I was messing around in my computer yesterday and I found that one of my neighbors must have set up a wifi hotspot in their apartment because I was picking it up. It is unprotected and open to the world.
I searched the SD and saw a few threads regarding this, but none discussed the bare legality of me using their unprotected internet access.
Note that I am not breaking into their computer, I am not looking at kiddie porn, and I am not downloading anything illegal. I am only using their access to surf the web, check email.
Is this illegal?
I will leave ethical debates about it to the IMHO.
Dunno about illegal. As far as I’m aware, it’s kinda an untested area of the law. Some dedicated wardrivers like to claim that if a hotspot is left open, they have a reasonable expectation that the owner intended to do it that way.
I occasionally swipe access from the restaurant around the corner when I’m in the laundry room. It’s supposed to be for customers only, but my wife and I get takeout there two to four nights a week, so I count myself as a customer.
You’re using a service that he is paying for and you are not. How is this not theft of services? If I leave my back door unlocked, I’ve left my physical possessions similarly “unprotected”. If you walk in and remove or make use of my posessions and are arrested, just go ahead and try the same argument as these dedicated wardrivers: “Well, I had a reasonable expectation that my neighbor wanted me to take his plasma screen TV.”
You’d get rightfully laughed at for that argument.
To address it more seriously, theft of services, instead of physical goods, is still theft. Just ask John Rowland. I wouldn’t make use of his/her access without permission or compensation.
I use ISP Xyyzy to access the internet at home. I then buy a laptop and wireless card. I search for networks, and see someone else in my apartment building as having an unsecured connection. I connect and ascertain that they are using Xyzzy as well and, based on a bandwidth test, subscribe to the same level of service.
Is using this connection a crime? I’m going through the same ISP, at the same rate of speed as with my paid account. My neighbor’s apparent speed to his machine may decrease, but Xyzzy’s TOS make no guarantee of being able to provide a certain level of bandwidth.
IANAL, but I would assume the courts would treat it in much the same way as radio and television transmissions. If the signal is entering your dwelling, then it is yours to do as you please.
If my neighbor has his XM Boombox setup and I can hear it over the fence, what should I do? It seems to me that I should either start throwing quarters over the fence, stick knitting needles through my eardrums, or turn myself in to the police.
Bad analogy. I assume the pirate satellite receiver is also decrypting the signal from the satellite and turning it into usable TV signal. That is the theft involved – the illegal use of the decryption key.
Ok, how’s this - that’s saying that it’s OK to listen-in to calls made on those older analog cell phones.
Of course, the laws regarding these parts of the spectrum are different, but I’m just trying to counter “If the signal is entering your dwelling, then it is yours to do as you please.”
In the article you refer to, it specifically said:
And I refer you to, as an example, Virginia law:
There is no authority for the proposition merely failing to password-protect a network creates a reasonable inference that the owner intended it to be open to all. “Without authority” creates a duty on the part of the user to take an affirmative step to reasonably assure himself that he has authority.
In short, the blanket statement “It’s not good manners but it’s not illegal” is wrong, and readers should not rely upon it.
I agree that the chance of prosecution is slight. “Slight” does not mean “impossible”.
I piggyback on my neighbor’s WiFi all the time. That’s how I’m connected now, in fact. His unprotected network extends into my living room where I’m sitting on my own sofa, and I don’t feel guilty at all when my iPAQ detects it and connects. The burden isn’t on me to block my computer’s access or insulate my living room with kryptonite or something; it’s on him.
So by that logic, there’s nothing wrong with sneaking into a movie theater without paying? They should have better security, after all, and it doesn’t cost them extra to show the movie to one more person.
And I wonder in addition to that if the term “protected” will be extended to home wireless networks under the 1996 Amendments to the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). In Shurgard Storage Centers v. Safeguard Self Storage (119 F. Supp. 2d 1121 (W.D. Wash. 2000)).
I think the analogy with hearing your neighbor’s stereo is spurious. When you do anything with his WiFi you are directly cutting into bandwidth for his communications over it. The fact that you leave your front door unlocked is not an excuse for your neighbor to come over and drink your beer.
Again, memory here. But it was a case in the mid-ninties where a congressional aid was using a police scanner to listen in on the calls of his boss’s rivals. The aid was not successfully prosecuted but lost his job and (maybe) was sued in civil court.
I could be wrong. Perhaps someone with more knowlege and a better memory than me will chime in.
This is a completely different situation. You aren’t listening in on a neighbor’s communications, you’re accessing your neighbor’s property in a way that directly impedes your neighbor’s use of it.
