. There are two actions which are essentially equivalent. You picked one of those actions and labeled it stealing because you didn't fully understand it, and because you have a huge giant bleeding heart and feel sorry for people. Then I came along and mentioned the other action, a web browser, and you had a choice to make - you could say, "oh crap, he's right" or you do some mental gymnastics in order to keep your worldview consistent without changing anything. Most people choose the gymnastics. I'm not at all surprised.

Anyway, a server is a server is a server. If you hook one up, guess what it does.

My bold. Please show an example of documentation that states it's intended for public access.

Lets try again:
1. I buy a machine - a little black box.
2. I buy it because everyone tells me that will let me use my internet without needing wires.
3. I plug it into a power source and an ethernet network.
4. I log into that machine via a web browser and I perform some configuration.

Which action indicates that I'm allowing you to use my internet connection?

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

If anyone would use my Wifi, they'd be stealing my monthly bandwidth limit (I can only DL 4 GB per month). An unsecured network popping up in your list of wireless networks doesn't tell you whether or not it has a monthly limit. And that alone is reason enough not to assume it's ok to use somebody else's wireless network, whether it's illegal or not. You may be causing harm to that person. You would in my case.

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Yes, they are. It's exactly like stealing.

No, it's the role of society, which is done by government.

As Henrik said, I don't think you'll find "public access" as the purpose anywhere in the documentation. "Wireless access," probably.

If the standard were that unsecured access required some configuration, you would have a better argument. But the fact is that most of the unsecured wi-fi access points you find in a residential neighborhood were set up with the owner doing no configuration at all - plug and play.

No, my logic is that I can't tell what your intent is, because the unsecured access is the default. I would argue that if the wi-fi is secured, then I can conclude that your intent was to deny permission. But if you left it at the default setting, I have no idea what your intent was - and it would be wrong of me to assume.

If you're going to acknowledge that using someone else's wi-fi without their permission ought to be illegal, we can stop right now. But if you're going to argue with that, then don't pretend that you're just arguing with the use of the word "stealing."

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I reject your change to bullet two because there's no way for me to know what people told you. I can only know what I can see through my computer.

1. I see a server, so I know there's a little black box.
2. I know that the purpose of those little boxes is to provide access to something.
3. I see that it is connected to a network.
4. I see that it is configured for public access.

If you all weren't emotionally invested in this discussion, you'd see that this chain of events applies to either a WAP or a web server - meaning I'm right and you're wrong. But because you're emotionally invested, your brain is doing that thing that our brains are so incredibly good at: it's contriving a difference in order to preserve your world view. Happens all the time, and is as old as religion.

So you concede that there's a difference between a purpose of "providing public assess" and one of "providing access"?

And what you can see from your computer is that it's someone who hasn't read the manual
Which doesn't tell you that they want you to use it.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Nope.

You see a door. You see that the door is standing open. You see that there's stuff on the other side of the door.

Can you walk in?

It depends. What is the door connected to, a business or a private residence? Even if it's a business, is it reasonable business hours? Are the lights on inside? In other words, whether the owner of that property thinks it's okay for me to walk through is determined by an understanding of how the world in general works, not simple sophistry that it's a door and it's open.

So, you are wrong that it's the same whether it's a WAP or a Server. Yes, they both provide access to something, and in both cases that access is open, but there's more to it than that.

We don't even need to limit it to WAPs versus something-other-than-WAPs. If I'm sitting in a Taco John's and my laptop shows an unsecured wi-fi connection named "tacojohn," I'd be comfortable connecting. If I'm sitting at home and my laptop shows an unsecured wi-fi connection named "linksys" (and it's not my own!), I'm not. To suggest there's no reasonable difference between the two situations strikes me as untenable.

And, I think, it is not Henrik or I who is trying to emotionally rationalize something.

Actually, you can't even see that. You don't know whether they read the manual or not, which is kind of the whole point.

And I find it interesting that tofu objected to your "I buy it because everyone tells me that will let me use my internet without needing wires" on the grounds that "there's no way for [him] to know what people told you," but his original scenario included both "I read the manual" and "I perform some configuration," even though there's no way for anybody accessing the WAP to know either of those happened.

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If you don't consider it stealing from the person, you are certainly stealing from the provider. You are getting service without paying. Just like stealing cable service.

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The owner of the wireless network is paying the provider so the provider is not being robbed unless the network owner agreed to not provide public access, in which case the network owner is robbing the provider.

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And then the guy in the street is robbing the network owner, right? No honor amongst thieves...

Argghh! I couldn't help myself.

I disagree. Here's a link to my cable company explaining theft of services. http://www.timewarnercable.com/corpo...ftaffects.html

Types of theft:
http://www.timewarnercable.com/corpo...hefttypes.html

Seems not securing your service is also theft because you are allowing others to get free service.

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You can learn a lot about people's character from reading these posts.

It seems that a lot of Juristictions think it's stealing, apart from a whole list of States in the USA it's stealing in the whole of the UK if permission hasn't been given and theres case law to prove it.

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Several examples are given on what can happen if somone "Taps" into your network:

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/07/04/St...a_new_br.shtml


That's still the case with Wi-Fi but if a criminal taps into a network, his actions would lead to the owner of that network. By the time authorities show up to investigate, the hacker would be gone.

"Anything they do traces back to your house and chances are we're going to knock on your door," Breeden said.


This addresses laws from different countries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_Piggybacking