dang it. your right. i just read the terms and policy. i was hoping to save 50 a month this way! hahahaha... welllllllllll. i tried.

Merry Christmas

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"The purpose of life is not just to be happy; the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all."

"I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."
-Albert Einstein-

Merry Christmas, Johnathan.

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Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true. -- Niels Bohr --

Ipsa scientia potestas est. ~ Knowledge itself is power.---- Bacon
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Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit.


Hint: this is at heart a scientific forum, and underneath the fooling around there are some diamond-hard minds hanging about, ready to tear you to shreads. -- mike alexander --

It's unethical AND illegal.

It's unethical because you're stealing a service from someone who's paying for it.

It's illegal because ... see above.

Which doesn't change the fact that they are separate issues. If congress passed a law tomorrow that made it legal, it still wouldn't make it ethical.

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Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

I was remembering that, but I was also working with the unstated assumption that ISPs would structure a pay-per-megabyte billing option along the same lines as phone companies' pay-per-minute billing options: You pay a flat fee for up to a certain amount of usage, and then stick you with very high fees for using more than that amount. Presumably they would set the price for extra usage high enough to more than cover what they end up paying for the extra bandwidth.

That's a great defense!

Mind if I borrow it for next time I go around taking mail out of people's mailboxes and stealing milk crates from behind stores?

It's a good defense if you ask for the milk crates and their owner puts them in your car, just like you request information from a wireless network and its owner has it set up to honor your request.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

But should you assume, simply because the milk crates are available, out in the open, that you can take them? Because people don't put a lock and key on their mailbox, it's alright to steal the mail? Everything is setup for you to take it, nothing is physically stopping you, so why shouldn't you just take it? Because it is theft.
Now, the store may very well not mind you taking the crates and someone in this mad world may not mind you taking their mail. But because of a lack of physical impediments, should one assume they are free to be taken?
No, one should ask permission.
The way this logic leads, in my view, is that if your a skillful enough thief, it is alright to steal. After all, to someone extremely skilled with lockpicks, opening a locked door is just as easy as an unlocked one. The security device provides no impediment. They might as well have set it up with no lock at all. I they really didn't want you coming in, they would have used a better lock.
That's wrong, and I hope you can see that.
Taking from someones wi-fi without asking the PERSON who owns it, is theft. You yourself said that you would ask the store owner for the milk crates. Why then won't you ask the network owner for permission? Physical accessibility is not enough in the former, so why is it in the latter? Their is no physical difference between a network intentionally set without a password and one set up this way because of laziness or a lack of understanding on the part of the owner. You are no more granted permission by the network, then an unlocked mailbox automatically grants permission to take.

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If the milk crate owner puts up a sign that says I can take the crates then it's not stealing. I don't have to talk to a person. His prior actions give me permission, just like the prior actions of someone who sets up a wireless network so that it's open to the public gives everyone permission to use it.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

Remember the store owner does not own the milk crates. The supplier of milk owns the crates and I assure you they do not give them away!

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Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

The store owner might not know this. Then he'd be stealing them if he gave them away.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

Except that in the case of open wireless networks, chances are the owner has not set it up to honor your request. Chances are, the WAP is set to be open by default and the owner has left it that way, possibly because of sloth or intent but also quite likely because they don't have the technical know-how it takes to be aware that they should be securing their network.

Besides, consent of a person and "consent" of a machine that has no agency and therefore cannot do anything that can properly be called consent are two very different things. Trying to conflate the two is an absurd stretch. You might as well say that your neighbor's outdoor spigot has, by being unlocked and letting water flow when you turn the knob, given you implied permission to use their water, possibly running up their water bill in the process, without asking them first.

If you really want to use an open network, the only way to really get consent without asking anyone first is by finding a "free wifi" sign or warmark.

Yes, but that signs shows his intent. A wide open network is the pile of mlk crates, without a sign. Wide open is to the best of my knowledge the default setting. One could simply have not set up a password for three reasons: a) They don't mind people using the network on their dime, b) they haven't set one up yet, or c) they don't know how. And even if, if mind you, you guess right and they are giving it out to the public, it may not be ethical for them to give it out, any more then 'sharing' a 'free pizza for a year' coupon is ethical. 'But Raven' the internet hippies cry, 'There a big company, they can take it.' Maybe, maybe not, but that still doesn't make it right.

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People are responsible for their actions no matter what their intentions might be.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

I remember about 20 years ago that some coin machines at a local landr-o-mat gave out quarters if you put in a photocopy of a dollar bill. I think some other dispensers may have given out merchandise if you used slugs instead of coins. Obviously this is completely legal and ethical because if they had intended you to insert real money instead of something that just resembled money, they would have set up the system to authenticate the inserted paper and metal discs. *rolls eyes*

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

As are you.
Do we have to lock everything up before you realize it is wrong to take things without asking? How is the milk crates without a sign different to you then an unlocked network?

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Yes, he knows it. He has to return the crates at every delivery. THey keep count.

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Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

I don't take someone's network. I request that it allow me to connect to it. Whether or not it does is up to its owner. I'm not forcing it to do anything and I'm not trying to trick it like I would be if I used counterfeit money in a vending machine. It's a simple request to see if it's allowed.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

He might be new to the retail business or just absentminded. No matter what his thoughts were at the time, he's responsible for their loss if he gives them away.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

IF he gives them away. Besides, accepting them means accepting stolen property. That is also a crime by the way.
But I don't see the connection between him physically giving them away, even if it was ethical for him to do so, and grabbing 'free' internet off the airwaves.

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I wouldn't be grabbing free Internet, I'd be requesting it.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

Some muggers make requests too.

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Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

Muggers threaten retaliation for refusal. If my request were refused that would be the end of it.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

I have thought of it further, and there are actually 4 reasons someone may have an open Internet wifi, and only one of them is consistent with an actual consent on the part of the person who is paying for the service. This 'new' reason is if that person is paying for 'free' internet for the customers on their premises. Again, not permission for you if your not, even though by your definition of 'permission' you are. It's only requesting if you go and ask the person paying for it. You no more have permission just because they don't have a password then you have permission to snoop around in someones computer if they don't have a firewall.
Accessibility does not equal entitlement.

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As has been discussed ad nauseam previously in the thread, you may in fact be taking part of their bandwidth allotment. Which would be taking something that, while not tangible, is limited in supply and cannot be used by the owner if you take it. In which case the act isn't all that different from taking a physical object without asking.

Going back to the water analogy: If you use your neighbor's water without asking you aren't stealing their plumbing. But you might be taking their money.

His intent is to provide access just for his customers. His action provides access for everyone. Regardless of his intent, he's responsible for his actions. Society doesn't owe everyone a guarantee that every business plan will work. It might be my intent that only people who pay me a fee are allowed to look at some amusing billboards that I put along the side of a road. Tough luck for me.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

I'm not taking their bandwidth. I'm requesting the use of it. If they set up their system to say no then I won't be using it. It's entirely up to them. I'm just making a request.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

Would you claim that if they have not set up security properly, that by default that means they want you to join their network?

Would you claim that you are not knowingly taking advantage of their laziness/lack of knowledge/... ?


You can claim that the owner of the WiFi router should know enough to secure it properly. Don't you think the person conecting to it should know enough to know whether their access is "wanted" or "ethical"?

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So if a thief can get in with out the alarm saying 'no' it's the person he steals from fault, and the thief can take what he wants because the owner was unable to stop him?
The only way it is ethical for you to take at all is if they have a pay by bandwidth basis, and if you take THAT without asking, you are costing them money. And if it's an 'unlimited' plan, your stealing from the ISP, again stealing from people.
Face it, your taking. If a door doesn't have a lock, does that mean you should go in?
If someone was careless enough to leave a safe unlocked, does that mean you can take the contents of the safe? Would it be ethical to convince yourself that it was left unlocked on purpose? After all, all your doing is asking the safe's permission, and look, it's open, you must be allowed to take whatever inside. Who cares if it contains next weeks payroll, society doesn't guarantee anyone a successful business, if he was careless to leave it unlocked, it's his fault, right?

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All I know of their intent is what they do. I don't claim to know what they want. I don't know how much they know about security. I don't know who owns the network nor where it is. All I can do is make my request.

Ignorance can be expensive. If someone sells a $10,000 painting for $10 it doesn't mean he was robbed.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.