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.'"
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.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.
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
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.
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
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
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.