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The Ethics of Stealing Wireless Bandwidth?
sjwoo asks: "So I was over at a friend's apartment yesterday, in an attempt to fix up her computer (goodbye, buggy Windows ME, hello somewhat less buggy Windows XP). I had most of the updates already on CD, so the only one that caused me grief was a new driver for her HP printer, which was 22MB. Her Internet connectivity was provided by AOL dialup, and because we had to be in class, I had to do what I could to hurry things along.
I found an unprotected (i.e., no WEP, no MAC-address protection) WLAN and sucked down that file at over 200Kb/sec. Was I wrong to steal?"
"At home over my cable modem, downloading this file would have taken a couple of eyeblinks, but as I clicked on the download over her AOL connection, I saw that the ETA turned from 45 minutes to 68 minutes to 94 minutes! I had less than 10 minutes, so I did what a few of you might do: I turned on my wireless laptop and looked around the apartment building in search of a connection.
Later, I considered the ethical aspects of my action. I kinda felt a little guilty for tapping into this guy's connection. Surely it's possible that he wanted to have an open network to provide strangers in brief need of broadband connectivity, but most likely, he's just some person who doesn't quite know what he's doing."
fp?
If they didn't want you to use it, they would put even the most basic security on it.
When you set up your wireless device it will ask you if you want security, etc. If these folks clicked through and didn't select any security, that's their problem.
Imagine a neighborhood where leaving your door open means anybody can come in and have a beer. Now imagine some new folks show up and don't realize that leaving your door open is an invitation. So they leave the door open and go to work. Since you have no way of knowing if they opened their door to let you in, or if they opened their door by mistake, I don't think it's unethical to waltz in and have a beer.
This isn't yet cut and dried when it comes to courts and the law, but since there are many folks out there who run open networks on purpose, I think it's a good rule of thumb and I hope it's upheld by the legal system.
Also, don't forget that many systems (such as OS X) will automatically connect to the best network. If they don't use WEP, and they don't turn off beacon announcements, how the heck do you even KNOW that you're on their network if you don't check?
Leaving a WiFi network wide open without any security precautions or leaving it at the manufacturer's default is like leaving all of your doors and windows open and unlocked. Probably would have been better if you had asked the person if it was okay to borrow their network (like if you needed to borrow one's phone to call a tow truck).
That's just my thought...
The only way that I could see this as being "wrong" is if this guy was paying for his bandwidth usasge. Then again its kind of what con artists say about exploiting those too ignorant to know better. You also helped out a friend, I'm sure that balanced out your karma a bit : P
Carpe meam simiam!
You read Slashdot.
You have a girlfriend.
CONTRADICTION ALERT!!!!
I suppose legally this falls under the unauthorized access portion of the law. For those that will say, "well, he left his wireless open so it's his problem", if you leave your car unlocked then I guess it is okay for someone to come in and take all of your change, after all you didn't lock your door. Just because you have security measures available does not mean that if you do not use them you are at fault for someone elses unauthorized access.
That being said, any decent person, and especially someone who has moved from dial-up to broadband would probably care less if you used it for a brief moment to save a headache of a download. Seriously, would you personally care if someone did it for a moment on your wireless network if you had one (under certain conditions).
The only thing that gets me is if this guy is on one of thoses metered broadband connections. I guess in that case it might cost him some money, another little spin on it.
I don't own a television. But the other night, my neighbors had their TV on really loud and I put my ear up to the wall to listen. It was a good show on animal planet about giraffes.
Was I wrong to steal?
I know people with WiFi who intentionally leave it unencrypted as a service to their neighbors and any one in the area who might need it.Sure, its possible it may have been accidental, but chances are if they didn't bother encrypting it, they really don't mind if you use it.
Its kind of like taking something that someone left in front of their home for the trash. Sure, technically it might be stealing, but in most areas its considered acceptable and people are more than happy to have others using the stuff they would otherwise be consigning to a landfill.
Walk on in.
> I found an unprotected (i.e., no WEP, no MAC-address protection) WLAN and sucked down that file at over 200Kb/sec. Was I wrong to steal?"
If you'd done that using my (hypothetical) work connection, you'd have cost us somewhere around US$1 in straight volume charges.
So here, it'd be like stealing a dollar.
I think there needs to be some standard developed for advertising wireless services. Terms and conditions, etc. So if you run a public free-for-all service, people can feel confident using it. If you're not intending it to be used by others, it'd be fairly obvious.
Maybe the URL of a "terms and conditions" page could be served with the DHCP reply or something.
- Colin
You've gotta improve your aim. That schmuck almost got away. Good thing I was there to finish him off.
It's petty theft. Some what akin to grabbing an apple from the cart, as you pass a green grocer's shop.
It is theft. It is wrong. But, the value is so low that the authorities are not going to attempt to enforce the law in such cases. You therefore, become a nuisance to the grocer and in the future he either hits you in the head with a broom or he moves his apple cart back inside the store.
The same applies to this persons bandwidth. If they feel that they have suffered a loss they will make an effort to prevent it in the future. Perhaps they will learn something about securing wireless access points. In your case, since you seem to have a conscience, don't do it any more. But, don't lose any sleep over this incident.
There are a few things to consider:
Chances are good the supplier of your fortuitious connection has an unlimited pipe.
Chances are good that they weren't using it at the time(as attested by your connection speed)
But the reality is that you did take something from them that they cannot get back, regardless of the fact that it didn't cost them anything extra.
Unlike a water spigot, which is also paid for, you can connect without notice. This is the only ambiguous area. Furthermore, they are broadcasting on your property, and in a radio badn which is unregulated. In short, they didn't use adequate protection, they knowingly broadcast to you, and they would likely have no ability to prosecute you under current laws. Just because you happened to transmit packets that their network accepted and processed, and then responded to doesn't mean you did anything wrong.
However, the ethical question is vastly different. There is a level of "I didn't know this could happen" for the user, but that doesn't completely remove their responsability. On the other hand, you knew exactly what you were doing.
I think you have a responsability, however, to notify them. Just think of all the spam I could send out through their connection before they noticed from my car...
-Adam
If they leave their access point unsecure, it's their fault. If they don't want people using it, they should secure it. The WAP's owner has to more right to complain about you using his bandwidth than someone who leaves their computer unsecured on the internet has to complain that it keeps getting hacked. I understand this sounds mean, but frankly people should take responsibility for some things and not depend on others not to take advantage of a situation.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I assume you were living in a soceity which considered stealing to be wrong, so yes, you were wrong.
-- "So, what's the deal with Auntie Gerschwitz et all?"
What about when you go to a house on holloween and the people left a bowl of candy, instead of answering the door? I take what I need and leave. No harm, no foul.
Come on by. Use some bandwidth. Fine with me.
:-).
If I cared, I'd WEP it. If I really cared, I'd WEP and MAC address lockout. If I really really cared, I'd only allow it single port access to a server with a VPN, then nobody could get through but me (in theory, anyway).
If your neighbor is playing good music loudly, and you open your window and enjoy it, are you stealing (OK, no RIA comments, please
If you use someone's driveway to help turn around, are you stealing?
I don't think so. If you reall feel bad, go back, figure out whose it is, and tell them it's open. Odds are they don't know and/or don't care.
At this time I don't think it breaks any laws, but then again I'm not a lawyer.
If his usage caused a blip on the radar he could loose his account if he let people use the AP. They want the $40-$60 from those other people.
If it is accidental, they would talk him through setting up WEP or Mac address filtering.
When is stealing ever ethical? The fact that you say you are stealing should be answer enough.
On the other hand, how do you know you were stealing? Maybe the owner of the WLAN intended for it to be a public access point since they didn't take any measures to protect it. Maybe they are naive, but I think people who install WLANs are obliged to take some simple security measures that are not hard to find out about or learn about. If they are technical enough to configure it to work on a network they should be able to at least set up an encryption key.
Excuse me, but what exactly is the problem?
Yes, in a court of law whoever rents out the infrastructure would argue that, at 120 baud rates, your download cost the company $2600, and so with legal fees you are liable for $200,000 in damages. And in these greed-oriented, legislator-bought, owners-take-all, times, they might get it.
But there is no doubt in my mind who the criminals are.
Go find the dude, and give him a dollar. Problem solved.
Informatus Technologicus
I mean, if you were outside my house, I might OK temporary access for you to download drivers. Hell, I might go ahead and download them for you.
Of course, I set up WEP once it occurred to me that providing free broadband for my hostile neighbors was not what I wanted to do with my free time.
Maybe the guy's deliberately sharing his broadband. Maybe he hasn't figured out how to secure it. Wouldn't kill you to ask, would it?
No Longer a Menace to Society.
Alexandria Morrigan born 2/22/01 l. 20.5in wt. 7 lbs. 5 oz.
If the owner if the wireless network didn't want you using their bandwidth, they would have protected it in some fashion. If you had circumvented this protection, you would have been stealing. However, since it was open to public access, you are free to use it as you see fit (standard rules of polite behavior using public media apply). If they decide they don't like that, they are free to restrict access. Instead of feeling guilty, think about how cool the owners were for providing such a public service.
If someone that you didn't know used your wireless connection to download files, how would you feel about it?
I purchased a 802.11b card in January, because a new roommate would be moving in with his Airport base station. Before he arrived with his base station I tried the card out and noticed that I had a 75% signal throughout the apartment.
Within 5 minutes I had detected which manufacturer created the WAP next door, found the default admin log and pass, and changed the router name to "goatse.cx" to see if my neighbor would notice.
It's been 3 months and I still use his connection whenever I want to download something and keep my ping down whilst playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein. I love it. It is NOT difficult to implement WEP, so I don't feel bad about it. The guy could easily secure his network if he felt like it.. or if he was wise enough.
You might get away with that in a court of law, but we are talking about ethics here. The guy knew that the WLAN he was borrowing was not a public hotspot. This is obvious from the original posting.
HBO broadcast their signal without scrambling. You needed a very expensive and very large dish to get it. They tried to outlaw the dishes and I think it was decided that tough luck the signals fell on private property. So then they started to scramble the signal. I see a paralell here. If the wifi wasn't protected and the signal fell onto your property then it's yours for the taking.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
Courts may not agree, but mine wasn't a legal answer.
Was this on a college campus? Was it a campus access point you connected to? If so I'd say you paid for the bandwidth already. If not, yeah stealing is bad, even if it makes your life convienent.
So if the neighbor girl leaves her pants down, does that mean you can... er... um... "attach" to her "network" and upload some "packets?"
You didn't see me type that.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
becouse we all know how much the common public knows about encryption. seriously alot of people have the need or desire for a wireless LAN as much as they do for a cordless phone. yes they should take some effort to secure it but they dont know any better, the assumption that its there for you to take advantage of is not a good answer. its a bad exuse made up by people who knew they were wrong but couldnt think up a better exuse.
don't you really know the answer, already?
Let's put this into another context: Older cordless phones on the 49 Mhz band didn't authenticate, and broadcasted in the clear (much like most of today's phones, which only authenticate -- Oh they joys of owning a scanner! Find out if your neighbours hate you [yet] or not!). This means that if you had your cordless phone off the base station and your neighbour had his tuned to the same channel (with his base station off), he'd be able to use your phone line. Illegal? Wrong? I'll let you decide. I suppose it all depends on how you used it. Did you make a call to a toll-free number? Probably not morally reprehensible, but probably also illegal. Call a phone-sex line? A little from column A, a little from column B!
;-)
Since no real hard and fast laws exist about this (that I know of) you'd be best not pushing the issue, IMHO. You don't want to become case law, do you?
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I love all the comments about how this "ignoramous" has left his AP open to the world to "steal" bandwidth from the poor cable companies. Did it ever occur to any of you that this "ignoramous" probably doesn't give a rat's ass about whether or not you're tapping his broadcast? He's paying a buttload for poor network performance from a monopolistic cable company anyway. Why can't he let others share the wealth? If he gets caught by some war-driving Comcastite or RoadRunner snitch, than it's his risk to take.
If your neighbor across the street has his floodlight on, and you needed to read your book, is it ethical to open your blinds and use thier light?
On the flip side, if you are trying to get to sleep at night, is it ethical for them to leave thier floodlights on all night?
The wireless that they have on is not only coming into your house, but also reducing YOUR capacity to set up your own wireless. If you had 3-4 neighbors close around you all on different channels, you might not be able to set up a reasonable network in your own house.
If thier wireless is going to be coming into your house and take up your own personal RF bands in your own walls, then not only is it ethical to use it, but it's also UNETHICAL for them to not allow you to use it.
Everyone has been using the car analogy where if I left my car with the keys running, is it right to take it... Well, I have a better analogy that you should consider. If I have boxes I packed up from college, and I just decide to store then in some random guy down the street's living room, is it somehow unethical for him to open them up and look inside? Can I bitch and moan when he watches the blockbuster videos that I packed in there (He didn't pay the license fee after all!)?
If you think it's wrong to access a neighbor's wireless from your own house, please email me your address, I need a place to put my stuff...
It's somewhat similar to finding a mobile phone in the street, and using it to call a FREE number.
It'd only be stealing if you didn't return the phone - in this case, you now have a responsibility to go educate this guy about his AP.
Point out that you could have downloaded illegal material via his connection, which he'd likely be liable for.
IaIn
a new driver for her HP printer, which was 22MB
Can someone explain this to me? How much code does it take to render HPGL graphics? Surely no more than a postscript renderer, which really isn't that much. Lets be generous and say its 1MB of code. What the hell else is in this driver that causes it to be so bloated that it takes up 22MB, which I suspect is already compressed?!
I suspect its a bunch of junk that you don't need in order to print, sits in your taskbar tray, and runs a daemon/service for no good reason.
Crap like this is yet another reason why windows sucks.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Or, maybe it's like some person set up an access point in a manner that allows for access freely by all in range. Everyone wants an analogy. Seriously, one could argue that this situation is like a number of others. The truth is that you can't judge it as being like car theft, boxes in a stranger's living room, or the empty can of Red Bull (which I don't drink) I found in my garbage can when I brought it from the street last week. The way I see it, you have to go by what the user did not what the user meant to do. (Maybe the access points should just have a big red toggle switch on the front labeled "Access" with two positions: "Me only" and "Everyone.") What the user did was configure a system that was capable of access control to allow free access from all clients. I consider that permission to use the access. That having been said, I've never transmitted one packet out over the net through one of these mystery APs. Try to think of context. If I found an open AP in a public place, like a school, library, mall, resturaunt or coffee shop, I'd consider it a resource for the patrons. In my admittedly limited war driving (I might have ten miles of it) I've not found such an AP. If I go into a coffee shop next week and discover an open AP, I'm surfing. I'll have also just found my new favorite coffee shop. :)
Hell, where i live, if you don't tell somone that they're trespassing ( or post a sign to that effect), then they're not.
If somone leaves their wireless lan open, then they cant complain if somone uses their bandwidth.
I don't know abouy the USA, but where I am, unlocked = public
What? Me? Worry?
I think this is more like walking into someones yard and drinking out of his garden hose.
Unless he's watering his lawn, it's annoying, but no big deal.
There was a customer of mine who installed a wireless access point and didn't secure it. Someone used his bandwidth, but was then kind enough to leave a message on ALL of his printers telling him he had a security problem. You might do the same for this guy. I think it 'ballances' karma, and even puts things in your favor (grey hat type stuff)
I would liken it to finding money on the floor. You can just take it but did you try to find out who the owner was first? Some WAP points allow you to set a comment and sometimes there's an email address in that comment.
Who to ask and how? There should be a standard so that you can easily find out whose network you are using. So in the absence of a "yes you can" polite people won't use it.
e.g. http://here/ or https://here/ or something like that, and you'd see the main webpage for the network you're on. With stuff like Terms of Usage, login page, chat, list of other users on line, other devices you can use (jukebox, airconditioner etc).
The here TLD could be resolved locally by a dns server for that site. If it's globally (you pass client dns packets out) then it'll have to resolve to a reserved private IP (similar to RFC1918 addresses but just a single one) which is only routed locally.
This is not a standard, and I'm nobody, and so far many ppl I talk to don't seem to see the need for it.
Most seem to assume that the location isn't important, people just connect to the whole internet and that's it.
AFAIK location is very important. After all there are many location sensitive services you can provide to users but not appropriate for the whole internet, esp with the risk of an occasional slashdotting. Why shouldn't a shop/restaurant providing you with free internet access not have more ways to encourage you to return?
That'll show if he:
a) Doesn't mind - in which case relax and war chalk his door
b) Does mind, but didn't know, in which case - fix his security and call it a fair trade
Get the EULA T-shirt
I guess you don't under HP printers. That 22MB IS THE PRINTER. That hulk of plastic on the desk is nothing without that driver. Blame Microsoft.
If you went and cracked his WEP or something, then yes, we could have a discussion about the wrongness of that. But the system involved has clear methods for conveying security-related metadata, which have been explicitly set up as an open network with no authorization required. So stop wasting our time when the operator of the network has told you through these technological means that the network is free to all. Enjoy the free bandwidth.
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
I want to be able to specify a list of MAC addresses in my access point that get priority. There should be a traffic shaper that gives me priority on my connection.
I couldn't care less if somebody else uses my unmetered access unless it's slowing me down. At that point I care alot.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
OK, so instead you went looking for an unsecured WAP. You knew you were wrong, and you did it anyway. Therefor, you have moral culpability for appropriating somebody else's bandwidth. Don't feel bad - Bill Gates does it too.
However, the person who's bandwidth you used also bears culpability in this matter. They were smart enough to get some form of fast connection and to get a WAP connected to it - they bear responsibility for securing it. If they don't know how, they should have hired someone who did. They have an "attractive nuisance" they need to secure.
The mere fact you wrote this to Slashdot shows me you know you are wrong, and are looking for somebody to provide you with justification. While I am sure many people will do so, I shall not be among them. "You done a bad thing, George." - not as bad as spitting in the elevator even, but a bad thing none the less.
You have to make choices in this life. Either do the right thing (and be inconvenienced thereby), or do the wrong thing (and be prepared for any negative consiquences). Either way, stand by your actions.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Actually I would say a better question is 'what are the odds of me getting caught?' And the answer is 'very slim.'
... I found it when a friend of mine was at my place, looking for a cable connection for his laptop to check email. It was a new IBM with built in 802.11b and it asked if I wanted to use the ambient signal it found, first clue. I went out the next day and bought a 802.11b card for my laptop and sure enough, signal. Weak signal, but still. (I bought a base station also so I could use it without the moral implications and in case it went away...)
In my 'hood someone had their Linksys WiFi (I will get around to explaining how I knew in a minute) up without WEP enabled, just plugged it in and let it go
I got to dinking around with his system, recognized by the IP address it assigned me that it wasn't an SMC unit, probably a Linky so I tried to connect to the console using the default password and Voila! it worked.
I was at a neighborhood gathering the other day when I asked 'anybody know who Alex or Erin are?' (the hub was broadcasting the name alexerin) and one guy says 'That's my daughter, why?' I let him know I was tappin' it from time to time (his network, not his daughter) - and explained to him how to lock it up. He had no clue.
Next day it was WEP enabled. Maybe I shoulda kept my mouth shut, I got better reception from his AP than from mine in certain places in my house / back yard.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
So, if you're broadcasting your access singnal, unlicensed and unencrypted into another residence, I say all bets are off.
Method of processing duck feet
Like most people here, I think that you did steal bandwidth: you didn't pay for it or ask to useit, hell, you don't even know whose bandwidth it was. But...
It is true that some people leave their WAPs open as an invitation to anyone to use the bandwidth. Some would consider using the bandwidth of an open WAP to be a cultural norm.
The problem is that most WAP's factory settings are insecure -- so it is impossible to tell if the open WAP is an invitation, or an indication of a novice.
As several others have suggested, find the person whose bandwidth you 'stole' and ask them. If they are a novice who doesn't want their WAP open to the public, show them how to secure it, and tell them about warchalking.
It would be nice to see products shipping secured, rather than wide open, with well-written, prominant documentation about how to open up the services required.
"The noble art of losing face will one day save the human race"---Hans Blix
You did the right thing for her, but the wrong thing for the person owning the broadband connection. You should now say 10 Hail Marys and flog yourself, and all will be forgiven...
The person who left their network wide open chose to do so. The idea that an average person can't pick an even mediocre 8 byte password and copy that to any device they want to access the network with is ludicrous. Leaving a wireless network completely unsecured is a sign that they want to share their bandwidth with people who need it. You obviously needed it. It's like electrical outlets left unprotected in public spaces, or the piles of books people leave in the subway: if they didn't want it to be used publically, they would have hit the "password enable" checkbox on their router setup program.
Now, whether or not that person was stealing from their ISP by giving you access is a different issue... I know our ISP has setup an open wireless network as a test program for people on this block, but many feel differently. Still, contract clauses are not the same thing as rights or ownership, and I wouldn't expect the ISP was paying by the bit, nor their backbone provider.
Sleep well, young skywalker... the commons is not stealing, despite what AOLTimeWarner may say...
The ______ Agenda
I mean, its not like you installed subseven and pressed the guys boxen into your legion of d00m!
does not mean you have an invitation to go in.
that's just my two centidollars. when i get around to setting up a wireless access point, i will lock it down with at least wep and most likely mac as well. my DSL connection is not nearly as swift as that guy's broadband connection.
although you borrowed the bandwidth resource briefly, i would liken the general practice to using smtp servers that have not been properly configured (open-relay). you are using a resource that costs money and you didn't pay for. then again, you may not have cost the guy a full nickel. i think this is something of a grey area ethicly. i would avoid the practice.
END OF LINE
IANAL. That being said, In California, section 498 of the Penal Code makes theft of utility services illegal. Whether the law would apply in an individual case seems to depend on lots of things (who owns the router/bridge, who knew about the access, "intent", etc.) but it appears that you could get into criminal trouble.
I used to work at a campus police department. We had regular problems with a street-person cranking up his boom-box in a campus parking structure late at night and annoying all the neighbors. After numberous warnings the officers just started arresting him for theft of electricity for plugging into the campus owned outlet in the structure. No, it wasn't locked - it is just an outlet. That doesn't make it legal to run a cord from it over to your apartment.
Another consideration - what if you use an "open" wireless point. Would you be offended to find the owner of that access point was logging all your traffic and using it for whatever purpose he chose? You "plugged" into someone else's network so I don't think you have any expectation of privacy.
Here's the law (partial - there's lots more boring stuff) on theft of utilities. (Yes, telecommunication is included in the definition of utility):
Any person who, with intent to obtain for himself or herself
utility services without paying the full lawful charge therefor, or
with intent to enable another person to do so, or with intent to
deprive any utility of any part of the full lawful charge for utility
services it provides, commits, authorizes, solicits, aids, or abets
any of the following shall be guilty of a misdemeanor:
(1) Diverts or causes to be diverted utility services, by any
means whatsoever.
(2) Prevents any utility meter, or other device used in
determining the charge for utility services, from accurately
performing its measuring function by tampering or by any other means.
(3) Tampers with any property owned by or used by the utility to
provide utility services.
(4) Makes or causes to be made any connection with or reconnection
with property owned or used by the utility to provide utility
services without the authorization or consent of the utility.
(5) Uses or receives the direct benefit of all or a portion of
utility services with knowledge or reason to believe that the
diversion, tampering, or unauthorized connection existed at the time
of that use, or that the use or receipt was otherwise without the
authorization or consent of the utility.
(c) In any prosecution under this section, the presence of any of
the following objects, circumstances, or conditions on premises
controlled by the customer or by the person using or receiving the
direct benefit of all or a portion of utility services obtained in
violation of this section shall permit an inference that the customer
or person intended to and did violate this section:
(1) Any instrument, apparatus, or device primarily designed to be
used to obtain utility services without paying the full lawful charge
therefor.
(2) Any meter that has been altered, tampered with, or bypassed so
as to cause no measurement or inaccurate measurement of utility
services.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Call it a stupidity tax for the user who doesn't secure his/her own WLAN.
...did you pay for that Windows XP license?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I don't understand why someone would not know they should set a password. I assumed all wireless setup software was smart enough to goad you into setting a password. However, this is based on my Apple-only experience -- Apple definitely makes it seem obvious you should set a password. Do other OSes/wireless packages not do this?
One of my friends told me he went to a local Coffee place (not Starbucks, an actual local place) and got free wireless because the person in the apartment upstairs had an unprotected wireless setup. I think if you live in an old New England wooden (not concrete!) building right about a public gathering place like a coffee place, and you don't know enough to protect yourself, you are an unlucky fool.
Sharing stuff like that is one of those things you want to do for your neighbors. Would I care if someone logged onto my wireless from time to time? No. I'm paying for my connection regardless of how much I use it. Would I mind if it started slowing me down? Yes and I'd figure out something to make things painful for me. Neighbors should share more than fences. What goes around, comes around.
It's pretty simple but without such basic courtesy, the internet would not work. Think about what would happen if there were no peering arangments. How about what would happen if people decided to block off all of their networks and make nothing public? Of course, that's the direction we are going and I suppose that's why the question came up. When neighbors don't talk to each other or trust each other, no lines of communication are needed.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
The Roman formula for exile was to deny water and fire to the person exiled. Only an ass would hoard what's essential and plentiful and only a criminal should be denied such things. This was not theft anymore than drinking from someone's running water hose on a hot day.
Wireless has the potential to set us all free from per byte communication charges. Meshworks can eliminate the need for wires a comunity network can take the place of the failed public tuilities. It's not hard, the equipment is cheap and it will benifit everyone. We will get there faster if we have the right attitude about it.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
This isn't exactly the same as getting free HBO, because that's just an "intellectual" property issue: An infinite number of people could watch HBO, without depriving anyone else of it. An Internet connection isn't like that: You're using some of its (finite) capacity, and at some point somebody might even be billed per packet or per byte.
Having said that, I don't think you did anything wrong, and I do the same thing! Many people do intentionally leave their Internet connections open, as they're paying a flat rate and want to let other people use their excess bandwidth. There's even a handshake in the 802.11 protocol where a client requests permission to log on the network and an AP gives it (or denies it), which could be thought of as an invitation.
Of course, if you're actually breaking WEP keys, spoofing MAC addresses or trying to get round an access control mechanism, that's another matter. The presence of any security (even crap security like WEP) does suggest that intruders are not welcome.