There is no “but.” It is illegal. Period.
There is.
Oddly enough, if you didn’t realize that this was going on, you would not have the requisite mens rea to be committing a crime. Since you do realize it, then you have an obligation not to connect to a network for which you are not authorized.
If you walk into a theater through the front door, and ask the ticket seller “Can I go watch The Aviator?” and they say “Sure! Right through that door.” and let you right in to watch without paying, are you stealing that movie? You asked to watch the movie, they gave you permission.
The reality is that the network owner has setup the network in a way that allows anyone requesting access the ability to use the network. Just like our theater owner hiring fools who forget to sell tickets.
Our user has not forced their way in through a back door, has not hacked the password, has not snuck in through the fire exit or picked a lock, they walked right in through the open front door and, plain as day, requested access and were granted access. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you do not get access to these networks without a signal requesting access and a return signal allowing it.
It is this that distinguishes our user of open networks with the guy who cracks weak passwords.
Are you arguing the conduct is legal?
This makes sence. Thanks, pbw
It works for indoor theaters - consider one person watching a movie without paying once a week (sending a few emails) vs. two dozen people not paying and going to every show (tunning P2P software nonstop). At some point you’re going to displace a paying customer’s seat (saturate available bandwidth) but up until that point I can understand wanting to rationalize using something that’s going wasted.
Say someone lives in a good neighborhood and leaves his front door unlocked for conveniance. Maybe they assume that people will only try entering their own homes, so a lock isn’t needed. That doesn’t give you the right to just stroll in without permission, whether he notices you hanging out in his living room or not.
I would agree with this assessment. A very good analogy not involving computer services might be sticking your garbage in the neighbor’s garbage can. The collection service contracted to collect his garbage, not yours. Your garbage takes up extra space on the garbage truck, just like your requests take up extra bandwidth on the ISP’s network. Unless the neighbor’s contract with either the ISP or the garbage collection service allows him to subcontract (not likely), it’s still a violation of the contract. Even if the neighbor is actually cool with it.
If a LOT of this started happening, I could see ISP’s starting to add explicit language to their contracts that customers must secure their wireless networks. Right now, I don’t think the level is enough to bother them.
The continuing insistence that this conduct is not illegal is getting ridiculous. The conduct is “…illegal. Period”, as Bricker says. IANAL, but he is.
Much more to the point, Federal convictions for exactly the conduct proposed have established a precedent. This is the definition of illegal. If the executive branch, the legislature, and the courts say it’s illegal, then it’s illegal. All the solipsistic reasoning in the world doesn’t change that. If you don’t like it, you can attempt to get the laws changed, but in the meantime that’s the breaks.
The arguments that it’s the other user’s fault for “letting you in” are beginning to resemble the ones we’ve seen here for file-swapping or copyright violations. It’s the written equivalent of pouting, stamping your foot, and saying “But I wanna!” The fact that the standard protocol supports two-way access is not an open invitation for anyone strolling or walking by to come on in. Just ask Mr. Timmins.
Do you have a cite for the federal convictions? I believe you when you say it is illegal. In fact, I don’t see how you could make a valid arguement that it isn’t. While some places may have hotspots, that are set up in such a way that you can use them, they are rare and getting rarer.
Not really, I’m really talking about the morality rather than the legality, so maybe I should have stayed out of it. Legality is a matter of law and precedent, not right and wrong.
However, some of the comparisons made here suggest that requesting and being granted access to an open wireless connection is identical to hacking a WEP password or tapping into a physical DSL line. The first is like walking up to an open door and asking permission to enter, the second is pretending to be someone you’re not, the third is breaking and entering.
The law may not distinguish between the them, but people can.
It was in my earlier post, but I evidently mangled it. Apologies to one and all. Here it is again, see also the Mercury-News article. Timmins was one of three that plead guilty. He was the only one charged for merely unauthorized access like we’ve been discussing.
His companions, who did some “actual hacking”, were charged for much more serious crimes. One now faces 12 years, the other 5 years, as federal prisoners.
The penalties Timmins faces(d) are unspecified.
Uh, nope. In the theatre case, a person with apparent authority gave you access. Who is the person with apparent authority in the wireless case? There isn’t one; there’s just an automated device.
The analogous theatre case would be if there were a robot ticket-taker who you fooled into admitting you with a forged pass. A human can give you (legal) permission; an automated device cannot.
I’d say that morality of the practice is a GD topic, and legality a GQ topic.
But in your first analogy, there is no “permission to enter” given by anyone. To expand the analogy, consider a home with a handicapped door entrance: pressing the button outside opens the door automatically, assuming it’s not locked. In fact, consider that the door has a sensor: merely approaching it triggers it to open.
Merely because the door is unlocked and opens at your approach does not give you permission to enter.
I’d recommend a GD thread to continue debate on the morality of the issue. I’d suggest that the legal question is answered.
Being the original poster, I thought I’d chime in. This has been a very interesting discussion. Being that there does not appear to be an example case concerning apartments, things are exactly clear cut yet.
The Lowe’s case seems to be close, but those people also went driving around (and were probably on Lowe’s private property) to find an open connection. This is in contrast to a signal coming through my walls into my apartment.
Either way, I am not going to use the wireless connection. I kept using the dial up more on ethical reasons than legality anyway, but I was interested in the legal issues.
What words in the law do you believe make an exception if the signal is coming into your apartment?
paperbackwriter or Bricker, why isn’t the following (from pbw’ link) applicable in this case?
That seems to say that if it’s readily accessible, you can legally use it.
Bricker can probably answer this better. Until he does, I will mention that your quote is from Chapter 119 of Title 18 (which also contains Sec. 2511). The laws against unauthorized access to a protected computer, e.g., the ISP’s network, are in Chapter 47, not Chapters 119 or 121. I quoted Sec. 2511 because it directly addressed the interception of cellular-phone conversations Maus Magill asked about.
Your apartment is not “generally accessible to the public”.
[QUOTE=CheesesteakHowever, some of the comparisons made here suggest that requesting and being granted access to an open wireless connection is identical to hacking a WEP password or tapping into a physical DSL line. The first is like walking up to an open door and asking permission to enter, the second is pretending to be someone you’re not, the third is breaking and entering.[/quote]
I don’t think you can really make a strong argument for implied consent.
Nearly all wireless gear comes out-of-the-box with “pants-down protocol” to make it as easy as possible to get up and running.
A network handshake isn’t equivalent to knocking on the door, because when you knock on the door, the homeowner knows somebody’s at the door, and makes a conscious decision to grant or deny access.
In the case of a WAP, although it’s a bit sad, a huge amount of people simply don’t comprehend that people can gain access to their network unless they take steps to control it.
If you want to stick with a physical metaphor, it’s more like entering someone’s house through an unlocked cellar window. Thre probably should be security bars, or at least a stick to hold it closed – but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to come in and curl up next to the furnace.
paperbackwriter is right on the money. The phrase you’re looking at is from the section of federal law relating to phone communcation. Access to computer networks is covered by 18 USC § 1030 (a) (2) (C), which prohibits, inter alia, anyone who “…intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access…”
A protected computer is any computing or networking device used in interstate commerce or communication – in effect, any routing device connected to the Internet. There is no limiting language in this section – if you access without authorization, you’ve completed the crime.
This is not always the case. I have a WiFi network that is both password protected AND MAC specific, so I’m relatively sure that my neighbors do not have access to it. I have also told my laptop that it should use MY network as the preferred network. However, I battle with my laptop on a regular basis about whether or not it is allowed to tap into one of my neighbors’ unprotected WiFi networks. I do not choose to do so, but my laptop, for some inexplicable reason, often insists on connecting to an outside, weaker network, and I have little control over this. I did change the channel settings for my own network, and that seems to have solved the problem for now.
When I set up my WiFi network a few years back, security was NOT the default, and I had to actually read the manual that came with the router to set up encryption and MAC recognition. It was also the only WiFi network in the neighborhood. However, I have set up wireless networks for friends several times in the last year, and the software set up actually walks the user through setting up encryption, as a default, and explains how to load the key into other computers. Given that these new WiFi networks in my neighborhood ARE new, it’s inexplicable to me why there isn’t any kind of password on the connection.