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.

Comments

3 straight months!

[LiquidCoooled]

Thats a long time to browse the web for.
I wonder how he managed it.

Re:3 straight months!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did it with one hand probably.

Re:3 straight months!

[biglig2]

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....

Re:3 straight months!

[voice_of_all_reason]

Easy, he's guilty of being arrested.

Re:3 straight months!

[B'Trey]

What the hell are you talking about? No one is infiltrating any freedoms here. If you own the hub, you can set up any rules you want to who uses it. You have no constitutional right to open Wi-Fi signals provided by private businesses.

That's an open question. If you're broadcasting signals, what right do you have to tell me that I can't receive them?

My opinion is that it's up to you to at least indicate that this is a private network that you shouldn't access. You do that by at least setting up basic security. Sure, WEP is easy to break. So are most door locks. But if you enable WEP and I break in, then I'm knowingly trespassing where I don't belong.

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.

Re:3 straight months!

[Kadin2048]

Well, the police are intended to have the power to arrest you without a warrant on the suspicion or reasonable belief that you've broken a law; exactly the standards are for that varies from one jurisdiction to the next, but they can usually hold you (at least where I live) for a certain period of time (24 or 48 hours usually) while they gather evidence, after which they have to begin charging you or release you. Generally the statues require that the officer have "reasonable cause to belive" that you committed a felony, or are driving drunk or a variety of other things. They are supposed to have a particular crime in mind, but there's a little room there (intentionally, IMO) for vagueness.

It's not clear from what I've read exactly what they suspected of this guy when they arrested him; there are a variety of things they could probably put down that would fly on paper though, at least enough to haul him in for 24 hours. Suspicion of theft of services, fraud, maybe stalking if one of the people in the restaurant filed a private complaint ahead of time. The police and district attorneys do this for a living -- they're pretty good at finding ways to hold on to people if they think they've done something.

Just from reading the article, it sounds a lot like the people from the restaurant complained to the police about this guy, so they went out there and arrested him, and now they're going to try and figure out whether he broke any laws. It's not really the way that the system is intended to work, but it's how it often does.

Example rules of criminal procedure (These are for AR, but just as an example.)

Re:3 straight months!

[mdwh2]

I'm pretty sure the article said he was sitting in the parking lot, and that is most definitely NOT public property.

If that's the case, then this makes it even more ridiculous. The shop sets up a wireless network for people on their property to use, and then someone is arrested because they didn't buy anything.

The shop have the right to tell him to leave their property, and if he refuses that would be trespass. Did they do this? It is not a crime to be on a shop's property that is open to the public, and to use their service which they make open to these people, just because I don't abide with whatever rules they have set.

Also, the article didn't say anything about whether or not the coffee shop had a TOS for their internet service. To say one doesn't exist is ridiculous. The person who owns the wireless hub and pays for the signal dictates what the rules are.

They get to dictate the TOS, they don't get to dictate the law.

If someone breaks the TOS, you ask them to leave. Breaking a TOS is not a crime.

What the hell are you talking about? No one is infiltrating any freedoms here. If you own the hub, you can set up any rules you want to who uses it. You have no constitutional right to open Wi-Fi signals provided by private businesses.

I think being arrested involves a loss of freedom. And yes, he may have no right to those signals, but the shop provided them to him. The shop has every right to not provide them if they wish.

By this logic, it would be okay for any shop to arrest any customer for trespass without asking them to leave first "because they have no constitutional right to enter an open shop".

Indeed, by this logic, all sorts of things would be illegal. You have no "constitutional right" to post on a private website such as Slashdot - do you say it's okay for you to be arrested if Slashdot wishes that?

Re:3 straight months!

[B'Trey]

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.

Not always. Many default setups will detect an open network and connect to it with no action on the users part.

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.

There are lots of people who intentionally leave connections open for people to use. Take a look here. It isn't unreasonable to assume that an open, unencrypted network is intended for public use. 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.

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.

The ISP's TOS is an agreement between the shop and the ISP. It has nothing to do with me. I'd assume that the TOS are such that it allows the coffeeshop to share it's bandwidth as it sees fit. If not, then is the shop violating those TOS' by allowing customers to access its bandwidth? I'd be willing to wager that there IPS's TOS don't say "You're allowed to share this bandwidth if you want, but only with people who are paying customers of yours."

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.

And I'm growing really tired of people who don't understand basic principles. By all means, it's your bandwidth. Share it or not, as you choose. But if you choose not to, then take steps to make it clear that it's not an open access point. If you don't, then I'm perfectly justified in assuming that it's an intentionally open spot, just like thousands of others all across the US.

Re:3 straight months!

[orderb13]

The correct legal phrasing is "resisting arrest".

Re:3 straight months!

[forkazoo]

I think it may be more complicated than his simply using an open access point. According to the article, this guy had previously been asked by the police to move along and stop using their wireless network. Thus, he didn't just stop his truck and find an open network that seemed to be inviting him in. Rather, he was continuing to use a network that he had been instructed at least once he was not welcome to use. 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.

Yes, I think this is key. If I am driving around, and I happen apon an open access point, then it is reasonable for me to assume I have permission to use it, and it is reasonable for me to check my email and be on my way. Likewise, if I go to an internet address in my web browser, and I happen to connect to an Apache server on port 80, then I can reasonably assume that it is okay for me to read that web page.

Some people may disagree with me about it being reasonable to assume that I have permission to use the open access point. But, I think we can all agree that using it is ambiguous. It isn't clearly disallowed. 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. I absolutely know that I do not have that permission. By using the access point, I am willfully doing something that I know isn't allowed. I'd put it in the same moral category as breaking encryption keys on a closed WAP, or trying to hack into a webpage with password protection. The owner of the resource has clearly done something to make it clear that permission is not granted.

At that point, arresting the belligerent son of a bitch is probably perfectly justified.

Some people may say that the WAP was broadcasting radio waves into his vehicle, so he had the right to do whatever he wants with them. I'll agree to a point, but I don't think that makes it acceptable to use the WAP. Passively monitoring and analysing the radio waves that enter your property is, IMO, reasonable. I wouldn't do it, and I would consider it morally wrong, but I don't think that monitoring unencrypted radio transmissions should be illegal. If you steal a credit card number or something, *that* may well be illegal. But, I think that making it illegal to tune a radio is a horrible precident. Even so, tuning a radio is different from tying up CPU time of somebody else's WAP, and using bandwidth from their network connections. 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.

Re:3 straight months!

[Mister Whirly]

Do some research on US laws. Police can detain you to determine if a crime committed. Hell just watch the TV show COPS - they do it all the time. "I'm not placing you under arrest, I'm just detaining you while we get some information."

Form the Americal Civil Liberties website - (they happen to know a little about police rights) - http://www.aclu.org/police/gen/14528res20040730.ht ml -
. You must show your driver's license and registration when stopped in a car. Otherwise, you don't have to answer any questions if you are detained or arrested, with one important exception. The police may ask for your name if you have been properly detained, and you can be arrested in some states for refusing to give it.

Notice how "detain" and "arrest" are two seperate things? And that you may be detained without being arrested??

Or from another criminal law site - http://www.expertlaw.com/library/criminal/police_s tops.html
Can The Police Stop And Question People Who Are Not Under Arrest?
Yes. The police can stop a person, and ask questions, without "arresting" the person. Upon seeing suspicious activity, the police may perform what is called a "Terry Stop," and may temporarily detain people to request that they identify themselves and to question them about the suspicious activity. The scope of a "Terry Stop" is limited to investigation of the specific suspicious activity, and if the police detain people to question them about additional matters, the stop can turn into an "arrest."

Haven't you ever heard of Guantanomo Bay?? The US is "detainig" hundreds of "suspected terrorist" without arresting a single one of them. Or is that "utter baloney" too?

It's Open

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's open, it's okay to use it.

Don't want strangers to use your AP? Secure it.

Re:It's Open

[WillyMF1]

It's more like putting a TV in your window, turning it on, and getting upset when someone watches it.

Re:It's Open

[Eccles]

Just because it is open, doesn't mean that it is legal to use it.

I sent a connect request. Your system accepted my request. I rang your doorbell, and your electronic doorman answered and let me in. I'm not trespassing.

The protocol was specifically designed with a mechanism to allow people to share without human intervention, or to prevent it if you so desire. If you're too effing stupid to set it up in the latter fashion, you shouldn't be allowed to use it.

Re:It's Open

[alcmaeon]

"It's more like putting a TV in your window, turning it on, and getting upset when someone watches it."

You are exactly right and I bet if someone bothered to research it, there are some old cases from the drive-in movie era that would be instructive. If a person can see a movie screen from his back porch and watch it but not pay for it, is that stealing? If a person can hear the concert from the bar next door, but doesn't buy a beer, is he stealing it? If a person has a satellite dish and watches an unencryped broadcast, is he stealing it? I venture that in all cases the legal answer is "no."

Under the right facts, I bet the law woudl not even consider it stealing to receive an encrypted broadcast.

Re:It's Open

[Robotech_Master]

I held this point of view, too, until a friend pointed out a few things about property law to me. I tried to argue, but I ended up coming around to his point of view.

It's okay to use it until the owner tells you to stop. At that point, it becomes no longer okay to use it.

If they hadn't first told him to stop--had a policeman tell him to stop--then they wouldn't have had much of a case for arresting him. But once they told him to stop and he came back anyway, then it became a matter of trespassing.

Look, if a store is open to the public and people come in and shop, that's fine. But if one of them misbehaves and they tell him they don't want his business anymore and to stay out, he's not entitled to come back in just because the door is open and other people are going in. He's been told to stay out, and if he disobeys that order he's trespassing. And while some establishments do have bouncers, it's not beholden on every establishment to have security, because the law is on their side in this matter.

In this case he was doubly trespassing: using their wireless access after they told him not to, and using their parking lot after they told him not to. Even if they couldn't get him for theft of service, they could still get him for trespassing.

Would they ever have known he was using their service without buying anything if he hadn't been parked so prominently in their parking lot all that time? Say, if he were located in some business next door? Probably not. But he called attention to himself by acting in an obvious and not a little creepy manner. They had every right to tell him to stop. When he didn't stop, he got arrested.

Why bother to call the cops?

[MichaelSmith]

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.

Re:Why bother to call the cops?

[Rob T Firefly]

Too true, and my neighbors with the Linksys could have the courtesy to bring some of that wonderful-smelling beef stew out to their bushes now and then.

Service?

[Balthisar]

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?

What an freaking idiotic crime to get him on

[technoextreme]

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.

911???? WTF?

[brunes69]

Calling 911 when someone is having a heart attack - commendable.

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.

Re:911???? WTF?

[MECC]

I'd like to hear the transcript of that call.

Caller: "Help! Help! Someone's using my wireless access point without my permission!"
Operator: "Are you in danger?"
Caller: "No, but I think they might be downloading music...!"
Operater: "We'll get a swat team there right away."

sex-offender

[Threni]

> 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.)

This country's starting to scare me

[bnocturnal]

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.

Contradictory?

[Mayhem178]

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?

Re:I don't get it

[SpiritGod21]

I am playing music loud on my outdoor speakers, I can't sue my neighbors for listening to it.

That's because the music doesn't belong to you, it belongs to the RIAA.

Which reminds me, the RIAA will be along shortly. Something about you distributing music audibly to your neighbours who have not purchased the songs in question.

Re:I do it too...

[TCM]

I hope you do it over TLS/SSL only with strict cert checks, otherwise you'd be in for a surprise if you did this around my AP. :)

Don't think every open wireless network is managed by the clueless and not monitored and sniffed.

811?

[ChristTrekker]

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.

Analogy time!

[Churla]

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.

takes nothing to become a registered sex offender

[r00t]

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.

Re:Six of one and half a dozen of the other

[Monokeros]

Yes this guy was committing theft and should be charged.

It's theft is it?
Has anyone here ever been to a trade show and taken the free swag without ever buying the product promoted on said swag? Have you accepted free posters & whatnot from an auto show without later buying a Ferrari or Porshe?

Did you ever accepted the free t-shirts that newspapers and other companies hand out on campuses, at sporting events, concerts, etc. all over the country without later purchasing the goods or services they promote?

Then you sir, are a thief. None of that swag was free for those companies. And you should be charged.

Some coffee shops offer free WiFi in an effort to get people into the store spending money. If it fails, that's too bad. When someone uses their free wifi without buying anything it's perfectly ethical and it's perfectly legal.

Other coffee shops charge customers for WiFi. If this shop can't handle the inevitable freeloaders they've certainly got the option to lock down their network--and until they do the freeloaders are doing nothing wrong.

Re:Six of one and half a dozen of the other

[voice_of_all_reason]

but I'm unfamiliar with US law on this.

US law is "he is a sex offender -- he has no rights."

And if you disagree with that, then you are obviously a terrorist.

Re:It's different when you're supposed to use it..

[Dun Malg]

Because it's not given away freely. Its a service provided by the Coffee shop to its paying customers. Complementary only applies to patrons.

"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.