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UK Man Convicted For Wi-Fi Piggybacking
CatrionaMcM tips us to a BBC story reporting that Gregory Straszkiewicz, a UK resident, was fined £500 and sentenced to a conditional discharge for 12 months after being caught using a laptop from a car parked outside somebody else's house. '[H]e was prosecuted under the Communications Act and found guilty of dishonestly obtaining an electronic communications service.' A separate BBC story notes that two other people in England were arrested and cautioned for sharing Wi-Fi uninvited.
How does one figure out if the AP is for public use or just someone who forgot to set it up properly?
So accepting people's invitation to use their Wifi (by not securing it) is a crime...
It is the same as accusing someone of copyright infringement if they listen to their neighbor's CDs because their sound system is too loud...
PS: I still need to RTFA
How long till some kid with a NintendoDS get's arrested for playing Animal Crossing using an AP the software autodetected?
Have a mobile data card handy just in case. Problem solved. "Officer, I'm using my mobile data card. I pulled over since driving while surfing isn't a great idea."
Oh that's a watertight legal opinion. So if I left my keys in the car and someone stole it, I'm responsible for the people they kill? And if I watch someone's TV through their window, that's theft? Or I read my newspaper by the light coming out of their window?
You should all note that the law these people have been accused of breaking is one designed to stop people stealing cable TV using hacked decoders. It was not designed for "theft" of Internet access. There is a defence to the accusation that the service was made public. However, in the recent cases the accused didn't get to make a defence, and probably never received legal advice anyway: they admitted "guilt" to the police, who are neither impartial nor independent, in order to have the case dropped.
But in New Salem (formerly known as Great Britain) anything that could possibly be construed as possibly putting possible children at possible risk by possible pedophiles is treated as a priori evidence of guilt of child abuse.
The second story (the new one) concerned two people who were cautioned for using people's wi-fi broadband internet connections without permission.
Read the article. It was no accidental connection. I am sure, he wouldn't have been arrested and convicted if there was any doubt at all that it was an accidental connection. There are some people who habitually steal network or break into other's system. Some do for fun, most do for some monetary gain and very few do by accident.
The BBC page: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/herefor d/worcs/6565079.stm is quite clear that residents called the police because this man had screened off the windows of his car with cardboard but the light from his laptop was still visible in the early hours of the morning.
Goodness only knows what he could possibly have being doing in there but I guess the local constabulary decided to charge him with a crime that they had evidence of.
So less a story about those brave wardrivers liberating the net from the bourgeoisie and more a story about someone wierdo having a wank.
If that's a slashdot word.
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It (generally) depends on your state's definition of what constitutes a "secured premises." If you enter unallowed a place that meets the definition, you've already committed trespassing, and no one needs to have seen you or said boo. Generally speaking, an area will be considered "secured" if it has a fence, or a lock, or signs saying no trespass. Basically, if it looks like you obviously aren't supposed to be there.
Having said all that, I think you are probably incorrect on your assessment here. I suspect that a jury would come down on the side of it being obvious that you aren't supposed to stroll into the houses of others. Maybe if the door was open and you heard talking inside, you could claim you thought it might be an open party or something. But it'd be a dumb idea anyway because even if you won the criminal case, you'd probably lose the civil one that followed it. The "they have to tell you to leave" line I think is a little over used. It might apply to someone's unfenced lawn, but certainly not their actual house, and probably also not their electronic equipment.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
Per your interpretation, you have just engaged in criminal computer tresspass by using the slashdot web site. You requested permission to use the system (through your browser), that permission was granted by the system (through the web server). Since a piece of equipment cannot grant legal authority to someone, you had no authority to use the system.
There is no technical difference between the protocol exchange in the HTTP & the 801 series, both are automated request/response protocols which grant authorization.