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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.'"
Yet another dupe...previous story can be found here.
Zonk fails it again...
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
a third degree felony...
\u262D = \u5350
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/ 06/0217252&tid=193&tid=17
Wake up and smell the noise, admins. I know it's just me screaming in the sea of other people yelling about dupes, but isn't it time to implement some kind of link checker system?
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
this poor bejamin guy is going to be in jail for quite a long time with all the arrests he's been getting lately.
It's a dupe of the most commented on story of the week, proving once again that the editors don't even take a passing interest in the site.
There should be a new poll:
Slashdot editor responsible for the most dupes:
(a) Commander Taco
(b) Zonk
(c) write-in candidate
(d) CowboyNeal
Download my free songs!
- GNAA trolls
- "Netcraft confirms..."
- "In Soviet Russia..."
- "I didn't read the article, but have an opinion about it anyway."
- "But Clinton..."
- Dupes.
I'm beyond caring."The Chevy Blazer was still there, the man furtively hunched over his computer." Well lets give this guy the stupid award for getting caught. Seems he wasn't so furtive after all? -----3 106011
Since this is a duplicate article, I will just post a link on how to secure your wifi on the road.... http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Christ driving around to see what doors stupid ppl have left open should not be a crime. If I drive around my neighborhood and look at how many dumb ppl have left their front door wide open should I be arrested. Breaking in is one thing but just looking is another.
That's a horrible analogy. Because it is and should be illegal to walk into somebody's house without permission, even if the door is open.
But that's not what an AP setup like this is like. It's not just "open" ...it's actively inviting people to use its access. It's broadcasting an SSID, and then answering DHCP requests by giving out leases. So, using an AP that was configured like the one in this case is more like driving around looking for signs that say "keg party down the street" then finding the house that says "keg party" on the door, then knocking, and having the door answered by somebody who says "come on in" and hands you a cup for the keg.
This does not hold if the AP is not broadcasting its SSID and using DHCP. If you go sniff the network and setup a static address on it, you've probably done so without permission. But when the system advertises its existence and offers you an IP when you ask, you have just been authorized to use the network.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
People have used the cloak of wireless to traffic in child pornography, steal credit card information and send death threats, according to authorities.
So shouldn't these people be charged for these crimes, and not for using a technology that makes these crimes possible? Why not:
People have used the postal service to traffic in child pornography, steal credit card information and send death threats, according to authorities.
People have used computers to traffic in child pornography, steal credit card information and send death threats, according to authorities.
People have used telephones to traffic in child pornography, steal credit card information and send death threats, according to authorities.
from the please-read-your-own-website dept.
annoyed_reader writes "The Pete Rose Times has a story about baldass_newbie who was arrested for stealing Slashdot articles via wi-fi signals. Experts believe that there are scores of incidents of stealing slashdot articles. People have used the cloak of wireless to take old slashdot stories and resubmit them. Sometimes they use multiple aliases. The problem, experts say, is that slashdot editors do not take the time or are unsure how to check for duplicate story posts. Slashdot editor Zonk knew what to do. 'But I never did it because I was busy playing The Sims.'"
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Second, in this case, the homeowner confronted the l33ch twice, and the latter clearly realized that he wasn't welcome on the network.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
A big LED on your access point that flashes "Unsafe" when your network is connected up but doesn't have encryption switched on.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
It's nerd logic, but it's still logic. Unsecured WLANs behave exactly like deliberately open hotspots. If implicit permission is not enough to connect to a computer system, then we better stop using the internet right now, because we're using other people's servers all the time and the only permission we have is that we can access them without authentication.
Making some basic assumptions (the wireless was using an SSID, was unencrypted, and a DHCP server was available), any lawyer can make the valid claim that the wireless access point was intended for the public to use:
- SSID was advertising the availability of the access point.
- Absense of encryption re-enforces the fact that this was not a private network.
- DHCP giving an IP address is as good as saying "have a seat, enjoy the connection".
A good analogy would be to have a big sign in front of your house saying "Cookies inside!" (SSID). You leave the door propped open (lack of encryption). You have someone inside pull up a chair and invite the person to sit down and enjoy said cookies (DHCP).
If you don't want people on your wireless, take appropriate steps to protect yourself. Someone breaking encryption to get access to a network is illegal. Connecting to an unprotected network should not be.
I used to play this game called Zork. Every time you walked into a room, you were presented the same description. It got very repetitive. Playing Zonk is apparently very similar.
Zonk, read the damn site, or quit as an editor.
So it's about 20% unprotected, 40% badly protected and 30% badly protected if WEP mode is used by clients.
Ok, here's my dirty dupe detect flow...
When an article is "posted" the first thing that happens is every link in the article is compared to a URL_table that only has links, and the ID of the article linked.
If there's a match, return the user to the posting page, put "DUPE ALERT" at the top, and give links to all the matching articles. Then the poster can use his most powerful computer (brain) to see if they are truley are, and they probably will be, URL's are pretty unique.
If there is no match, then post the story, and add all the stories links the URL table.
Here's what needs to be in the URL table:
ID, StoryID, URL
Pretty simple eh?
Want to make it have less false positives?
ID, StoryID, URL, Date
Then when you do your match, only look for matches in the last year...
Somebody make a patch, I don't know perl.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
I particularly enjoy seeing all the "dupe!" comments and jokes being moderated as -1, Redundant. Slashdot is certainly an Irony Free Zone.
Speak truth to power.
TFA:
IE Smith was charged for war driving. Period. There is NO indication that he performed ANY illegal activities other than allowing his computer to respond to an invitation to connect to the network that was sent by the AP.
More from TFA:
If you have further information, please provide. If you don't, then don't ask people to RTFA to ascertain information that simply isn't there.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
from thomas.loc.gov
"...nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb..."
Same person, same offence, 2 times. Sounds like a clear cut violation to me. This guy's lawyer should be all over this.
Hooptie
"Heavens, it appears that my weewee has been stricken with rigor mortis!" -- Stewie Griffin
No we should simply just have a moderation on the entire posting: ...
... and then we could draw some statistics on the editors.
() Dupe
() Old stuff
() Interesting
Well, Otter, I've got to say congratulations; you're the first person on the other side of this argument that I've seen make a reasonable point that might hold up. And I read the first /. discussion too.
The point I'm congratulating is the confrontation argument. If the owner of the AP actually came out and told the leech to get off his network, then yes, I'd agree that the leech needs to leave or face these felony charges.
That said, my reading of TFA does not suggest that this happened in this case. TFA says Dinon (the AP owner) approached close enough to the vehicle to see Smith (the leech) close his laptop. But it does not say that Dinon actually spoke to Smith at any point, or told him to quit using the network.
Now, if you want to say it was obvious from Dinon's actions that Smith wasn't welcome, we get into muddy water. But I don't think that's enough...imagine the case where somebody shoots somebody knocking on his door without any warning and then says "well, he could see I was lookin' at him mean like."
The other half of your point is not as meritous. The AC who has already replied to you says it about as well as I could: the nerd logic is the logic that matters when we're talking about networking policy. If I can't trust the network's automatic authorization, then I also can't connect to google on port 80 without permission. The entire Internet requires that we defer the jobs of authorization and authentication to automatic processes, and the owner of a wide-open AP is doing just that.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
And that's what seperates wardriving from theft of services, or tresspass, or whatever you want to call it -- crossing the line.
I recommend wardriving, but I do not recommend using networks for which you have no authorization. I interviewed the FBI on this topic, and also went over safe wardriving procedures.
Of course, I could also go to jail for taking pictures of a hospital 3 blocks from my house, but that's another story that I haven't blogged about yet.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Why don't they just make a small poll type thing on each post to vote if it's a dupe. If there's enough votes, the post is removed.
And this is why I don't pay for a subscription to slashdot. Until the editors can be bothered to care about the site, no way I'm paying my hard earned cash.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
Most open WAPs are open due to uninformed owners and I believe it should be the WAP manufacturers' job to ensure (to a reasonable extent) that users of their products have at least minimal knowledge of the technology they are about to use. If the homeowner is leaving is WAP open out of ignorance, disabling WiFi by default would already force the users to go through the setup/warning sheet at least once in their WiFi life before going live.
A non-default SSID with broadcast turned off, WPA-AES-PSK and MAC whitelist is trivial to setup on most WAPs and clearly tells wardrivers that they are not invited. This becomes even more trivial the 2nd...nth time around.
Taking an unlocked car no longer considered stealing!
Taking things from an unlocked home no longer considered burglary!
Don't think those are valid analogies? How about:
Staying in an unlocked home while the owners are out of town no longer considered illegal entry!
Type something, will you? We're paying for this stuff!
I _understand_ nerd logic (and your web server analogy and obliviousness to my point make for a perfect example thereof)
Look, I'm not oblivious to your point. You're just wrong. Both your assertion that juries can't or won't listen to expert testimony in a trial setting and your assertion that nerd logic somehow isn't correct in a discussion about networking are wrongheaded.
The nerds built the Internet, and if the rest of the world wants to go and try to administer it while disregarding the logic of the nerds, they just won't have an Internet left. And that's that.
But in any case, the logic doesn't have to be this nerdy; we're discussing it at a somewhat higher than layman's level because we can do that here. In court, I think the more direct way to put this issue is this: If this was "unauthorized access to a computer network," then at what point did the owner of the computer network notify the person accessing the network that his activity required authorization? Then you note that people go to websites all the time, and only need to quit doing what they are doing when they are told it's not ok. And wrap it up by noting that there isn't any difference between this AP and the one at Starbucks. At that point, I don't think you've confused your jury, and I think they can see that this type of access is not unauthorized.
Of course, I wasn't trying to make this point to a jury. I was trying to make it to /., which is why the discussion was technical.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
How about staying in an unlocked home with a sign on the door that says 'come on in and stay a while!'.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I think he should be made to give back all the wi-fi packets he stole. And the court should examine them carefully to make sure that they're the same ones, so he can't get away with just giving the rightful owner any old packets he happens to have lying around.
What about those that just need internet access to check their email? Whenever I visit my parents, who have no computer (let alone a broadband internet connection) I take my wireless laptop and find a nearby unprotected network to surf and check my email. Should I be arrested? Who does this REALLY hurt? Similarly, I wouldn't mind someone tapping into my own wireless network at home for similar use.
Yes, it's a bad analogy. A better one that I've been using for ~15 years is an office building. Doors in an office building are there to be opened. If you have a door to your private office that opens on a public hallway -- lock it or expect that people will walk in from time to time. Some kid walking the halls and twisting doorknobs is not trespassing, stealing, or anything else except maybe being a pain in the butt. Even if you put a little "private" sign on the door you should expect people to open it from time to time and they are still not trespassing or stealing.
Similarly, network services are there with the expectation of being used. If you don't want them used, the burden is on you to restrict them. If you don't you have no grounds to complain.
As an aside, I think law enforcement hates the idea of this for the same reason they hate all forms of anonymity - it gives plausible deniability that some particular person comitted some particular crime.
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan