Slashdot Mirror
Florida Man Charged For Stealing Wi-Fi
baldass_newbie writes "The Saint Pete Times has a story about Benjamin Smith III who was arrested for stealing a wi-fi signal in Saint Petersburg, Florida, where apparently wardriving is considered a third degree felony." From the article: "...xperts believe there are scores of incidents occurring undetected, sometimes to frightening effect. People have used the cloak of wireless to traffic in child pornography, steal credit card information and send death threats, according to authorities. For as worrisome as it seems, wireless mooching is easily preventable by turning on encryption or requiring passwords. The problem, security experts say, is many people do not take the time or are unsure how to secure their wireless access from intruders. Dinon knew what to do. 'But I never did it because my neighbors are older.'"
Michigan - Zonk was charged with posting dupes to slashdot, where apparently a dupe is considered a third degree felony. From the article: "...xperts believe there are scores of dupes occurring undetected, sometimes to frightening effect. People have used the cloak of dupes to troll, spam, and send death threats, according to slashdot editors. For as worrisome as it seems, duping is easily preventable by actually reading what gets posted to the front page. The problem, slashdot editors say, is many people do not take the time to read posts, or are unsure how to prevent dupes. Dinon knew what to do. 'But I never did it because my neighbors are older, and no one reads the articles on slashdot anyway'"
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I really feel sorry for the /. subscribers whose paid-for ad-free page views are going towards dupes. It almost seems like the /. eds are trying to make them buy more views just to be able to see new articles...
I am scientifically inaccurate.
Is not an excuse. This dupe is so recent the article is still in my chache!
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Pretty damn soon, my reaction is going to be to stop reading slashdot. I mean, if they can't even be bothered to edit the submissions or pay attention to the articles posted, I just don't see why I should waste my time here. Slashdot editors: that means fewer advertisement views and less revenue for you.
Ok, the admins don't seem to listen or care, tons of people moan about the dupes and nothing seems to happen SO how about doing something positive and suggesting here some other sites as alternatives to /. - maybe a few walkouts would get noticed?
AT&ROFLMAO
Come on people, this is hardly a dupe.
xperts believe there are scores of incidents occurring undetected, sometimes to frightening effect.
These are X-perts we're talking about here, not to be confused with normal experts, these x-perts take 802.11 security TO THE MAX!
You gotta find first gear in your giant robot car
I know it's been said before, and I vaguely recall Rob telling us all why he wouldn't do it at LinuxWorld...
But damnit, editors/posters (whatever their title is) should have to provide a reason for rejecting and article, even if it's just from a drop down list of pre-written reasons..
A friend of mine actually noticed the trend of some editors to post certain things over others and would post only when he knew the "right" editor was on.
I'm not so much upset about my liver leaving me. Its really fair enough, I guess. But did it have to take the dog?
This would be a good artical... were it not a dupe :-/
Yeah, but given how bad this dupe is, we should be anticipating a triplicate post; would that be a sixth degree felony or a ninth?
People have suggested that the editors aren't "taking a passing interest in the site", but I think that we all need to be worried that there's some early onset dementia. Or they thought Memento was such a cool movie that they intentionally damaged their brains. . . .
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." - H.L. Mencken
I think if they at least acknowledged that it was a dupe for this purpose, but people see all these dupes and think "man, the guys running this really just dont give a fuck, let alone read their own site". I very casually read slashdot...check the RSS feed maybe twice a day, and I see tons of dupes...the editors work for slashdot FULLTIME...they only need to post one story every hour or so...they cant just do one quick search of their own site? And I know i've read about tech news that has not been mentioned here, so i know they arn't all over EVERY story.
This is a bit funny eh? You send in something new and shiny and it gets *bzzzzt* rejected.. yet dupes are in flavour.. gee maybe we should submit dupes?
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
If anybody gets modded redundant here, I'm going to be very upset.
What?
I find the redundant mods to be kind of ironic. It would be cool if everybody here got modded redundant just for posting in a duped article. I'm going for two in a row.
What?
There should be a new poll:
Slashdot editor responsible for the most dupes:
(a) Commander Taco
(b) Zonk
(c) write-in candidate
(d) CowboyNeal