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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.
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?
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)
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
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.
Reading the article, doesn't look like there is a charge; they've just arrested him, and now are trying to figure out if he broke any laws. I'm not sure that it's meant to work that way....
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
I wonder if the wifi was free... and if so, it must have been unencrypted...
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
If you shine a light into the street, can I use it at night to see where I am going ?
If you transmit CB radio from your house can I sit in the street and talk to you using my CB radio ?
If you transmit WiFi signals into the street on a publically available frequency what makes them so special ?
Here in the UK (IANAL) iirc I am perfectly entitled to walk into your house if it is unlocked and use your stuff so long as I don't break them or cause you financial loss. I can even take items out with me if I don't intend to permanently deprive you of them.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
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.
The home I used to live in, we had two AP's - one was an AirPort (the /real/ wireless AP) and one was an industrial-strength AP that came with the house - completely configurable.
/and/ the only high school = teh win.
One cheap honeypot + one cheap logging system running decent software + trivially broken WEP + living on a street corner across from the only Baptist Church
And no, posting a TOS inside your business isn't the same thing. I can easily access the signal without ever seeing that TOS. Suppose I hang a picture up that's visible through my plate glass window, and beside it post a sign that says that I own this picture and if you look at it, you agree to pay me the sum of $100. If you walk by and look at my picture through the window, are you bound by those TOS? And if you're going to claim that that's different, you need to specify exactly why I should be bound by a TOS posted inside your business that I've never seen when I access a public, unencrypted signal.
Ok, here's why it's different:
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.
2) Being a technically minded person, it can easily be argued in a court of law that you were aware this "magical free wireless" connection was owned by someone, and was probably owned by the coffeeshop. If someone leaves their bike out on the public sidewalk unattended, are you free to take it for a spin? No. Illegal. Not yours despite someone being ignorant enough to leave it unlocked. The fact it's on public property is meaningless.
3) Not only do you know the signal comes from some owner, but there's not just the TOS of the "wireless connection" (which may be posted inside, or may be nonexistent) -- there is the TOS of the ISP serving bandwidth to the coffeeshop.
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.
http://www.babysmasher.com
http://www.openingbands.com
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.
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.
In fact, isn't it usually the other way around? If your neighbor plays his music loud enough for you to hear, you can have him arrested for disturbing the peace. We have a neighborhood bar that has that problem, it was built to close to some houses. The houses were built first, so they keep shutting down the joint, which sits vacant for a few months until a new victim rents the building.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
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.
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.
I just had a thought. What if someone camped out on a public street near a drive-in movie? Would it be illegal for them to watch the movie?
I don't know about the laws in your country, but in most countries, minors can have sex among each other if they have reached a certain age, say 14.
Imagine this: you are 17 and your gf is 15. You have sex, no problem by law. You stay together. You become 18, she becomes 16. You have sex, still no problem. Another year goes by, you have a great relationship (you've been together for 2 years). You turn 19, she turns 17.
You seriously tell me you would stop having sex with each other for 2 years? Yeah sure.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Oh, there's reasons:
1. Sex offenders may be prohibited from using the Internet as part of their release/parole.
2. Anonymous surfing at an unsecured AP is a wonderful way of getting your "stuff" without being traced.
3. It's free
*soapbox on*
Now I didn't read TFA, but if #1 and #2 applied in this case, they would be trumpeting the fact from coast to coast. As far as I can tell, they just threw out the sex offender part just to color public opinion of the "perp". I know they seized his computer and rifled through the contents. If they found anything, the press would know it too. Much like theat guy that was caught a couple years back with a laptop accessing an open AP with his pants around his ankles.
Since the police know he is a sex offender, they know what his conditions of release are and can't seem to find a problem (as of yet). All this guy is guilty of is sitting in a public place accessing free Internet service that a business was supplying (at no charge) to attract customers. If the business really wanted to get rid of his ilk, they could just set up a click-through TOS or use NoCatAuth or some other access control method (like a time-limited passcode on a receipt) that spells out the conditions for use of the network (such as for customers only) and prohibiting unauthorized use - oh, I'm sorry - that requires money and effort.
*soapbox off*
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
When she was about 10 years old, (she happened to be a curious kid) she took a peek into the neighbours window while playing outside
Really? you become a sex offender for that? That is totally fucked up. That ruins your whole life.
I also hear stories of dudes sleeping with their girlfriends when the guy is 16 and the girl is 15 and that's them 'sex offender for life'... fucked up.
Who knows what this guy did to become a sex offender. Maybe he just looked up an old ladies dress when he was a 3YO.. who fuckin knows -
But the press have made this a 'FEAR CRIME'. If the guy was Islamic, they'd arrest him on suspicion of terrorism (especially if he visited al-jazera)...now, EVERYONE who uses open access points is a sex offender/terrorist/kitten killer!
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.
Then lets take this in reverse: if a wireless device automaticly connects to my laptop, could I claim that they were using *my* property?
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".
What about standing on a public street and watching a department store TV through the window? The store placed the TV in the window facing outward. They want the public to watch the TV. They also want you to buy a TV, but that isn't part of the implied contract. Absent any signage, I think you'd be free to watch as long as you wished.
The correct legal phrasing is "not resisting arrest," since he didn't.
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.
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.
In any event, criminal tresspass probably works. If he was asked to leave, especially by the police, and then he came back, I imagine that qualifies. The physical aspects of the law would probably apply if he parked in their parking lot, but if he's parking out on the street, I imagine that the courts could find that the wireless AP was their property too and could be treated like physical property.
Of course, I'm not a lawyer.
As for being a sex offender, well, that's really totally irrelevant, but I'm waiting for some lawmaker to decide that we need legislation prohibiting the use of open wireless APs by sex offenders, for the children.
Considering the term "registered sex offender" had no meaning before 1994, and it took the states a few years to all establish registries after that, I would say you're a liar. When this "nice old lady" was 10 years old (which would be at least the 1960's, if not earlier) the world was a very different place and no one would think twice about such an event. I find it ridiculous and implausible even today considering how children are handled by the legal system. For this to happen 40 or more years ago is entirely implausible. It's a nice way to try to get an emotional "hit" off people though.
Thanks for going to the trouble of looking up the links (so I didn't have to).
Furthermore, the police can arrest someone for probable cause that a crime has been committed. They don't even have to charge a specific crime initially, although they do have to release one if they don't charge anything within a certain amount of time (usually 24 hours). One they found out this guy was a sex offender, they had probable cause that he was violating the terms of his parole (by using an open AP to surf anonymously). They might be looking thru logs as we speak to find evidence that he was accessing kiddie porn sites, although whether they could link him conclusively to such evidence (if found) is an open question at this point.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I'm not saying these are my personal points of view, or that I endorse anything, just pointing out the current law. Ideals are great, but they don't keep you from being arrested. There is a big legal distinction between being "detained" and being "arrested". Witnesses to crime are often "detained" by police, they have not been accused of any wrongdoing. Any detentions you have had are also not on your criminal record where any arrests would be. It is not a "mind control trick" - just legal terms.
W ar -where the South tried to secede from the US because they wanted slavery and the rest of the country didn't ...
There is also a big distinction between being arrested of a crime, and being convicted of a crime. The former means you were suspected of committing a crime, the later means it was proved you committed a crime.
And for the record, slavery was not necessarily accepted by a majority - there were always people that did NOT believe in slavery. You may have heard of a little thing called the American Civil War - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Civil_
"But this one goes to 11!"
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.