A good point was previously made about intent. I don't think any of us are above knocking on a door and asking permission to use someone's WiFi for emergency connectivity needs. There is obviously more to the Florida case than we know. This guy sat outside the house long enough to have the police called on him.
My concern is that these IT related cases are ruled with fault placed on the "perp" and that WiFi is becoming prevalent in enough devices that anyone can be taken in based on accessing a network. Again, intent becomes an issue, but who is the judge of that. Local cops?
Network security overall has been one fantastic reactionary boondoggle and we (collective society) still do not get "it". Scratch the itch instead of taking the vaccine.
It boggles the mind that M$ was not held accountable (other than market place) for the scads of hacked computers based on Windows and IE.
No one really knows where the responsibility lies and so we use the same old system we always have. Witch hunts and scarlet letters.
Who is to blame?
Careless manufactures? Ignorant users? Weak governance? Crafty phreaks?
EW
<Brian JD said...> I agree with most of what you're saying here. While I certainly am not recommending that everyone go out and connect to open access points in the neighborhood, I disagree that it is illegal. It may have some personal honor issues, but I don't see it as illegal. I would however generally recommend using only those that you find that you have explicit permission for. There are known free access points, and I would generally recommend them. However, were I in desperate need of getting access, say a server crashed and I needed to do some remote tasks from 1000 miles away, and there was no readily available connection except an open wi-fi connection; I would probably use it.
<somewhat political and ot> In fact were I comfortable enough where I didn't need to work. I would engage in acts of civil disobedience in regards to some of the Stalinist laws that have been passed in recent years concerning IT, were it not for the Draconian penalties they have attached to those imbicilic laws. </somewhat ot>
Brian JD
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On Tue, Jul 12, 2005 at 10:36:09AM -0500, Welsh, Ed wrote:
A good point was previously made about intent. I don't think any of us are above knocking on a door and asking permission to use someone's WiFi for emergency connectivity needs.
Hmm. In a rural area, which door to knock on might be obvious.
But in any typical urban or suburban area, this is not true. This is a problem even for the well-intentioned wardriver who may wish to offer clues to people in a neighborhood who are running factory-default open WAPs. I think you'd have to do a lot of passes with your GPS, possibly with a directional antenna for the wifi device, to get it narrowed down reasonably well as to which house the WAP is in. Even harder if there are several.
Then there's the question of what time of day or night it is (you want to wake someone and expect them to let you use their WAP), or whether the geek of the house happens to be home, or whether the person who really even knows what the heck you are talking about actually lives there, or whether the WAP was installed by some geek-for-hire, and the inhabitants just give you a funny look. All they know is they have the intarweb for their laptop, and isn't it great?
But, at least you give an answer, indirectly, to the question "what form do you think that permission should take?"--you want it to be verbal, face-to-face permission. I'll take it you don't accept Open House and Garage Sale signs at face value, either, and always ask permission of the home owner before setting foot in the house or garage? Or maybe you just don't go to these kinds of things?
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D. Joe -
Welsh, Ed