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Man Arrested for Wireless Piggybacking
Sommelier writes "As reported by KATU in Portland, Oregon, a man was arrested for parking outside a coffee shop in nearby Vancouver, Washington, and using their open wireless AP — for three straight months. '"He doesn't buy anything," Manager Emily Pranger says about the man she ended up calling 911 about. "It's not right for him to come and use it."' Turns out the guy was a registered sex-offender as well." A different computer expert might have pointed out some ways to see if anyone is piggybacking on a wireless signal (many APs have a Web-interface client list), or even suggested something like NoCatAuth.
Thats a long time to browse the web for.
I wonder how he managed it.
liqbase
Damn they must be slow if it took them three month's to figure it all out.
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
I'm surprised it took so long for someone to notice, especially if he only has one car.
If it's open, it's okay to use it.
Don't want strangers to use your AP? Secure it.
If the coffee shop doesn't want just anybody driving by to use their WiFi connection, they should secure it.
How are they going to prove he never bought a latte? Are they going to be able to swear that in the last three months, of all the lattes they sold, not one was bought by him? How do they know his friend didn't buy one and bring it to him in the car?
20-year-old Alexander Eric Smith of Battle Ground sat in the parking lot in his truck for three months, spending hours at a time piggybacking on the coffee shop's wireless Internet service for free.
If they had noticed he was 'piggybacking' their connection, wouldn't it make sense for them to A) Secure it and B) Call 911 earlier than three months?
If they had noticed him doing this for hours a day, spanding months, it is in their interest and indeed their responsibility to do something about it?
ilovegeorgebush
Yes this guy was committing theft and should be charged. But why on earth didn't they have their connection locked down? Print the password on the back of a receipt and that way genuine customers can use the connection and the leaches stay outside the network. That said if there are no signs or warnings that the wireless connection was for paying customers only then they could have a problem charging him. A canny lawyer could claim he thought the connection was a free resource, but I'm unfamiliar with US law on this.
http://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/authpf.html
Wrap around some web based account password generator which prints a ticket to a simple serial line printer to hand over with the coffee, set a script to remove the account after the allowable period, and away you go...
The whole point of the open AP is to encourage people to hang around in the shop or the area around it. The smart thing would be to send somebody out with a free cup of coffee and get him hooked.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
When I'm on the road, I piggyback on signals all the time so that I can check my email. The best places are coffee shops and apartment complexes. I usually stop at a complex and just drive around slowly until I get a signal, then I park and surf. Simple password protection would prevent me from doing this, but most people don't bother.
Smeghead every day of the week.
Not any more: Famous Doonesbury panel.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Isn't that a public service? Wouldn't the coffee shop have to complain to the dude first? I've driven into coffee shops' parking lots while on the road *specifically* to use their WiFi. It's an open network. Not just an unsecured network because granny doesn't know how to program her Linksys, but an intentionally open network. Sure, it's not "cool" to be a leech, but it's not specifically prohibited.
And what does being a sex offender have to do with anything?
--Jim (me)
Theft of services??? How about trespassing. Much easier to get him on that especially since the deputies told him to stop hanging around in the parking lot.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
> > Turns out the guy was a registered sex-offender as well.
> I hope they took this into account - and gave him double the usual sentence, punched him in the gut and took away his testicles.
He'll probably get more jail time for this than he did for his sex offenses.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
OMG sooo she knew it was open ... and being abused... and did not setup a password for it??? So what are they going to to this guy... and does this mean that I have to move my office van?
I don't get the legalities of this all. Was he tresspassing? Was he stealing coffee? Did he sign a contract saying that he would buy x amount of coffee for y amount of bandwidth? If the coffee house wants to secure their network, the technology is available. I get that the guy was a creepy sex offender, making him easy to demonize, but in theory he's paid his pennance and isn't committing more crimes. (aside from dubious wi-fi stealing laws) I am playing music loud on my outdoor speakers, I can't sue my neighbors for listening to it. In the same way, if I'm broadcasting a wi-fi signal, it's my responsibility to secure this signal
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
Calling 911 when someone just stole your car - questionable, but I can understand it I guess since you want to get in touch ASAP since time is of the essence, and you may not know the local police number.
Calling 911 because someone is annoying you by using your WAP???? How in any way is this an emergency? Why couldn't the store take 30 seconds to look up the local number for the police?
911 is for emergencies. The phone line time these bozos were taking up to complain about a guy using internet may have delayed an ambulence getting dispatched by 45 seconds - 45 seconds that could mean life or death for someone. People should get fined for this bullshit.
> Turns out the guy was a registered sex-offender as well.
So what if he's using someone elses internet connection? It's not morally wrong as far as I'm concerned, and it's probably not even legally wrong in a lot of places. The people in the coffee shop are selling someone elses coffee - which they've paid a fraction of what they're going to make off it to the original suppliers for. I mean, while we're talking about being fair here...
(It wouldn't be so bad if he'd been a communist, drug user or muslim. Gotta keep those bogeymen alive...need an excuse to spy, burgle and bug citizens.)
Anyone else find it a tab bit extreme that they called 911 for this? I didn't really thing someone 'stealing' a free service would qualify as an emergency; but maybe that is just me
Without getting into the debate on the rights on wrongs of wireless freeloading and the actual act itself I would like to make to an observation on the cafe owners behaviour.
A guy sits outside the cafe for three months, obviously being observed by the owner. At no time does the owner walk up
to the guy and ask him what he is doing. He doesn't say something simple and polite like
"Hi there, I'm the owner of the the cafe across the road there, are you plugged into my wireless connection? Because y'know, like its really for my customers."
Not once. He sits and broods and waits for three straight months and finally calls 911 to get the cops involved *as a FIRST recourse*
If he had made it clear to the guy that he knew/suspected what he was doing there's a 99% change the freeloader would have moved right along.
The problem we have, the deeply endemic pathology in society is not apathy, stupidity or greed, it is cowardice.
There is a certain degree of expectation that if you are going to use their network, that you need to be a paying customer. It's not hard to go in and buy a coffee. I've done that with small coffee shops that provide wireless. I go in and buy something--in cash--so that they know I'm paying my way. If you can't afford a $1.50 cup of cheap coffee, you should be working instead of sitting there with your laptop leeching off their connection. This is a welfare baby mentality. We need the police to intervene in cases like this or a few miscreants will end up ruining it for the rest of us.
And one last thing. It's very unlikely that the same workers who noticed him using their wifi would not have noticed him coming in as a buying customer, given how long he was doing this.
Was it really that big of an emergency? The only time anybody should call 911 would be in the case of an emergency. The guy was there for 3 months mooching internet. I don't consider this an emergency.
I love the couple of generic computer graphics they added to the story: one showing a hand moving over a laptop keyboard with the words "Wireless Security" emblazened across it, the other a cropped and off-kilter screenshot of a wireless connection dialog. And this line here "...whether he in fact committed a crime by not buying a single tall latte before accessing the Internet, well that remains to be seen.
I'm not sure if, being a township across the river from Portland, Vancouver, WA is a suburb, but this article has small-town written all across it.
Why is this a police matter? Seems to me that the Cafe was not taking any measure to prevent his use... Did they even have a "Click through" page where he had to agree to "Terms of Service", i wonder? This would be like me putting a bench in a public park and calling the police if anybody sat on it. The ones being arrested should be the business owners... for wasting the Police's time, and for making false 911 calls.
Well you know, he could have just banged some 17yr old girl the day before she turned 18. Maybe later he pissed her off somehow later and said "daddy, he fucked me when i was 17" so daddy goes after the guy and now he has a record. happens all the time. it's very good of you to immediatly judge this guy cause you know "sex offender" ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS means someone who did horrible things with his penis to some little kid. no way was he ever fucking a 17 yr old chick who got vindictive later. no way.
"Yes this guy was committing theft and should be charged"
The word "theft" applies to this as much as it applies to creating duplicates of digital or media files. That is to say, not at all. Just because you like it does not mean it is theft.
I can understand the manager's frustration with this guy, but was calling 911 appropriate? I wouldn't consider prolonged wireless piggybacking an emergency.
Also, was there a sign in front of the coffee shop indicating that the wireless signal was only for paying customers? Is this implied?
If they really cared about wireless freeloaders, they could use a wireless key and change that key every day. That key could be distributed with all purchases and the problem is solved.
using their open wireless AP
When deputies told Smith to knock it off, he came back and is now charged with theft of services.
This article is pure FUD. Okay, the guy was a sex offender. The article only mentions this once, and it clearly says they have no idea if he actually did anything wrong. It just says that to discredit him.
I can't help but wonder if during those 3 months anyone working at the coffee shop bothered to ask him if he wanted a drink, or informed him that he would have to make a purchase if he wanted to continue using their wireless AP.
A computer expert told KATU News there is no way to know if someone is using your wireless connection without permission.
Some computer expert.....did I mention this was all FUD?
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
more like reading my newspaper under my frontdoor. It is theft, and it is happening on my property.
It seems to me that an individual or company who, in this day and age, deliberately chooses to not enable any security on his wireless network really shouldn't get any sympathy from anyone.
My sig is too lon
If they leave their internet wide open and broadcast an SSID then I beleive its fair to assume that this is an open invatiation and they are offerng a community service.
If he was just using the internet why would the coffee shop give a damn anyway? its not like they are losing anything. In fact, I would have thought the coffee-shop would WANT to offer a free wifi zone as its free publicity about how community-minded they are.
I think there must be more in this. He was probably parked in front of thsir shop, downloading porn and masturbating in public.
I completely agree. Wasn't there an effort (like 10 years ago) to get 811 pushed through as the number to call for non-emergency needs? Sure would be handy, since no one ever knows the local numbers, especially as mobile as people are today.
Constitutionally Correct
I assume you're over-stating the matter, but of course, it's by no means certain that he will serve time at all. The sheriff's department is reviewing the case, and if they decide that there is a case to answer for, the courts will have their say. In many senses, it would be better for everyone if a simple case (not this one, because of the trespass concerns as well as the unrelated previous convictions) went to court, as the precedent would clear the air.
Not to belittle my wonderful neighbors too much, but anything that happens in Vancouver, Washington (not Vancouver BC) should not be taken seriously. The place is on the north side of the Columbia River in the Portland Oregon metro area. Oregon has no sales tax but high income taxes. Consequently Vancouver is filled with people who want the cheap income and property taxes and to also hop across the river to buy everything with no sales tax.
... Or, it may be some guy who twenty years ago got caught unireating ('taking a whiz' in the American slang) behind a bar or gas station in the middle of the night. Or got caught kissing a 17-year-old girl when he was 18. Or got caught swimming naked in a lake in the woods on a hot summer day. Or, lots of other stupid harmless things that the Americans lump into the category of sex offences that have nothing to do with sex offences.
Also, Portland tends to be liberal, environmental, and moderately progressive while Vancouver is packed with pious, self-righteous, bible-thumping, overweight, narrow-minded freaks who believe that they have managed to keep their own little piece of Alabama pure while surrounded by sinners and liberals.
So some guy found a WiFi hot spot. And he parked his car there. Every day. for three months.
So what?
And he's a 'sex offender' too. Well, in Vancouver, a sex offender may a guy who has done some seriously bad things with his
Or maybe he really is a super predator who actually was endangering the community by...what was it?, oh, yes... parking his car and using his computer in it.
Complaining that someone was using an unsecured, free AP as theft of services is like saying someone should have to close their eyes if they hang around outside your store at night as to avoid taking advantage of your free lights.
(someone has to have a better one than that, let's see it!)
What it boils down to is that if they want people to have to buy something to use the WAP then secure it in a way as to assure that happens, don't complain because you're too lazy to do something proactive to control it. It isn't hard. People fire up a browser , first page is a redirect on which they have to enter the "password du jour" which, as mentioned above, could easily be printed on the reciepts or even on a small sign next to the cash register.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
Aside of people who deliberately keep their APs open as a service to the community, there are numerous who just can't get their APs secured. Yes, of course, internet crimes are a lot easier from insecure APs. The only reason why it isn't done more often is simply that there are easier, also impossible to trace, ways to do it than driving around for it.
What does the legal system do? Require people to close their APs or keep logs? No. What they do is, the person who's smart enough to use that security hole gets the blame. Oh sure, he's a sex offender. So "think of the children" is this time the excuse, I guess.
If you don't understand technology, don't use it. If you want to use something, make sure you know how to use it. If you fuck up, don't shift the blame on someone else for your blunder.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They should publish clearly that anyone who does not purchase x$ of goods in a period Y will be prosecuted. They should also publish that anyone sitting in their coffee shop must purchase x$ of of goods in a period Y or they will be arrested and prosecuted as well. They also need to monitor how many napkins and straws people use as well as the quantities of milk. If you go over your allotment you will be arrested. I mean fair is fair, isn't it?
If the people running the coffee shop leave their network open so that any schmuck driving by can get a signal and connect, then "piggybacking" is a risk they should be willing to accept. Either learn to configure the equipment or face the possibility of "theft of services" (the charge that TFA says the guy received).
Transistors and Beer!!
Keep your photons to yourself. Hey if the next door to me is watering his lawn and his sprinkler hits my grass am I stealing it?
Did the shop say free wifi? If so I really don't see the problem. If you set up an open wifi access point and a sign that says free wifi then there is a logical assumption that it is free to use. Of course since the guy was a sex offender it is all right to bust him.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Best idea ever.
I was going to suggest that setting up a gateway, making it recognize his MAC, and automatically redirect every one of his HTTP requests to goatse would be a good idea... But then, he is a sex offender and it might not work in his case.
This is a sig. It is appended to the end of comments I post.
Not my fault if the AP is wide open as a sorority girl after too many beers.
This is stupid. If the AP is open you either A. Want to share your Internet connection or B. You're too dumb to even implement the most basic of security schemes.
On my apartment complex there are over 20 AP's, most of them have at least WEP encryption or MAC filtering. Close to the pool and laundry there's a wide open AP that I've used and will continue to use until that idiot closes it up. If this guy (or gal) ever tells me something about using his/her AP, I'll just tell him to close it up.
the future is but past forgotten
Two teenagers screwing all the time. The guy turns 18 years old. Suddenly he can't fuck his 17-year-old girlfriend without committing rape. Her mom is pissed, and insists on prosecution. Guy goes to jail (instead of school) and becomes a registered sex offender.
Then...
Girlfriend turns 18. Girlfriend moves in with her boyfriend's parents while waiting for the boyfriend to get out of jail. Girlfriend and boyfriend get married and start a family.
Girlfriends mother probably wonders why her daughter won't call anymore, and why she married a guy who couldn't complete school.
-----
A friend of mine saw just this. Neighbors won't let their kids play with the couple's kids. If the guy gets reported as doing something like helping out with a kid's soccer team, he immediately goes to jail until a judge can find time to deal with it.
This a a law that needs to be stopped ASAP. It's out of control. At least letting the "victims" wipe the slate would be good.
- Using Free Wi-Fi is illegal, and the guy should rot in jail the rest of his life (OMG, he's STEALING!)
- AP Owners should take responsibility for their actions (secure the Wi-Fi, etc)
In the case of the former, uninformed unknowledgeable people do the knee-jerk, freaking out like they are victims. Like you said, it's all FUD, but when the guy ends-up in jail for using a free service, this makes me a little scared, that my laptop will open in the wrong place, and I'll be the next guy to walk the plank.Did I mention that wardriving is fun?
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Now I am going to say they should have kicked him out after a few days of parking in the lot for hours and not buying anything. Not three months.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Isn't this like complaining because people are smelling your coffee without buying anything? The coffee shop left the connection open for the use of its customers. To make it simple, they made if freely available to all. They didn't charge for the service. This guy simply takes advantage of that.
The coffee shop was handing out free internet. This guy was using the free internet. If they didn't want people to use it outside the store, they should have confined it to the store by using a lockdown or aluminum foil wallpaper or something.
I'm surprised someone hasn't sued them for beaming cancerous rays in their head that control their thoughts as they walk by.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
This is also common. The coffee houses here in the South Side of Pittsburgh have signs that say 'Free Internet'. There's no disclaimer, provisions, or signed documents. Why need 'em? Generally, the lower cost places simply plug an AP into a DSL router, and call it done. Places like Starbucks and the Telerama hotspots have a splashpage, and instructions for you to login, but those are expensive solutions to implement (Even though Telerama does it cheap, see tv.seattlewireless.net for a video on Telerama's installations).
The root of the problem, is that people are uninformed. You can't drive a car without a license, but you can distribute Internet to your neighborhood, operate a powerboat, weild power tools, and spawn childeren. Which one is more dangerous?
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Have a notice saying Internet access to paying customers. If you have a sign saying it is free then I figure it is free to use. Frankly I have never used free wifi anywhere since it never seems to be where I need it on business and I just don't take my notebook with me to lunch. I think calling the police and charging this guy was wrong. Someone should have asked him not to freeload or the Police should have asked him not to. Why the hell should the taxpayers have to foot the bill for his jail time, trial, and probably public defender because somebody didn't like him using their free, unsecured WAP!
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Discussions about unsecured wireless aside, I'm wondering what specific crime this guy is being charged with. Are there currently statutes for theft of signal?
OTOH, if I park my bicycle outside of a store, don't lock it up and it's stolen, the guy stealing the bike is committing a crime. Yeah, I'm a dumb ass for not locking it up and there is no law that forces me to do so, but that doesn't change the fact that the guy is still stealing my bicycle. Isn't this kind of the same thing?
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
Oh, but don't you know that using intentionally open free Wi-Fi networks is inherently illegal, immoral, and gets my panties up in a bunch? This guy should be executed for his crimes!
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Ok, he was leeching AP access - unsecured, totally broadcast in the open, big deal...
But, since he's a RSO, he's obviously doing something much more insidious. He MUST be sitting on a public street, in his car, surfing kiddie-porn, right?
I hate the liberal media these days.
- It is an open network, presumably broadcast off their premises. Would you sue someone for sitting on a sidewalk bench reading a newspaper at night by your store lights? "Hey, that light is for customers only!" Or "Hey, that muzak is for the customers only!" Maybe in that case people on the sidewalk could sue the store for noise pollution
;-)
- If you buy into the idea that it is for paying customers only, what level or amount of service is implied? If the guy was ever a customer then he's covered. I mean, does one latte buy you 1 hour of access, 1 day,
... what? If he has any proof he ever made a purchase there, then it is a matter of how much service he was entitled too. I'll bet the shop only has a little sign that says "Free wireless internet" or some such. Probably doesn't even say "For customers only" let alone any limits. Ah, and IIRC a contract without limits is not valid...
- How long before these hot-spots start posting AUPs? I'll bet the shop doesn't have one, yet.
Nope, no matter how creepy, innovative, clever, stupid, or {insert characterization here} you think this guy is, he probably can't be successfully prossecuted.The real question is, who has time to sit around in their truck for hours each day? Sheesh, I barely have enough time to read a /. article or two for entertainment! ;-)
--- Just another Code-Monkey
Just like smoking cigarettes leads inexorably towards injecting heroin into your eyeballs, rape is a gateway offense that leads to more serious property crimes like theft of service and participation in so called P2P networks.
The only relevance to the "sex offender" status is if he was downloading child porn through the coffee shop's wifi. That said, with him being 20 years old, my guess is that he was 18, she was 17. This, in my opinion, belongs in the class in which if Dad wants to kick his ass, everyone looks the other way. On the other hand, it could also be a legitimate rape charge which has *nothing* to do with the case at hand.
The sex offender registries which include consensual 16/17 17/18 or such relationships just about make the registries worthless. Also worthless are registries, as in Illinois, which include a 25 year-old gentleman which grabbed a 15 year-old girl by the arm and said "are you @##$@ stupid!?!" after she ran out in front of him and narrowly avoided dying.) In my area, there are about 20 offenders listed within a mile of my house. Probably 15 of those are bf/gf. So much for childhood sweethearts getting married and living happily ever after...well, I guess you still can (after you get out of jail); it's just that you can't live within 1,000 feet of a school.
The last couple posts before mine illustrate the nearly "classic" debate raging on open wireless connections.
One side argues that "because it's open and freely available, it's legal to use it". The other side brings up the "If your house has the door open, it doesn't mean it's legal for anyone to wander in." counter-argument.
I'm of the opinion that the first argument is correct. The house analogy has a few fundamental flaws. For starters, the U.S. respects the legal concept of property rights and ownership. Those rights allow you to prosecute someone for trespassing on your physical property, but they don't extend to radio waves emitted from your property. Furthermore, the legal system generally recognizes the concept of "notice". (EG. If you connect to an open wireless network and the first time you try to pull up your web browser, you're brought to a page notifying you that the connection you're on is NOT for public use - then you're likely breaking the law if you keep doing it anyway.) Without some form of notice, a user has no way to determine if a wi-fi connection he/she discovered is meant to be public or not!
In the case of this coffee-house owner, I would think the most viable means to deal with a "wi-fi squatter" would be enforcing traditional laws against loitering. Surely, their parking lot is privately owned? Therefore, they can post signs saying the parking spaces are for customers only. Furthermore, they can run off people who just sit around outside the premesis and use their wi-fi connections without ever coming in to buy anything.
Thank god I don't live in US. So I don't need to handle such stupidity.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
1 - Class 1 Sex Offender - way beyond whizzing.
2 - He was in their Parking Lot - most places have a sign "Patron pakring only - all others will be towed"
3 - "charged with theft of services." - The charges are under review.
4 - Reporter drove down a street found 5 out of 11 WAP were unsecured.
5 - Yes, the idot manager used 911.
No 2 would have been a better charge, However No 3 is "valid", because he was told to stop using it.
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
Actually, public urination is considered a sex crime and gets you added to the sex offender lists.. So he could have just pissed on the side of the road.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Anytime you broadcast an RF signal to the wide open general public, you are actually indeed broadcasting free use of that signal to the general public whether or not that was your intention. In fact, due to the way wireless 802.11 networking works, you are even ADVERTISING your system's availability to anyone within "earshot".
Failing to secure your wireless is NOT an analogy to leaving your car parked at the side of the street with doors unlocked as some folks argue (and where the car owner should still have reasonable expectation that nobody should open the doors and prowl around inside). Failing to secure your wireless is much more like leaving an ice-filled cooler without a lid, chock full of cold cans of Coca-Cola, sitting on a table completely unattended on a busy city sidewalk full of pedestrians, on a hot summer afternoon, with a sign that simply says "Here is a cooler full of ice-cold, tasty Cokes". In that situation you would have no reasonable expectation that the drinks would remain secure as it appears to the layperson passers-by that the drinks are being offered for free to the public.
There is a coffee shop near my house (not near enought to pick up signal) that I frequent and their approach to this situation is when you buy something, on the reciept they give you the key to connect. Why could that Portland shop not do something similar? I think we should throw this case into the stupid cases that match the "I spilled my coffee on my lap and it was too hot so I am gonna sue you because I am lazy and dont want to work."
When I got my WAP I immediately secured it to prevent unauthorized parties using my bandwidth. But I noticed there were a ton of wide open wireless networks around me.
Within a couple weeks time I suddenly noticed the other networks locking down one by one. I had tipped off one business about their wide open router. But beyond that never told anyone.
Friend of mine is leeching a neighbors signal. The neighbor is completely clueless. And it's likely to remain that way for quite a while. I told her that when she finally breaks down and gets a broadband connection and wireless setup that she should secure it as best she can. And I guarantee all the open networks around her will suddenly clam up too.
"As it turns out, Smith is a Level One Sex Offender"
How is this a relevant detail to the story? Now, if this guy was using their connection to commit such crimes against other people, THEN it would be an important detail. Otherwise, IMHO, the story really doesn't seem that important.
NEWS FLASH! A 22 year old man was cited for jay walking on a busy street and as it turns out he's a sex offender! More details on KBS at 10!
-or-
NEWS FLASH! A 19 year old boy was arrested today for stealing a hand full of 5 cent bubble gum. During a news conference today it was revealed that he is also a statutory rapist!
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
I did a search on Sourceforge for nocat (nocat.net is slashdotted) I had to laugh at the first item returned:
* Independent Coffeeshop Access Manager - icam
* nocat-webmin
* Public IP ZoneCD
* HomeSPOT Smart Center
* DMZS-NoCat
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
of him being a sex offender, that doesn't mean he committed a crime. ... as many have commented, if they didn't want people to use their AP, SECURE IT!
::
It's really dumb and authorities should have let the shop owner apologize for disturbing them
2 solutions to this
1) The shop owner can reduce the radius of the AP
2) People who wish to use free APs without being busted because of stupid calls, can use an antenna to extend their WiFi card's range.
--
MBH
mod this post up please.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Ok, I read the comments, and I read the article. First, what in the world does the sex offender part have to do with anything? Maybe he's a bad one, maybe he's one of the youthful misunderstanding ones. But without more information, what the hell purpose does it serve other than to stir up preconceived notions?
Second, I still don't see how he did anything wrong technologically. It's one thing if he's arrested for loitering, or how businesses sometimes have signs saying parking is for customers only. But it says he's charged with stealing a signal?? How?? Unless the AP is locked down, or there's a clickthru or other posting saying wifi is for paying customers, there is otherwise no tacit agreement that you must buy something to use their unsecured, open, AP. If I use a library's free wireless, am I obligated to check out a book, or join and get a library card? You can force someone to leave on the grounds that they're bothering customers, but you can't force someone to leave just because they're taking advantage of your stupidity.
He was parked in their parking lot... Oh, maybe that wasn't signed "Parking For Customers Only" so they didn't have a physical trespass issue which is a more clearly defined law.
I don't know exactly what it means to be a Level I sex offender, but it is not of the severity that his photo and address would be published in the sex offender's registry as would a Level II or III, so his crime may have been something as simple as public urination.
Either way, wow this story would lead on any news show, unless there was another event with some better gore shots -- sex crimes and internet... in the 90's this would be in Time Magazine. Anybody hear the outcome of a similar case where a guy in a van was accessing an unsecured wifi connection in a ritzy Florida suburb?
From the 'news' story:
"A computer expert told KATU News there is no way to know if someone is using your wireless connection without permission."
There are a whole lot of ways to do that. My DD-WRT firmware lets me know the MAC address of all wireless clients connected, and allows me to ban them with a single click.
What kind of computer expert did they talk to?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Note that I said open, not unsecured.
There really should be some way to allow other people to use your unused bandwidth. Then, have it be the default on all wireless routers.
He was a sex-offender?
Yes, that explains it.
Sex-offenders and APs are like bizarre lake ceremonies and legendary kings and leaders of circular furniture.
Defining Statistics and Social Research
From the article: "A computer expert told KATU News there is no way to know if someone is using your wireless connection without permission. The way to protect yourself is to change your wireless router settings to only allow the computers in your home to access your airwaves."
How does the router figure out which computers are in your home? Their other expert, not quoted, recommend lining all the walls of the house with aluminum foil.
What if the guy next door had been using it? Would they call the police for that too?
If you adverstise wireless access as public then its public. End of. You can't say
"oh , its public access , but you have to buy a coffee first". No , sorry. If you want
that then implement a timed password based system. No doubt this place is run by a
moron who can just about spell wireless access never mind understand its implications.
If you run an open wireless network with no encryption and an AP that can broadcast outside the range of your building, in my opinion you absolutely deserve everything you get. As everyone has already said, it wouldn't be hard for them to set up a daily password changing system and only give the password to people inside the shop. What if he'd used stolen credit card numbers to buy things illegally on the Internet and had them shipped to an anonymous P.O. box, and never actually been caught using the wireless signal? The coffee shop would take a beating from the law for running the network that supported the illegal activity, and the guy would have got off scot free. It just seems like an astonishing case of scapegoating to me. Also, as people have rightly pointed out, the fact that he was a sex offender makes absolutely no difference to anything. Unless he was using their connection to download child porn, of course.
When did I realise I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realised I was talking to myself.
So you visit Chicago, or some large city on vacation...You are looking for the nearest L or Tube station. You may even be in a bad neighborhood, or you dont' trust the directions that a local may give you.
So you power on your iPaq and (blink!) there is a free wifi network at the local cafe, apartment building, or local library. You quickly reference a city map, find out the station is 2 blocks south, and you are on your way. The day is saved.
Should I go to jail for some dumbass leaving his wifi unsecured? NO.
If you put a drinking fountain on the public sidewalk attached to your water meter, you can't expect that only your friends or people that visit you will only drink from it.
There are 100 different ways this coffee shop could have secured the network. Heck...spend more then 100 bucks on your WAP router...and you could even have rotating WPA keys. Come in...pay for your coffee...and get a key for the rest of the day.
The fact this guy is a sexual offender is irrelevant. That's making the assumption that he was out looking for trouble on MySpace. Unless you have the log files to prove where he was and when he did it, that shouldn't even matter.
I would recommend this guy get a lawyer, and go after this coffee house when this nonsensical bullshit is over. He should get at a minimum, free coffee and internet for a year.
I live in Chicago and there are many free Wi-fi access points around the city. First of them are Public libraries. You can go at any time to the library with you laptop and use internet as long as you wish. The signal is week outside the building but it is working. There are some municipalities who provide free Wi-fi as well. One day I was driving through Highland Park and checked my e-mail with my Palmtop device. I had to click to accept the rules for using it though (promising to do no illegal things on the net).
So, the questions is, if I come accross another free Wi-fi, how do I know that it is illegal to use it? Besides many devices connect automatically to the strongest signal if it is open. I might be thinking that I am still using public library's connection and may not realize that this connection has been dropped and have been reconnected to the nearest cofee shop instead.
Furthermore, how much is the loss in monetary terms if someone uses Wi-fi without buying anything? Unless he was downloading continuously at high speed, thus congesting their connection, I doubt that other shop customers who were using the wi-fi at the same time, noticed any difference in speed. It could be annoying that someone is buying anything but can it really be called theft, i.e., depriving the owner of something valuable?
And this would be a grand topic to moderate, though I could not help but instead ask about this term, "registered sex offender." I mean, people have to register for this nowadays? Is there some central office, or is it by city or state, that you walk into and say "Hi, I'd like to register myself as a sex offender" to expedite the procedure? Can one register by mail?
...because he's a sex offender.
Hey, seriously, who hasn't done this? I travel for work, have a wireless enabled laptop, and sometimes get lost. I've pulled into the parking-lot of the friendly neighborhood Panera more than once to use mapquest on the passenger seat... Does this mean I am now subject to arrest at the whim of Panera management? I eat there frequently, but not neccessarily at the times I need to use the wireless.
I get that they're freaked out--I even understand asking the cops to intervene, since another motive for sitting in a parking lot for an extended period is planning a robbery, but actually arresting him for using wireless seems a little... goofy. NoCatAuth is free (as in beer and freedom) and shouldn't take the network engineering team at Starbucks more than a couple hours to figure out, solves the whole problem.
Who did what now?
Operator: "911, what is your emergency?"
Coffee Jockette: "Um, yeah, I work at a coffee shop, and there's this guy, um... sitting in his car outside, using our wireless connection."
Operator: "I'll dispatch police immediately to your location."
Operator gets location from caller, dispatches police. Headset beeps indicating new call.
Operator: "911, what is your emergency?"
Child's Voice: "My mommy's hurt. She's not breathing."
Operator: "It's not nice to prank call 911. Don't call unless you have a real emergency." Click.
Operator puts feet up on desk, hits "Not Ready" on phone, and lights up a joint.
Supervisor walks by.
Super: "Good work on that wireless piggybacker, Stuart. I'd like to talk to you later about the new lead position we have opening up."
Seriously. WTF?
I was always fascinated with rock 'n' roll, or girls, or something like that when I was a kid. - Gary Sinise
And in other news... From TFA:
What expert would that be? Maybe we could get him a job with one of our competitors."No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
Not that long ago, people were saying things like "well, if you have an open mail server, it's OK for me to use it to relay my fabulous offers".
In most(?) states, there's a three (or thereabouts) year limit. A person over eighteen can have sex with a minor who is up to three years younger than him/her.
What does it have to do with the primary issues that he (1) parked there for 3 months, and (2) was using their WiFi without paying for it?
Was it the best dirt that KATU could dig up on him? Did the cops just "happen" to mention it to the reporters?
Report on the facts of the story, not extraneous information. Next we'll hear stories like: "Governor Joe Bloggs, once convicted for smoking weed, has introduced a new commision to the state government to protect construction workers from unpaid overtime." or "Suzy Q., who was in foster care for 5 years because her mother was a heroin addict, is now the mother of sextuplets...".
coding is life
If he entered the coffee shop, went behind the counter and took some coffee that would certainly be stealing. But, what if the coffee shop simply had a device similar to a public water fountain, located outside the shop (or in the parking lot, I know strange place to put one) that continuously spewed coffee. If someone walked up and took a drink, is that stealing? How is spewing wi-fi to the outside world any different.
It's OK to rip off movies and tunes and software, but not free air? The hypocritical a-holes that flounder here are
We saw this on the news last night and there was additional information.
The guy sat there in the parking lot for something like 8+ hours a day using the internet. He had blankets over his windows so nobody could see into the car. The people from the coffee shop thought it was creepy, and did go out and talk to him but it made no difference. The deputies found he was reading "sex services" classifieds on Craigslist and arrested him, confiscated his laptop and towed his car.
It does sound suspicious and creepy, but whether a crime was committed I don't know.
he could have just banged some 17yr old girl the day before she turned 18
It's not stated the "victim" was underage, either. Perhaps he did a drunk chick and she didn't want to classified as a slut, so she falsely claims "rape". Maybe he was caught beating off in a public restroom.
If I really am talking out of my ass...explain it to me with respect so I'll at least pull my ears out to listen.
In the article, the store manager described the guy hanging out in the parking lot for three months as "borderline creepy." Actually, it's loitering, and that's something the guy could have reasonably expected to be charged with.
I don't know offhand whether "creepy guy issued summons for loitering outside coffee shop" is big enough news to get written up in Vancouver, Washington, but I hope not. That's probably why the story reads the way it does. Written this way, the story gave at least one reporter and a friend (a.k.a. mister computer expert) a plausible excuse for buying coffees as a business expense, and driving around while "working on a story." I think we've all had days like that, and wish we had them more often.
It's one thing to use your arguments about people stealing signals meant to be private, but hey, this is in a coffee shop. It's there specifically so people can use it. It's an incentive for people to come to that coffee shop and buy coffee.
Now, if the TOS isn't posted anywhere and the signal makes its way off the property, and somebody uses it there knowing that the coffee shop specifically made it for people to use it... well... it's a bit harder to argue that the guy was "stealing".
How can you steal that which is given away freely?
In any case, they'll probably get him for trespassing or something, since he had been told to leave the property before and was back in their parking lot. But there's little chance of getting him for theft of services.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Dear Coffee Dudes;
Please restock the network ports in your shop. You're out.
P.S.
IM IN UR AP
IM KILLIN UR BANDWIDTH
Love, Brian Peppers.
thats BS
they are broadcasting signal to the parking lot, he uses it there. and he is arrested? thats BS.. thats like giving away free cookies to everyone who drives down the street then arresting a man who you dont like cause he never buys anything, you kept giving him the free cookies..
set up your damn AP correctly or shut the hell up when someone 'steals' it
this guy did nothing wrong (this time)
using the internet was still legal last time i checked, or did that get outlawed now too...
In communist Chin... er, in this "post 9/11 world" you're guilty until proven innocent. Didn't you get the memo? Terrorist.
.....to call 911? Serioulsy what kind of emergency is that?
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
How does 'theft of service' happen with 'free wifi'? How can I steal something that is free?
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
The implication in the local media reports of this incident, is that is exactly what he was doing.
I know this is slashdot, where freedom of the internets is considered vital, but this is not really a case about theft of wireless. This is a case about a guy who spent three months parked outside a business beating off.
-- Jeff Paulsen
Okay, so you see a guy hanging around outside, and you give him a cup of coffee. He drinks it. Then he has to urinate, so he comes inside. Now, you've got a bigger quandry. Do you let him use the "customers only" bathroom, or do you try to make him buy something first?
Meanwhile, if the guy was creeping out coffee shop workers or customers while spending weeks or months in his car, how will they feel if he spends overly long in the bathroom?
How can you steal that which is given away freely?
Because it's not given away freely. Its a service provided by the Coffee shop to its paying customers. Complementary only applies to patrons.
People seem to misinterpret the actual law a lot, also. Here in Florida, our law says that if you are older than 23 you can't have sex with someone under 18( and another law that noone can have sex with under 15). That resolves the very common situation of the guy being a couple years older than his 16/17 year old gf(in fact my dad was 18 and my pregnant mom was 16 when they married). I find it hard to believe the other states don't recognize this also.
I think that story about an 18 year old arrested for statutory rape of his 17 year old gf is an urban legend.
Kinda weird how a 19 year old is allowed to have sex with more people than a 25 year old, say. In a society that tries hard to control the sexual behavior of younger people it seems doubly weird to impose more restrictions on the older person. Reminds me of a piece of code that someone has patched together by adding yet another conditional to the chain of conditionals that the previous clueless developers added to the code to deal with the bug they really didn't understand...
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
IANAL, etc, but wouldn't it be illegal for the two 17 year olds to be screwing in the first place? I don't know about the US, but here in the UK I'm fairly certain that "below the age of consent" is below the age of consent - it doesn't matter how old the bloke is, although I'd imagine that a 30 year old screwing a 13 year old would be dealt with more harshly than another 13 year old would.
I seem to recall cases in which relatively young kids ( 16 years old) were required to sign on to the sex offenders register.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
...quicker, easier, more seductive the darkside is...but more powerful, it is not.
The truth is that many of the people in Vancouver are there because in spite of Oregon's high income tax that state cannot seem to get its act together and fund a decent public school system; so perhaps if you want to find some gross overgeneralization to apply to Vancouver residents, it would be that they are people that care enough about their children's education to put up with the often nasty commute over the I-5 bridge.
And for this crowd, it might be worth noting that Vancouver is the North American headquarters of iRiver (or however it's supposed to be capitalized), as well as having some other less cool but equally high-tech companies: a major HP printing division site, Kyocera, Wafertech ("by far, the largest semiconductor integrated circuit foundry in the United States", according to their web site), Xiotech, etc.
Many registered sex offenders have some clause in their probationary hearing banning them from using the internet. He may have been using an open wireless AP so he could have some degree of anonymity, in violation of his agreement. Thats the most plausable reason I can see for him being arrested.
Because my God, we need to defend the right of 17 year olds to fuck like rabbits!
I don't know about you guys, but all of my wireless routers have a web interface that shows every MAC address and computer name that currently has an IP address assigned.
There certainly is a way to know if someone is using your wireless connection without permission.
It doesn't set off alarms and flash a big neon light saying "unauthorized access" or anything, but if at any point in time I want to see who is using my router, I can.
There are also little applets than can email access reports to you, and it would seem very simply to have the thing ping a URL which in turn would have the router send you an SMS or email for everytime someone logs on or off.
Something that the quoted "computer expert" might have wanted to mention instead of the inaccurate blanket statement "there is no way to know".
There is a way to know, most people who run wide open just don't care.
Seems like he was parking in their parking lot, and refused to go even after they repeatedly asked him to leave, so I don't see why this isn't an open-and-shut trespassing case. (Of course, IANAL.)
I'll let others comment on the mention of "erotic services".
So I keep reading comments on this and other related stories and I'm a bit confused. There are many analogies that if you play your music out onto the street if someone overhears are they stealing. Sure that makes sense as a valid analogy, in part. But isn't the theft in question the actual Internet connectivity? There is no analogous trait in the broadcasted music example. What the WAP is broadcasting is a wireless/radio signal. The fact that you can utilize this two way communication over a broadcasted radio transmission is a separate entity. I would think that simply connecting to the WAP and talking directly to it, like checking out the configuration page most/all have is one thing. But once you cross the threshold to using the Internet connection it uses induces a whole new level of complexity that can't be ignored. I know for home networks in my area the WAP does not provide modulation and demodulation of the ISPs signal, so to me when you cross that bridge from WAP (which is open) to accessing the ISP modem you have crossed the threshold of free and open into private and paid. So I guess the question stands in the instances of accessing "open" home networks. Is it right to access an Internet connection regardless of the means used to access it?
There are 4 or 5 posts in here that speak of children. Does the article say he is a child molestor or a sex offender?
I say this because not all sex offenders are into children. If I walk through the mall and grab your mothers boob as she walks by and I have a record and a shitty lawyer I will probably become a Level 3 sex offender.
But I aint into kids, I just like grabbing Mrs. Butterworths titties. I hate when people assume that every sex offender is a child molestor.
What I find hilarious about his post is that he makes liberal, environmentalist, progressive thinkers as 100% little angels. I'm sorry but I just find that funny somehow.
They must get really pissed off when someone goes in to use the bathroom and not buy anything.
the coffee shop should produce a roll-up-the-rim wep key. Buy a coffee, surf the net
Was there not one person around in three months who could log in to the router's config screen and block his MAC address? Seems to me that he'd rather find a new hotspot than buy a new NIC... Failing that, they could also, y'know, lock their network.
1) You have a choice as to whether or not to use a wireless connection. This isn't just about RECEIVING a signal - it's about configuring your computer to receive it, and transmitting signals back as well. This is nothing at all like walking by and "seeing" a picture.
Most of the time, my DHCP logs look something like this
Me) Hi, I'm grahamsz' laptop, can I use your network?
AP) Certainly, have this IP address and if you need to access the internet then you can use this gateway
Given that my computer, that I configured, politely asked if it could use their network, and their Access Point, which they configured, gave me an overwhelming "yes please". I think it would be hard for them to argue against it.
Just because they are a business doesn't mean they won't exhibit basic human decency. Allowing soomeone to use a restroom in an emergency and allowing someone to suck up your free WiFi are not even in the same boat.
This guy did this for a month. I bet any business would have a problem with some random person who used their bathroom constantly for a month without purchasing anything.
Plus, I know plenty of businesses that won't let you touch their restrooms - paying or not.
"A computer expert told KATU News there is no way to know if someone is using your wireless connection without permission."
Wow, i wouldn't call myself a computer expert, but even my old netgear POS router shows connected devices and their mac addresses. If someone's on a network for 3 straight months, you think you'd get used to seeing that mac address.
I'm growing really tired of the way people are trying to justify what they know is stealing by arguing that because a wireless signal is "intangible" or "encroaches public property", it's somehow public domain.
I'm fine with this, but according to the FCC I can't do certain things with my wireless connection because of public bandwidth. I can't broad cast TV or radio stations without a license nor can I produce anything that interferes with licenses signals and I must accept any interference that these licensed signals cause.
So either wirless is either public and regulated by the government or its not?
So which is it? We can't have it both ways.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
How do you guys know that there was no zonecd gateway. here at the library there is no security but when you conenct you aare first fowarded to a page that you must agree to and read. How do you know that wasnt at the coffee shop? If it was he was stealing the access if he didnt buy anything wich could be going against the agreement he agreed to.
Well, if I lived in that area and a KATU news van was parked outside my house recently i'd be straight onto 911, just as bad as the guy they arrested for the "crime" of "stealing" internet access
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
Do you not realize how angry and ignorant you sound wanting people arrested for meaningless crimes? For it is people like you that I do not want in my environment...people who would surly stabb others in the back just to get your way or fullfill you destiny...and that i believe is to destroy what this country was based on and that my friend is FREEDOM! It's in every ounce of literature that our country was founded and based on. It's people like you who vote on the Police Nation under the false securtiy of our Government to so called PROTECT us from harm and danger. But behind closed doors deep inside places you have never been or seen, there is a dark cloud of terror that strengthens every day. That dark cloud is our own demise and failures as American people who have completely fallen to the mercy of a bunch of people we don't even know. What ever happened to REAL FREEDOM,Freedom of speech, press, religion, peaceable assembly, and to petition the government
Right to keep and bear arms
Protection from quartering of troops
Protection from unreasonable search and seizure
Due process, double jeopardy, self-incrimination, private property
Trial by jury and other rights of the accused.
Civil trial by jury
Prohibition of excessive bail, as well as cruel or unusual punishment
Protection of rights not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights
Powers of states and people these are actual freedoms that we do not posess anymore because of people like you who complain about a man using you damm wireless internet....you fakkkin call the cops on him and have him arrested? Just because he was a sex offender in the past the cops (using there power) decide to lock this guy up? I guess your perfect? You prob go home every night and beat off to porn on the internet your damm self...who are you to judge anyone! For people like You I hope you die a very miserable and lonly person...I hope that for every one you persicute here on earth, you are persicuted 10 times that in hell.
Not in Massachusetts.
I think the norm is the other way actually.
In any case, suppose she is not quite 16 yet, or that she just turned 15. It makes little difference.
Just because they are a business doesn't mean they won't exhibit basic human decency. Allowing soomeone to use a restroom in an emergency and allowing someone to suck up your free WiFi are not even in the same boat.
Actually, in Philly and New York most star bucks have their bathrooms locked and refuse to let anyone use them without buying something and this policy is boldly stated in big signs. Since its a bitch to find a decent rest room in Manhatten anyways, you can buy a cheap muffin in Star bucks to take a bath room break.
Secondly, what about people who don't like coffee and happen to be with their friends that do like coffee and bring a laptop?
Also what if the people next door have their Winxp constantly pick the wrong access point (common problem).
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Wireless in laptops are typically set to connect to the strongest and first open connection they can find without any user intervention needed. So your bike analogy would be that if you're walking down the street and the bike suddenly shot up and under your behind and rode you down the street would be more correct. In this case it wouldn't be illegal, even though the bike isn't yours. Heck, the guy could probably hold the coffee shop liable for anything he did for something like this if you got really technical about it.
Not all the world is Florida.
Still, even if we consider Florida and even if we agree that a 17-year-old can not consent to have sex with a 24-year-old... is this a reason to brand someone for life? To make their neighbors hide the little boys? To keep them from coaching a kid's sports team?
We might as well make them wear a scarlet letter. How about a nice big "A"?
And all he needed in order to not get arrested was just buy some coffee. O, the things a coffee can do!
o hai
"Complementary" is still free. Interior lighting is "complementary" and intended for patrons, but there isn't squat they can do if I'm sitting on the bus bench on the sidewalk reading Crime and Punishment by the light coming out their windows. If they don't want their light used, they need to block the windows. If they don't want their free wifi used by anyone but patrons, they need to put some sort of access control in. Even a simple "gateway" page that pops up in your browser the first time and says "intended for patrons only" would be better. You can't just stick a Linksys router on the counter and then get all huffy and call the cops when people using it aren't abiding by your unwritten, unspoken, "intentions". This is the 21st century. Bandwidth is cheap enough that you can find open wifi nodes all over the place. The presumption that an open node that communicates no TOS and just hands out IP addresses via DHCP is, in fact, open is not an unreasonable presumption. It's essentially equivalent to installing a drinking fountain at the sidewalk and getting angry because passers-by are drinking from it.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
IANAL, etc, but wouldn't it be illegal for the two 17 year olds to be screwing in the first place?
Not in the states. Also there are other weird laws from state to state.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Another time, in a bigger city, there was a couple of teenagers who decided the street infront of my house was a good place to neck. After a few weeks of this, I made it clear to them that they needed to go somewhere else, but they were unresponsive and kept returning. I called the police dispatcher and explained the situation. They told me that there was nothing they could do, but recommended calling 911 and saying there was a suspecious vehicle. Which I did. 2 minutes later, two police cars blocked them in, searched their car, put the male in handcuffs and hauled him off for something and had the parents of the girl pick her up.
Because you own the street and have enforceable property rights in this matter?
The problem seem to thought you had could be seen as a "negative externality", but the phantom issue of "externalities" is precisely the heart of the issue in this Slashdot article. Access to 802.11b/g over 2.4GHz wavelengths of light could be seen as a kind of "positive externality". But valuations are subjective, it's up to you to adapt based on your subjective valuations constrained by your property rights. You could simply not look at the people necking in the street, or build a fence, or cover your window, but morally you have no authority to force people to leave land that you do not own.
Furthermore, calling 911 to knowingly claim you saw a "suspicious vehicle" when you merely disliked seeing those people touching each other constitutes fraud (false witness). The fact that law enforcement agents suggested you commit fraud makes the situation even more perverse.
It's not clear whether the parking lot is owned by the coffeeshop. If it is, the piggybacker has to leave when requested by the management, and should expect to be arrested for trespassing (or similar Vancouver charge) after several warnings from police.
If the coffeeshop does't control the parking lot, then arresting the guy is outrageous. If the coffeeshop put lounge chairs out in that lot and someone sat in them every day without buying anything, there's no law broken. Just someone rudely exploiting the excessive generosity (and sloppiness) of the coffeeshop. Which isn't a crime, even in Vancouver.
Sounds like the coffeeshop manager needs to switch to decaf.
--
make install -not war
"When deputies told Smith to knock it off, he came back and is now charged with theft of services."
The police warned him off first. Ignore the whole wireless angle - if someone is stalking my store for 3 months and the police tell him to stop, then he does it again, of course you call the police!
I think 911 is overboard, though, but this guy was warned.
-Jeff
Please learn the difference between a dissenting opinion and a troll before you moderate.
"Manager Emily Pranger says about the man she ended up calling 911 about."
Calling 911 because some guy is using your PUBLIC wireless access. I see the beef about it because it's provided for customers, but getting the police involved over something this trivial only proves that Ms. Pranger is a b**ch. Maybe someone should tell her that 911 is for EMERGENCIES and some dude using your wireless from the back of your building does NOT qualify.
>And what does being a sex offender have to do with anything?
Nothing in itself, but:
He was persistently using an Internet connection that didn't trace back to him. He's either the world's worst cheapskate or was doing something he didn't want to be caught at.
Depending on the kind of sex offender he was, it's conceivable (no pun intended for once) that he was re-offending. In the worst case, he could have been risking getting the coffee shop into trouble.
That's a long chain of "if"s, and it's much more likely that "sex offender" was prominent on his record and was red meat to the press.
"A computer expert told KATU News there is no way to know if someone is using your wireless connection without permission." Maybe he's an expert in being wrong.....
I just read all the mod 5 comments and only one person appeared to have actually RTFA. The thing almost everyone appears to be missing here is that this person was told to stop using the wifi. It was only after he continued doing this that he was arrested and charged. This would be similar to a shop owner asking someone to not come back, and then they come back. I'd bet a nickel they could also charge him with trespassing.
If so, then there is no case.. If it wasnt free, it should have been protected in some way.
Its like arresting you for watching the tvs at the local superstore.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm not condoning sex offenders, but it had no relevance to the story.
They are trying to imply that he was doing something wrong by simply being on sex offender list. Perhaps he was surfing kiddie porn, or perhaps he has a "no internet" clause in his parole - or perhaps he just didn't want to pay for internet access.
In any case, I think this is really sleazy reporting to mention his status, unless it has something to do with the case.
These kinds of things always bug me. If the cafe left their access point open, shame on them. Who cares if the guy was a registered sex offender. What has that got to do with him using an open AP. By the way, what law says you can't park your car in the same place for three months? It's a free country, right? I guess if he didn't pay the meter or it was a no parking zone. This is just like the anti-cruising laws enacted in some cities. They say you can't pass the same place on a street more than a certain number of times in a certain period of time. What's up with that? I think I should be able to drive around the block continuously for my entire lifetime if I want. Unless I break a "real" law while doing this, why should I be arrested? I know law enforcement wants these laws to fight other crimes, such as drug dealing or prostitution, but just driving around the block multiple times (OR SITTING IN YOUR CAR IN THE SAME PLACE FOR THREE MONTHS) does not make you guilty of a crime. Everybody say hello to the police state.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
I'd imagine that this would be along the same laws that could apply if you tied yourself into 'free cable' or phone service by tapping somebody else's account... or by bypassing the meter and stealing power.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
For some reason I keep thinking of the "attractive nuisance" laws.
In a nutshell, if you have an "attractive nuisance" like a pool then it's your responsibility to erect a fence around it to keep everyone else out. (Especially small children and animals that may not be able to get out of the pool on their own.)
It's your land, they are trespassers... but it's still your obligation to take pro-active measures to keep people out.
As others have pointed out elsewhere, open wi-fi connections are not uncommon. Some areas - either small collections of stores or entire urban cores - have established open wi-fi environments as an enticement for potential customers to come. That's why bookstores and coffe shops have free wi-fi - they understand that if they can keep you there, you're more likely to buy more stuff.
If I understand the concepts, unsecured wi-fi is "attractive" and it's up to you to erect a fence. ALL hardware supports WEP, at a minimum, and setting up authentication is straightforward. I've heard that some stores write the daily WEP key on a blackboard behind the counter -- easily seen by the customers, but enough to keep piggybackers out.
All of this is somewhat beside the point in this case -- it sounds like the store had previously asked him to stop using their service and (I assume) to keep out of their parking lot. Explicit instructions will always trump reasonable expectations.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
There is so much wrong with this, I don't even know where to start...
-You're providing a free service, then complaining when people use it?
-You want to limit it to customers, but you take no technical measures to limit it to customers?
-Why in the blazing flames of Hades are you wasting the time of 911 over someone using your WiFi? Seriously, aren't there laws against abusing 911 services with REALLY STUPID PROBLEMS?
-"Theft of services"? The article alluded to the fact that he'd previously been requested to leave by deputies, so I could see "trespass" if he was still in their parking lot... but how can you "theft" a free service?
-Was he caught browsing child porn? Was he wanking when the deputies came up to the car? No? Then why harp about how he's a "registered sex offender". Oh no, be afraid, run away, the evil sex offenders are using your WiFi! Obviously he must have been up to no good, because he's a Registered Sex Offender. It couldn't be that he can't afford high-speed because he doesn't have a job because he has to tell everyone he's a Registered Sex Offender. Couldn't be that at all.
-"He was creepy". Yeah, that's a good reason to call 911. Oh, wait, he's a Registered Sex Offender... you must have been scared, poor Shop Employee. I hope you get counselling and a book deal for your brush with a Registered Sex Offender.
-"No way to tell if someone is using your WiFi, says computer expert"... I didn't realize the reporters 9 year old son now counted as a computer expert. Seriously, does no-one, anywhere, bother to double-check facts anymore?
I'd love to watch this get kicked out of court... but he was Creepy, and he's a Registered Sex Offender, and it was somehow computer related... so an out-of-touch, luddite judge is going to conclude he was Hacking, and sentence him to 10 years in pound-me-in-the-ass prison, where he'll make lots of new friends when they announce "Here is prisoner 65851579, we just want to let you know he's a Registered Sex Offender".
There are 2 possible extremes of this case.
Option 1) He went streaking, or got drunk and groped his equally drunk date and she had second thoughts, or shagged his 17yo girlfriend when he was 18, or something equally as relatively innocent... and now, he's poor, discovers some free WiFi next to his house instead of his poor-ass dialup, and like most of us, gets hooked on the speed and forgets to not be 'creepy'.
Option 2) He's a dangerous, kiddy poking asshole, who just last year shagged some preschooler whilst dressed like Barney. He drives all the way across the city to sit all day in this parking lot, wanking off to his vast underground network of kiddie porn. He likes to spend hours staring at the employees in the coffee bar too. He's a threat to everyone around him, dangerous, obviously "on the sly", and must have been doing something illegal.
Now, after reading the article, which would you be more likely to pick? Yay for balanced reporting.
PS: I thought the reference to "LEVEL ONE" Sex Offender sounded ominous... I mean, he's a Level 1, that's gotta mean something, right?
Yeah, Google says Level 1 means you've the LOWEST chance to re-offend, and it looks like it's usually applied to girlfriend pokers, streakers, drunk-chick-touchers, etc... not to preschool-shagging Barney-wearing freaks. Sure was nice of them to mention what "Level 1" meant in the article, eh?
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
You need to RTFA: He was asked by the coffeeshop to stop using their WiFi, and to make matters worse for him, was parked in their parking lot, which is not public property.
Even if your argument that "hey, it's open, that's an invitation for me to use it" was valid, which I don't believe it is -- it doesn't matter. Once you're asked not to use it, the invitation you speak of has been revoked.
I don't need to make it impossible for you to tresspass for tresspassing to be illegal, all I need to do is ask you to stop. I don't see why it would be any different for using my supposedly "open to the public" resources.
http://www.babysmasher.com
http://www.openingbands.com
This reminds me of one of the legendary cases of the wise and just Ooka Tadasuke, a samuri magistrate/judge in feudal Japan. Here's the wikipedia summary:
One of the most famous stories is called "The Case of the Stolen Smell" where he heard the case of a paranoid innkeeper who accused a poor student of literally stealing the fumes of his cooking by eating when the innkeeper was cooking to flavour his dull food. Although his colleagues advised Ooka to throw the case out as ridiculous, he decided to hear the case. The judge resolved the matter by ordering the student to pass the money he had in one hand to his other and ruling that the price of the smell of food is the sound of money.
So, I think the man should be forced to go to the stupid coffee shop, and wave a five-dollar bill around for a minute as "payment" for sitting in a public place siphoning off a few bits of bandwidth. One problem I see over and over again with computers and the law is that people want to equate ephemeral things like data streams with real property. Nothing was stolen, nobody was deprived of real goods. Perhaps I should find public wireless sites, then sue them for "attacking me with radio waves", or "pushing pornography".
Was the parking lot posted as being for customers only?
Did the parking space have a time limit posted?
Did the coffee shop owners ask him to move or to stop parking there?
Did the property owner ask him to stop parking there?
Did the coffee shop owners ask him to stop using the Internet connection?
Did the coffee shop owners post a sign or have a login page that placed any restrictions on use of the Internet connection?
These are all things that the article fails to mention or does not report because they did not happen. All we get is that the coffee shop didn't like him leaching as so they called the police. Zero to "911" over using a freely available Internet connection. Absolutely ridiculous.
The guy will walk because he did nothing wrong and no effort was made to create boundaries around his behavior prior to police involvement. I would also not be surpised if he turns around and sues the shop and the police for harrasment or something. The police should have told the shop owners to "put a fence" around their Internet connection or parking lot and to quit wasting their time about a "creepy" guy following the rules the shop created.
A funny thing happened to me. I thought Starbucks had free wireless. I took my laptop in and ordered a cocoa and tried to connect. I hit the T-Mobile login screen and went WTF?? I asked and they informed me it was pay. I sat back down and connected to linksys and downloaded my iso that would have taken forever on dial-up. If you borrow a connection, don't be obvious.
The truth shall set you free!
The bicycle analogy simply isn't the same thing. I've yet to find a web site which lists spots you can go to find free bicycles to ride.
This is where you are wrong. Portland (the city in this article) used to offer free bicycles -- yellow ones to be exact -- that could be used temporarily. The problem was people started stealing them. Guess that analogy works perfectly now, eh?
Yellow Bike Project
As the comments seem to mix both the sex offender part and the fact he was sitting on public ground and using a private wireless network, can someone start the same thing, be that someone without any previous arrest or criminal record, then let's find out if that person will be arrested and charged.
There's a juice bar that a friend and I go to from time to time that has an open AP. We bring our laptops, hang out, drink smoothies, and surf.
In the same strip mall is a LAN gaming establishment that has, among other things, wireless internet access. However, they charge for theirs and have security to ensure that only paying patrons use it. The "problem" (for them anyway) is that the two establishments are close enough that people at the LAN party place can easily access the free AP at the juice bar. The guy who runs the juice bar is pretty laid back and doesn't care one bit who uses his AP. From his perspective he's providing a service to his customers, and if other people benefit from it as well then that's great. However, the owner of the LAN place is furious. He's tried to force the juice bar guy to institute encryption, spread (false) rumors about the juice bar, and as of the last time I was there was apparently looking to pursue legal action. I don't know how that's panned out, but I suspect that he doesn't have a leg to stand on.
*sigh* I tell 'ya. Some people's kids...
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
Your a classic example of someone-- the ONLY one, who thinks you have an intelligent remark here.
If they made friends with the guy by giving him a sample coffee and he used the bathroom, he would be treated like a regular customer, and therefore it would not be an issue whether he used the bathroom or not.
What kind of business stops ANYONE from using the bathroom, or getting water when they need it anyway??!
I know, plenty, but they are business that I don't give my money to.
In fact I try and ask first if I can either use the bathroom, or have water, before I frequent many business for the fist time, to qualify them. :)
As far as this guy 'creeping' out anyone, first of all, it is not angainst the law (yet) because someone gets 'creeped' out-- simply because you are 'there', or alive.
Furthermore, most people are NOT creeped out.. they are just wishing he was a 'creep', so he'd stick-it-up-their-arse, so then they'd have valid reason to REALLY be creeped out!! lol.
Actually people almost ALWAYS 'work themselves' into a frenzy over nothing.
However in a situation like this, I guess they and most patrons who witnessed this debacle, were DEFINITELY 'creeped' out and scared, once somone decided to call the pigs (ie. cops), which highened greatly any minor tennsion that may have been there already.
After all, we all know how smart and peace loving, and protective of the citizenry, the pigs are!!
People are NEVER 'creeped' out, or upset, or nervous, until a single trouble maker starts it.
And in this case, as in most, it was not that poor man, but some snot-nose-little-young-bitch probably, as it usually is, who 'stired up' everyone, and then made a non-issue into one that could have ended in even more tragedy (than just that poor man getting arrested), as these situations do ALL TO OFTEN EVERY DAY!!
-- SlashDot is disintegrating right before our eyes..
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
The correct legal phrasing is "not resisting arrest," since he didn't.
911 = Emergency Phone Number people. It's not for reporting 'piggybacking'. Save 911 for life or death situations.
Period. End of story. Arresting, then trying to see if there is some charge they can stick on a person is a blatant violation of common law and Constitutional rights.
"He is availing himself of the servide to the detriment of legitimate users. Sounds like theft to me."
Just because you do not like it does not mean it is theft. Using your logic, someone is a thief for abandoning their car in the middle of the street just because they are blocking others from going down the road.
Many people, yourself included, have no idea what the word theft means.... from using it to describe duplication of files to using it as you have done to describe hogging resources.
Your wise crack about this being a non-story is the first thing I thought about when I saw the headline.
But actually, this IS a VERY big story, or should be.
Because these type of ATTACKS upon the good citizenry, is more than out of control.
Too often we hear about a guy like this, where the pigs (cops) killed an innocent person.
However I always JUMP FOR JOY, when I hear stories about men (like this poor guy) 'going off', and killing and seriously injuring many people, including cops, who think they can continuelly harass, arrest and kill us, and get away with it.
-- The InterNet is a terrible thing to waste, lets arrest Bill Gates and shut down Microsoft immediately.
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
It would be simple enough for them to use WEP, and include each day's (or each hour's) new password on the ticket that a customer gets when they buy something.
Since that would be so easy, not doing so, and leaving it open, indicates that it is a freebie intended to draw more people in to purchase product, but like other freebies on say Black Friday, you are not obligated to purchase other items, unless it says so in the ad, which is done when that is the case.
Is "Brewed Awakening" in for a rude awakening? Who's going to forgive THEIR trespasses if THEY don't even forgive those of a poor guy who lives in a van? "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."
/. is full of athiests, but I'm sure they can appreciate the virtue of those ideals.
Now, I can SEE why they'd be pissed off if he were using up scarce bandwidth, and their customers/employees were lacking, but I doubt he's using much bandwidth, and it's not COSTING them any extra. So, WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO GOOD OLD FASHIONED KINDNESS?! Every so often, life provides us with the opportunity to help one another out. In the long run, we're better off if we take those opportunities.
Consider that the poor guy's circumstances. He's living in a van, for heaven's sakes! AND he has a felony conviction on his record. How's THAT help for finding employment? Internet is almost a fact of life these days, and how on earth do you think he's gonna get net access? If he doesn't have a land address, and/or can't afford wireless access, then it seems to me it's just the right thing to do to tolerate his trespasses.
Worried about his criminal record? If it were a junior high school I'd be concerned, but it's a cafe, and he's not in prison NOW, and he doesn't have warrants, right? Last time I checked, that meant he's a FREE MAN WITH FULL CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS.
I can imagine why they might not want that van always out front, but Jesus said
"Love your neighbor as yourself,"
"Love your enemy,"
and be a good Samaritan.
Yes, I know,
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
That clarifies this. I think the best, most easy to follow law would be: If it is an open WiFi network - not secured at all, then it is for use by anyone in the vicinity and may be used by anyone. If the network has been secured then you have to ask permission.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
1) Look at WiFi access point client table
2) Note familiar MAC address
3) Filter said MAC address
That was easy, and no cops had to be involved.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
"You are depriving the employees of the coffee shop and the customers from a tangible, finite resource (bandwidth, among other things). That's theft. Theft gets you arrested."
Depriving has nothing to do with theft. Using your logic, I am a thief if I fart in the elevator, because I have deprived the other passengers of the use of fresh air in the elevator. Besides, everyone was able to use the bandwidth just fine, so the bottom card of your flimsy house of cards (depriving others of the wifi usage) has already fallen over before we began.
Crack open a dictionary sometime.
In todays world, that is how it works. FIRST you get arrested, then they find a reason to make it stick before they release you.
The fact he's a sex offender makes it that much worse.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I understand that the suspect's wi-fi access is not simply a one way direction of signal, that his computer and the store's are interacting. The store setup their computer to interact with other computers. They do not have the legal right to restrict that interaction past the boundary of their establishment. Have the courts ever recognized that right?
damaged by dogma
"I'm growing really tired of the way people are trying to justify what they know is stealing by arguing that because a wireless signal is "intangible" or "encroaches public property", it's somehow public domain. It's not. Someone owns the device that's transmitting it, and someone pays for the connection to the internet that it's using."
A statement and a question. What effect does the "lack of respect" for others have on a society?(1) Two remember when "/." did the DirectTV story? They're encrypted* AND people were STILL justifying why they should get free TV.
*Someone has already made the point about WEP.
(1) Make a mental note that regarless of the excuse presented for the action. It would be foolish to presume that there will not be any consequences for the action. e.g. DRM, stronger encryption, loss of the service (a lot of these WiFi points are owned by small businesses. That includes franchises). Eventually EVERYONE loses because of the actions of the few. Kind of how cancer starts with a few and grows eventually destroying one from the inside out unless ever stronger measures are applied in time (tipping point).
Do the intracafe's, have a "terms of useage" for there "free internet access", I mean do you have to buy three cups per hour to use the service? What about the people that live next door to the intracafe's, They have been, and probably still are, useing the free service today. Don't panic biggybackers, this is a poor example of "man gets arrested for piggybacking" The only reason this guy was picked out was because he parked his car out front, and was noticed by a female employee who thought the guy was "creepy" and called the cops. Surely the man patronized the store at least once in the three months. The "creepy" man happened to be a sex offender, which, there is a "no contact" rule like when your on probation or parole, if you get contacted by the police for suspicious activity, you will automaticly go to jail. Besides that he was probably up to no good, I mean he could have been downloading child porn, and there is no way to trace it. Except back to the intercafe, and then one of many "paying customers". Which he was not so perhaps he thought he was being smart. One last thing, "Theft of services" It sounds good, But then you have to look back on the terms of use for the Free internet, to find if he was not living up to his end of the bargan. As for other piggybackers, Relax, Things still stay the same, If they don't want you to use it then they better lock it. (Think of it as finding a basketball at the park, Is it illegal to use it to shoot some hoops?). I THINK NOT.... Its Free Game...
Even if you hold that a network's being open is generally reasonable permission to use it, this guy knew he did not have permission.
I have a nice house in a nice neighborhood on a hill. When my daughter is sunbathing out by the pool, it sometimes attracts unpleasant looking people on the public road behind (and above) our home. They like to stop and gawk. I have asked the police to inform them that they do not have permission to look into my back yard.
They may argue that the open air is genrally reasonable permission to use the view, but they know they do not have permission.
The police should arrest those perverts.
Because it's not given away freely. Its a service provided by the Coffee shop to its paying customers. Complementary only applies to patrons.
IANAL, but you cannot set terms on the use of public spectrum. And if you're sticking your internet use on public spectrum for free, then you cannot set terms on who uses that free internet access.
I agree that after they told him to leave the property, then they had a case for trespass when he came back onto it, but I also argue that they don't have the right to restrict him from transmitting and receiving their signals.
The fact of the matter is that they are broadcasting and receiving on publically accessible frequencies. If they want to add access control to their systems, then they are free to do that all they like, but they are not free to attempt to prevent others from using that part of the spectrum as well just because they happen to be using it.
If he had sat off of their property and used their network access, then they would have had absolutely no legal ground to stand on. They are using public frequencies, and any other member of the public has exactly the same right to use those frequencies that they do.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Theft of bandwidth is different in some cases than watching a broadcast. Some ISPs sometimes charge an over limit fee. This could cost the actual customer money. Additionally, stealing a wireless connection can reduce the bandwidth available to the paying customer and in some cases, this may degrade the service for the legitimate users, depending upon various factors such as applications used, etc. In some ways it is similar to stealing cable. It is still a theft of a service according to the law. The fact that the bandwidth is delivered wirelessly instead of over a cable of some type is irrelevant. He clearly knew that he wasn't paying for a service that he was receiving and it appears he made no attempt to correct the situation. Calling 911 for this may not be quite the over reaction it first seems. Here in New York we have a 311 number to call for non emergencies. Not all municipalities have this and some ask if the call is an emergency. If not, they then direct the call to a department instead of an emergency dispatcher. It does seem however that the store should have had a contact at the police department and probably should have called him or her first instead of 911. They probably could have called the local precinct also. The story doesn't give us a lot of information. The fact that he's a level one predator isn't really an issue in his arrest although he could face additional charges if as a result of this the authorities discover other crimes in the process of arresting him. The story also fails to mention what if any protective measures the store took to prevent the action. The biggest story however seems to be that the person arrested was stupid. He was warned several times and he was blatantly obvious. It is sort of like someone with a warrant speeding, ignoring traffic lights, etc.
To setup a free available internet access with no security and tell people not to use it, is like God telling Eve not to eat an apple.
Heres the dope on this;
If you own a wireless router, it is much like any other "broadcasting" device such as 900mhz cordless phones, wireless digital cameras, micro FM transmitters, et al., these send signals out in all directions and without regard to what is capable of picking them up.
There is NO law that says that they cannot receive the signal and with the case of the network connection, hook into your network connection. Anyone can receive the signal and do whatever with it, which does include listening (ie camping on the line and listening at conversations or traffic. Digital or otherwise) Key in on that word, "Receive".
Fact is that technically, where it stops is that it's illegal for someone to go into your network without your permission. If you have what is advertised as an open connection to the internet with your business, without a way to confine it to patrons, then you simply have no recourse. This guy was simply taking advantage of an "Open" connection. This shop should have secured it and required patrons to somehow use an automation process to allow the router to let them on, probably controllable by the proprietor. Most likely by MAC address which last I looked, is externally posted on each and every networkable device including wireless devices. I've heard some of them require you to sign up ahead of time and provide this information. And this makes sense as you could then go to just about any of the franchises and get on with impunity.
The fact that he was a registered sex offender is also irrelavent. They simply got "lucky" when the officers came out to investigate the complaint.
You are *supposed* to secure your wireless router when you purchase it and install it. Unfortunately, they sell these things to everyone including your local village-idiots who barely can read a kids book let alone an owners manual for one of these devices. Thats why you can drive around in just about any neighborhood and scope out hundreds of *open* WIFI points.
Unless someone goes into your connection and does over $50,000 in reportable (and I do mean business reportable) damages, you have simply no recourse. I've been there and seen it. Found out the hard way from law enforcement officials. Fricken punk high schoolers that want to hack into your Linux server for whatever reason at your house, just for the bragging rights at school, and you might as well just get over it and format the thing and reinstall. You can't even sue them in concilliation court as there technically is no monatary damages to something in the home or even a lot of "small" business unless you can meet that $50,000 minimum in postable, reportable damages. For most of us, this ain't going to happen.
Wait until Congress dreams up a silly law requiring you to secure your access point for fear of stiff fines or imprisonment! I can see it now. Strange white vans combing the neighborhoods with silly looking loop antennas on the roofs and watching it stop... and go... and stop... and go... and go... and... oh... stop... and go... and so on and so on.
Cheers.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Am I the only one to associate a van parked for 3 months outside a cafe with this phrase:
"I'm 35 years old, thrice divorced and I live in a van down by the river!!"
That is probably all he will be charged with. Its like a drive-in movie. If I can stand in my back yard and see the screen next door they can't very well charge me for "stealing" their waves of light. I understand the difference in this case that he was "stealing" their bandwidth that they paid for but then again the drive-in movie theater paid for the photons that were splashed on the screen. Unless I jump their fence and end up on their property they couldn't charge me. This guy will get a trespassing charge do some community service and move on to another hot spot.
You are right, not everwhere is Florida, Florida is actually conservitave in that regard.
Most places it is is plain old 16 years old.
No other qualifiers.
http://www.ageofconsent.com/
just becasue it is legal does not make it right.
As far as I know, a person under the influence of a drug, such as alcohol, to the point where they would be considered "driving under the influence", is also not legally able to give consent to sexual intercourse (coitus, etc.). This means that if your wife has been drinking, and you two have sex, she could legally charge you with rape. I'm not trying to say that I don't normally take the side of the "sex offender", I do. I'm just saying that legally, if you "did a drunk chick and she didn't want to [be] classified as a slut", you'd be in trouble, even if she posted that night on /. that she was giving consent,. The fact is; she was drunk. Personally, I'm mostly in favor of this law, but I'll save my personal opinions for some other day. I just thought I'd inform. And obviously, if I'm wrong about this law, I guess I thought I heard about it, when I didn't. Maybe someone else knows about this?
Next we will get arrested for tuning a radio to something we aren't supposed to hear?
I believe FCC rules say if its transmitted, you can receive it.
These idiots should password or WEP or WPA or something protect the network.
This is the beginning of totalitarianism and authoritarianism. I hope the wireless base transmitter guys like living in a new world order with RFID chips implanted in their brains.
The fact he was a sex offender is completely orthogonal and defamatory and unrelated to the legal situation here. Mentioning previous crimes is defamatory and should never play a role in prosecution. A information / network theft has nothing to do with sex offense so it cant even be referred to for building a picture of character.
This story is travesty. This arrest is a travesty.
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
Coffee shop in my neighborhood uses a password; the owner just posts the new pw on the specials board each morning.
You guys are stupid. So if you leave your house unlocked the person who robs you blind should not be arrested right because you left your house open? You guys keep forgetting a couple of things. The store and the police told him to leave and not come back but he returned. On zonecd if you have it set to open when you conenct a page comes up telling u the rules of the ap. We do not know if this place had one. You cant make any conclusions without knowing that. I find it funny that most of you would not have a robber arrested if they robbed you blind and you left your house unlocked.
I think you read him wrong if you think he was saying letting the offender get away with it. He was saying once they did their time and paid the price their slate should get wiped clean if there are circumstances that would make it more understandable. Like in the GP's post, the girl became turned 18 and was legally able to wipe her boyfriend's slate clean, why prevent her from doing this? How about after she married the "offender," can she do it then?
'Sex offender' is a completely meaningless label.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Public urination can get you on the sex offender list.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I'm not sure how "A"dultery figures into that situation... Maybe a stylized "SR" (Statutory Rape)?
I know many will wish to spank me for this but WOMEN raise bull about the tiniest $hit. What is the big deal about a guy surfing the net? psst women.
He was using the service. The people who offered the service had the police tell him to stop using it.
He came back and used it again.
No gray area here. No reason to get weird about differentiating sex offenders. They didn't even know he was a sex offender until he was booked, so it just didn't come into it.
Additionally, it is not a public service, you don't have a right to use it. Instead of free, you could call it "complimentary". If the offerer of the service withdraws the offer to you, you can't use it anymore.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
But, what does being a sex offender have to do with being a wifi thief? It's like saying "The man sold drugs to minors. IT's also reported that he is black". What does one thing have to do with the other? Child molesters aren't the only people who steal wifi just like black people aren't the only ones selling drugs to kids (I said aren't the ONLY ones).Was he looking at porn while sitting outside in his car? If not then one thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other. ... And for the record, no I'm not a pedophile and yes I'm a piggybacker.
echodots
"The more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it."
-- Justice Hugo Black, Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (1946)
I see people saying how he was asked not to use the wireless signals and therefore he shouldn't keep using them being modded +5 insightful. Then, the next time we have a satellite TV discussion, those same people get +5 insightful for saying it's our right to use any signal beamed through our heads on our own property. Which is it? Do I have a right to hack my neighbors WLAN because it's carrying over into my property? Do I have the right to steal a satellite feed because it's raining its info all over my state? It really shouldn't be a double standard.
They are using public frequencies, and any other member of the public has exactly the same right to use those frequencies that they do.
This isn't directed at you, but this type of argument.
The use of public frequencies was asked for by the people developing the technology in order to create a usable standard for inter device communication at a cheap cost. If you had to license the frequencies that these devices transmit on, then what do you think the costs of that would be?
If it was required to get a license to put up a wifi spot, no one would purchase the technology for home use. The organizations whe developed the protocol created it with the intent of giving us geeks the freedom we had been asking for - no wires.
Does someone who sets up a WiFI hotspot have the ability to license the frequency? No, they don't. The standard is based on a public frequency. Leveraging the design of the protocol to justify the obviously parasitic behavior of this guy is ridiculous. There is no other option than to use a public frequency.
The use of this frequency isn't even whats up for debate. It is the use of public frequency to access a PRIVATE resource with a TOS attached to it. If someone sets up a hotspot for everyone without requirements, fine. If someone set up a hotspot with requirements, but doesn't know how to lock it down - it is ACCESABLE, but not because of any persons RIGHT to it. The ignorance or inability of someone to protect their interests is not an invitation to take those interests from them, or use them for your own purposes without permission.
It is the behavior of the geek culture as a whole that gets us the shit we get from businesses. There was no DRM before people started infringing copyrights on a mass scale. There was no issue with people probably leeching this coffee shops WiFI until he started going out of his way to do it all the fucking time.
Are we really so ignorant, or so self appointedly superior to everyone else because of our technical know how, that we really feel justified in this behavior. Are we so used to debating any point, whether we believe it or not, because we like making people feel like their wrong - that we are willing to actually believe our own bullshit? Maybe, if as a whole, we exhibited any form of self control - the ignorant backlash wouldn't be as severe. But no - any chance we get we say "FUCK YOU! You can't stop me" to anyone without the skills to prevent us from behaving in ethically and morally questionable behavior using a technology that most people don't understand.
And you wonder why the rest of the world resorts to having people arrested, utilizing DRM schemes, and monitoring ALL digital communication traffic. We have established a track record, and now we are paying for it.
This is probably the best argument I've read for using open wifi nodes. And reading a book from the store lighting is a really nice analogy.
So to put it plainly, if the store owner had asked you, the reader of the book, to leave the store front because she didn't want people loitering, and you, the reader of the book, kept coming back, one can easily appareciate her need to call the cops. First of all, this unfortunately happens to the homeless all the time. So her calling the cops isn't actually such an unusual action even if the guy is a sex offender.
What would be interesting, is whether this guy gets charges for having stolen the "open" wifi access. At that point, I would have to call into question whether or not it is possible to "steal" light from a store front so that one can read a book.
anyways, great argument.
Let me clarify though: according to the article it looks like the guy was in fact trespassing, at which point he was already in the wrong, EVEN IF the wifi node was unsecured. Its the simple fact that he was told at least once to stop and go away that gives them the authority to at least detain him. But I am not a lawyer and I do not know much about property law, so I could be wrong with my interpretation.
The bicycle analogy simply isn't the same thing. I've yet to find a web site which lists spots you can go to find free bicycles to ride.
http://www.ibike.org/encouragement/freebike.htm
Why didn't the police send this woman a bill for calling 911 when there was no emergency. All she had to do was look up the police department in the phone book or call 411! I mean she had 3 whole months to figure it out. People misuse the 911 system all the time and they need to be punished.
Btw, if the coffee shop wanted to get rid of him couldn't they just filter out his MAC address? Some people are seriously challenged. I don't think he commited a crime either.
But, if somebody notices me using their access point, and comes out to tell me that it isn't allowed, or they call the cops and have them tell me it isn't allowed, that is different. I can longer assume that I have implicit permission to use that access point.
The question is whether the person who owns the access point has the legal authority to deny permission. If they do not, then no matter what they say you can still use the access point. For instance if you are grilling some burgers and the smell wafts into the street, you do not have the legal authority to tell me to move away and stop smelling it. You can't tell me to stop looking at your house from the street. In fact you can't even stop me from taking a picture of your house from the street. If your hose is running into the gutter, you can't stop me from washing my feet in the water.
Or rather, you can tell me all you want but it will not have any legal weight, and it won't be illegal for me to keep on doing it. It's not about whether you've given me permission, it is about my rights as a citizen on public land.
At that point, arresting the belligerent son of a bitch is probably perfectly justified.
Maybe emotionally, but thankfully that's not the basis for most of our laws.
As for your last paragraph, it is an interesting way of looking at it but again the question is whether it is the law. I do not believe that it is at this time. Wi Fi uses unregulated spectrum and devices must accept "interference" and cross traffic. Whether they are interoperable is not necessarily a legal factor. By analogy, it is not illegal for my family to use a channel and code on our Motorola Talkabout radios, even if it is the channel and code your family is trying to use at the same time, even if you own them and are using them on your property and we are out in the street. You bring up bandwidth but the real issue is access to the bandwidth. If you run a CAT5 cable out into the street, light it up and leave it there, am I breaking the law by plugging into it? The legal onus would seem to be on you to protect your service if you do not want it used. It's not like it is hard to protect WAPs from being accessed by the public.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Actually in some states, at 16 kids and marry and tel ltheir parents to kiss off. And also w/ parents conset can get married at 14/13.
This whole sex offender thing is blown way out of proportation. Rape is different. if some dumb girl has sex w/ someone that is to old and after she breaks up or get caught the guy gets fried.
The kids that are being protected are not inocent victims in most cases, and should be delt with by the parents before they go chasing some old guy online.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
Lord knows I've never urinated in the great outdoors...
Streaking is another interesting one. My uncle did that in college. Fortunately the sex offender list hadn't been invented yet.
Everybody just assumes that sex offenders are men who do VERY EVIL things with little boys.
Well, for what its worth, the NY magazine in its Urban Etiquette Handbook considers it ethical to use an unprotected WiFi.
From the article:
Since reading this, whatever guilt I felt from borrowing my new neighbours WiFi for three months just went away...Comcast (then AT&T) had a battle which I think relates to this. The fundamental question is whether an individual on public property has a right to interact with radio signals. The local TV stations in Seattle wanted to charge AT&T a premium to carry them on their cable service. AT&T told the stations to shove it, that they shouldn't have to pay (and therefore charge their customers more) to get stations on cable that they could get on antenna. The argument here is that the signal is being sent (to me) what I do with it is my concern.
In this case, a WAP signal is being broadcast outside the coffee shop's private property. If there is no TOS that people must agree to before using the WAP, then honestly, the best they'll be able to do is Loitering. Furthermore, where do you draw the line as to when usage becomes wrong? If I'm in the coffeeshop with a friend and he orders something and I don't and I use my laptop in the shop to access the internet, I've done the same thing as the guy outside in his truck. And if the standpoint being argued is that the guy in the truck is philosophically wrong, then the same standard must apply to me, whether I use the free WAP for 3 months or 3 seconds. The argument is that I have to buy something from the coffee shop to use their internet, in which case there's a simple solution: give people an access number with their coffee cup that gives them a certain number of minutes of internet time.
Asking someone to leave does not mean they are required to leave (particularly if they are on public property and you are not a member of law enforcement), and continuing to offer the free, unsecured service gives the man implied consent to continue to use such service.
Pass a state law making unencrypted open wireless networks illegal.
Then fine the store for being stupid.
An open, unencrypted, wireless network begs to be used by anyone,
and if the guy EVER purchased any drink from the place, well then
he IS an existing customer. He just hasn't bought anything lately.
Could you arrest a person for listening to a publicly broadcast AM radio station?
Reminds me of the guy who could use free wireless in a library, but chose to use if from a park bench outside the building, and was arrested for stealing bandwidth.
He is hardly going to keep changing his NIC.
There are stalking laws. But what if he's not stalking her? What if it's a single phone call that says "if you don't clear my name, you better keep your eyes peeled"?
The solution, I think, is to change the law that the guy was convicted under in the first place, rather than put the burden on the victim to set things right. Having a wrong-headed law with an excuse that says "oh well, the victim can always clean the slate" is lazy and unfair.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Changing a wep key every hour would not only be a pain in the ass for the store, it would be pretty abusive to the paying customer, which is why shops usually don't do something so stupid. Daily I could understand though.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
I've heard stories about some guy stealing some free Internet access via WiFi. There was a guy one time who would always scan for hosts on the network just to make sure they wouldn't notice a slowdown so he could enjoy the free Internet. I helped a guy configure his Apache installation so that he could host all his MP3s and other music... which is illegal.
By the way, run this in bash on a directory with lot's of downloadable files:
Anyways, back to my point. This guy was hosting music illegally and he was at minimal risk. It would be the sucker next door to him who was at risk, and worst, wouldn't even know it. Though, there is the handy defense, "Well, I have an open access point, it wasn't me, it could have been anyone!" and they'd have to let him go for the benefit of the doubt... you are innocent until proven guilty. Still, one could get arrested.
This place offers free WiFi to attract costomers, which is OK. If they encrypt, then they might push away some costomers, and they'll be more likely to get into trouble if someone does something illegal, since they have more control. So it's kind of a lose-lose situation here. Oh well, life sucks, whacha' ganna' do?
Here you go: http://www.bycyklen.dk/english/thecitybikezone.as
Slightly OT, but in the city center of Copenhagen you can ride "Citybikes" for free, provided you can find one at the stands
9-1-1 is for emergencies, not for reporting somebody for surfing the net. Even if one does make the logical leap (something I suspect the manager excels at) necessary to consider it theft, or perhaps trespass if the coffee shop owns the parking lot where the "perp" was parked, it was not in any way an emergency!
Somewhere in Portland there could someone with a real emergency waiting on hold while this dildo was yammering to an emergency center operator.
I don't drink Starbucks.
I have a t-mobile account that allows me to use Tmobile's Wifi at any equipped Starbucks location. So I usually access it from half a block away as a paying customer of T-mobile but not of Starbucks.
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
---Don't want strangers to use your AP? Secure it.
Or turn it into a hotspot
www.wifitastic.com
a small fee would generate some revenue and keep people from sitting on the wireless for ever.
For a small coffee shop, it would be worse if someone buys not much, then thinks they can sit and use the wireless for ever.
At least he wasn't using a table!
VLC Remote for iPhone and Android
I'm Canadian, so I can comment that while some dishes were "accepted" they were not really legal. It was somewhat of a grey market for a long time, similar in a way to how cops will look the other way on a lot of marijuana offences (they don't want to legalize it because it would, most likely, piss off the USA, but they've got better things to do than go around hunting pot smokers down and busting them).
Now, as for the illegal cable etc, why would cable have a dollar value and internet not? For cable, the value would depend on your programming, etc, whereas with internet the monthly value would be equivilent to that of your internet package. The issue at hand here is that it doesn't require a physical violation to tap the internet connection, and the owner was making it available to paying customers, etc, which doesn't usually happen with cable.
In fact, I wonder how this would work if somebody continuously came to a sports bar, etc, never ordered anything, but happily watched ESPN. He would most likely be told to leave (as in this case, from my understanding) and if he didn't comply then he would be guilty of tresspass. Theft of services I'm still not sure about, but again if the guy was told to not access the service then - whether it was available to other clients or not - he was therefore barred and should not have been using it.
I've found similar cases in housing law, in fact. If you have a place but "rent" to a roomate in shared accomodations, then the normal housing laws do not seem to apply. If you end up with a non-paying roomate, your recourse is to kick him out and either charge him with trespassing upon returnining or get a court restraining order for him to stay off the premesis.
In the case of the store, if the parking lot belonged to the store then the tresspass charge would be valid, and certainly the shop could and/or should have looked at restraining orders.
Running a wireless access point with a broadcast SSID unsecured that hands out DHCP leases is like hosting a kegger with banner on your porch proclaiming free beer for everyone, a loudspeaker announcing the event to the neighborhood, and a stack of cups and a keg next to the dooor that says "Take me! (FREE BEER!)".
And these guys are doing that, but getting pissed when random people take advantage of their free kegger....
Maybe if they put up a huge sign outside: "Free WiFI with purchase", or setup a proxy that requires the user to agree to TOS (and blocks all ports except http) they could argue that that the "system" didn't authorize the guy to use their net. If they used WiFi blocking paint in their building, the wifi wouldn't escape into the outside and they wouldn't have the problem. But the system did authorize the guy... by handing out a DHCP lease to his MAC address. (the laptop and WAP negotiated communication....)
Even if they informed the guy he was not allowed to use their system, their system continued to provide him access. It may have been their intention to not let the guy use it, but obviously they didn't know how to configure the system to disallow access to the guy because their equipment was configured to allow access to the guy (and everyone else) over the course of several months. If they want the ability to not provide service to select customers, then they need a more sophisticated access control system. Otherwise they are explicitly allowing anyone to come along to use their signal by virtue of how they have configured their device. (probably the default configuration, but ignorance is no defense.)
Consider a drive-in theater in a residential neighborhood. Can the theatre sue the people who live in the houses next door for watching their movies from outside the drive-in? Hell no..... It's the same thing.
grrr
It is the use of public frequency to access a PRIVATE resource with a TOS attached to it.
If you don't acually notify people of your TOS, then you have no legitimate complaint when people don't obey that TOS.
If someone set up a hotspot with requirements, but doesn't know how to lock it down - it is ACCESABLE, but not because of any persons RIGHT to it.
You're correct there. Nobody has the right to use somebody's freely given internet access. But you also don't have the right to have them arrested for using that free internet access.
Here's the thing. You put internet access up for free and you do so in a way that it leaves your own property. Now somebody uses that access, and then you come along and complain that they didn't ask you. Well, you put it up there. You've taken positive action to make that access available to anybody, and in no way attempted to notify people that it had terms attached to it. Therefore you have no reasonable expectation for people to obey your terms.
The ignorance or inability of someone to protect their interests is not an invitation to take those interests from them, or use them for your own purposes without permission.
There is a real difference between being unable to secure your shit and being unwilling to do so but still expecting other people to follow your own arbitrary rules.
Yes, this guy was a prick for coming back after they told him not to do so, and deserved what he got because of that. But if I am driving by a place that has free wifi, and I use it as I drive by without going in and, say, buying coffee from them, then have I done something wrong? Their system was explicitly made to allow me to use that access, and I've done so. If they want terms attached to it, then they should at least *try* to prevent me from doing so without adhering to their terms.
If I leave my car unlocked, then it's not okay for people to steal my stuff, but at the same time, they are *broadcasting* outside their own property. If I leave stuff lying on the street and somebody else takes it, that's not against the law. It's actually expected in some places.
They are using a public resource (spectrum). By using that resource, they're intruding into my and everybody else's property as well. It's a shared resource. Now, I have no objection to them doing so, but at the same time, I do expect them to take affirmative action to protect themselves from people also using that resource.
Are we really so ignorant, or so self appointedly superior to everyone else because of our technical know how, that we really feel justified in this behavior.
Don't equate me or anybody else saying that they should secure their property to pricks like the guy in TFA. I think the guy was an ass too, and deserved to be arrested. But there are larger issues as well, and yes, I do say that people who use a public resource to make services available should expect that other people will use those services in the way that's most convienent to them, and not according to some unwritten and probably imaginary "terms of service".
It's not about "fuck you, you can't stop me", it's about "you should have damn well known better, or paid somebody else to know better and thus do it right". I have no respect for people half-assing it with things that they do not fundamentally understand.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
The verse in question: Matthew 18:17 (King James Version)
17And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
First off, if your brother, whom you love, and whom you always forgive, were a pagan or a tax collector, and he used your wifi for free, does that mean you'd throw him in jail?
OK, now to the point: the King James version does not say _treat_ him as a pagan or tax collector, it says _"let him be unto thee"_ as a ~. The difference seems clear to me. In the latter case it says "let him be" as a pagan or tax collector. The way I read it, it means "if he insists, just let him be his evil way."
If there's any doubt, about translations, IMO, KJV is the standard Bible.
The NIV instruction to "treat your brother as a tax collector, or as a pagan" is against the greater set of instructions provided by Jesus, in terms of always forgiving, and loving your enemy, unless by "treat" them it means _forgive_ them their trespasses, which IS what Jesus said to do.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
If there's any doubt, about translations, IMO, KJV is the standard Bible.
I disagree that overall the KJV is any more accurate than modern translations such as the NIV, NASB, etc. However, in this particular case, it does appear that the NIV's translation differs from the original Greek (which Slashdot won't let me post here) in a way that could result in a different interpretation of the passage. The NASB says "let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector," and most other translations (excluding the NIV) agree with this.
Out of curiosity I looked up the passage in several Spanish translations, and got similar results: RVR and CST say "have him as" and LBLA says "he will be for you like", while BLS says "you must treat him like" and not surprisingly the NVI says "treat him like". I'm not fluent in Spanish and my retranslations into English probably aren't perfect, but the basic idea is close.
But yeah, back to the point:
The difference seems clear to me. In the latter case it says "let him be" as a pagan or tax collector. The way I read it, it means "if he insists, just let him be his evil way.
Is "just let him be his evil way" not the way you should treat a pagan or tax collector? I understand that the wording is a little different, but I'm not seeing much of a difference in the real meaning between "let him be that way" and "treat him that way."
Interestingly, The Message says "you'll have to start over from scratch, confront him with the need for repentance, and offer again God's forgiving love."
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