Using other's unsecured wireless

[nihil]

Hmmm, I suspected that would be the case. Over here your ISP also tends to be your Telco, so you get these "package deals" for phone and internet. These do tend to have a limit for the cheaper deals.

I guess that is how the ISP tries to manage contention? They probably have 50 people sharing those links and maybe 20 for the unlimited deals.

I believe that unauthorised WiFi usage is illegal in Canada, and I have heard of convictions in the USA................one guy got fined $250 for "stealing services" which struck me as odd, as he was using a non-profit's WiFi outside of office hours.

I have not heard of the like in the UK so far, due to the difficulty in proving any sort of consequential loss?

I guess the ISPs don't like it, as if it were commonplace then it would make juggling their contention ratios more difficult and performance might suffer.

I am not sure how big an issue it is over here, as there seem to be plenty of free ones about (intentionally free............even have little signs up). I could walk to at least 5 within 15 minutes (as two of them sell beer, driving is out of the question)

[cgkanchi]

Nihil, I use NTL over here, and have yet to see any "package deals" with a limit on them... I think BT does have limited bandwidth in some of their schemes, but BT is overpriced anyway, IMHO. Also, I've noticed the free wireless hotspots too, they're bloody convenient when you need to send an urgent email or something. In contrast to others though, I haven't seen any unsecured wireless hotspots here yet that were not intentionally so, so the whole question is moot for me

Cheers,
cgkanchi

[ShagDevil]

How do I know that the owners didn't set up the access point with the intent to allow others to connect?

Well, you don't. And the fact remains that using someone's unsecure wifi is not illegal. Why? I have no idea.

I would like to think that a router and the relative components (internet connection and wireless coverage) are inherently propietary services. Unless explicitly stated that a wireless network can be used by the public, it should be assumed that it's private. Not the other way around (incidental connections being the only exclusion).

Let's break this down even further. Assume there are two components to a wifi connection. The actual wireless broadcast (wireless router) and the connection to the internet (ISP service). Let's say you feel that the wireless broadcast is not proprietary. Ok fine. Then you should only connect to the wireless router, but have no privileges to use the internet connection that is associated, unless explicitly stated by the owner that he/she wishes to offer their internet connection to the public.

If unsecure wireless should be used without consequence (as some are seeming to indicate in this thread), then so be it. I'll turn off my cable modem and leave my wireless router on and completely unsecured. You guys can connect to it all day. enjoy.

[Moira]

phishphreek80 you must be the person who gave me an anti-point when I made my remark about animated avatars and no doubt responsible for that uber-1337's rapid turnabout from 3 red to 1 green antipoint, haha.

So antion9876, you're going to go and work on breaking someone's WEP connection? You and who else? Shouldn't you be doing your school homework?

This kind of immature macho talk makes me tired, tbh. Maybe because being female, it leaves me cold. OK, it's pretty lazy not to take the trouble to secure a wireless network, but a lot of people simply don't know any better. Or they struggle with router interfaces and encryption and end up settling for what works, ie a connection which is as easy as possible to connect to. They want wireless but aren't prepared to pay someone to come and secure it if they aren't capable of doing it themselves.

Yes, these people annoy me, but that's irrelevant. What you're doing is illegal and immoral. Everyone knows the difference between an open wireless point that invites people to connect and someone's private network that even if in rare circumstances you "accidentally" connect to, then you have to make the conscious effort to use.

True, you may not get people sitting in the park using utorrent on someone else's connection, but you have to draw a line somewhere, and in the eyes of the law it's quite simple really. It's illegal and nothing to be proud of.

PS I just looked properly at these points and what they were given for in my user profile - interesting if nothing else! Why are some bright green? I don't seem to have any that colour

[phishphreek]

Moira: We are entitled to our opinions. Morals change with every person. You can't put one set of morals down on everyone. You've been around long enough to know how things work. Like I stated earlier, I may not like what someone thinks or says, but I'll defend their right to do so. As for the rest, that is for the law to decide. When it becomes "illegal" in my area, then I'll stop. But for now, I'll enjoy the occasional convenience.



BTW: Why do I have to be the one who assigns those points? There are plenty other people here that could have done it.

[Moira]

No, morals are morals. And the remark about animated avatars just a lighthearted guess. Get over it.

And in fact my join date is a bit misleading. My active participation here only started with the mass email which was sent to no longer active members (probably every member). My login from earlier ago was merged, so in fact I'm pretty new here really.

[phishphreek]

No, morals are morals. And the remark about animated avatars just a lighthearted guess. Get over it.

And in fact my join date is a bit misleading. My active participation here only started with the mass email which was sent to no longer active members (probably every member). My login from earlier ago was merged, so in fact I'm pretty new here really.

Yes, morals are morals. Good observation. However, morals change depending on who you are and where you are. Morals are really just opinions of what you might think are right and wrong. The morals of the suicide bombers are different than the morals of a preist.

Morality is a system of principles and judgments based on cultural, religious, and philosophical concepts and beliefs, by which humans determine whether given actions are right or wrong. These concepts and beliefs are often generalized and codified by a culture or group, and thus serve to regulate the behaviour of its members. Conformity to such codification may also be called morality, and the group may depend on widespread conformity to such codes for its continued existence. ..

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

And the remark about animated avatars just a lighthearted guess. Get over it.

Oooh! Testy! I am over it, don't worry about me.

And the remark about "You've been around long enough to know how things work." was a remark about your age/experience. Not how long you've been on this message board. You know how the world works.

[nihil]

Well,

1. If you circumvent any form of security to get into a network you have commited a crime in many countries; the USA, EU and Canada to name but a few.

2. In some countries and states knowingly using someone else's network is considered to be a "Theft of Resources" and is a crime. This is rather variable as it might be required that you reduce the performance that someone else has paid for and is entitled to.

3. Using someone's contractually limited resources is theft, and is a crime.

Other than that, I would question the wisdom of using an unsecured network that you know nothing about. If you can get in, so can anyone else; so what might be on that network and who might be sniffing the traffic? If someone hasn't the knowledge to secure a wireless router, what do you think the rest of their network security is like?

I have no problems with "official" open networks, as they are generally set up by people who know what they are doing..................at least around here they are. You still have to take precautions though.

[phishphreek]

nihil: your points taken. however, it is only a charge that might get stuck to you after much larger crimes have been commited? I'm interested in speaking with our local state police's cyber crimes division. I'll see if I can get thier point of view on this.

[nihil]

Hi Phish~

The first thing is actually getting caught? I would have thought that any owner who might catch you would have secured their network anyway, so it just wouldn't happen?

The most likely would be that you park an unfamiliar vehicle in a neighbourhood and get picked up by a passing police patrol or are spotted "acting suspiciously" and reported?

So you get busted and the police check out what you have been doing. Assuming they find nothing "serious" they will have spent time and resources in processing you, so they are very likely to go for even a minor IT type offence just to justify themselves? For yourself, you will probably find it more cost effective to plead guilty and pay a fine?

In the case of serious offences, it is the owner's IP that will appear in the logs so they will get the rap? (that alone should encourage people to secure their systems)

If you get caught commiting a serious offence then I would expect the prosecution to ignore the computer offence if it would result in a "concurrent sentence" as it certainly would in this country. By that I mean that sentences usually run side by side so If I get 1 year for hacking and 5 years for fraud, I only do 5 years as the first two 1 year's worth run side by side.

As it is notoriously difficult to find judges, juries, lawyers and cops who really understand IT, it makes sense that they will only bother with the familiar ground of fraud in such a case? The prosecutors would be careful not to weaken the fraud case by introducing a charge that the jury might not understand, thereby creating "reasonable doubt"

It is a grey area when it comes to minor offences, and I would imagine that the treatment of individual cases is pretty inconsistent. A bit like motoring offences.............one day you will get a caution, the next day you will get a ticket.

It will be interesting to see what you can find out.