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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.
So if you forget to lock your car or house door, you are inviting people in as well?
I tried to stand by your window to read my book using your light. The window let me. Does this mean I automatically get the right to use your light? Technically possible != illegal.
I dunno ... but frankly, the reason I close my access point is the same reason I keep my front door locked.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The following is hypothetical, I do not have details of the specific case.
He was passing and his phone went. In the UK, it is illegal to drive while talking on a handheld mobile phone, so like a good citizen, he pulled over and answered the call. After the call he pulled out his laptop to type up some notes from the call while they were still fresh in his mind. Meanwhile Windows helpfully connects to a nearby open wireless AP nearby.
Of course it's more likely that he was parked outside the same property for a couple of hours every night, and the police only acted after they got sick of taking calls from the AP's owner. But like I say, I don't actually know the details here, so like the rest of the posters on Slashdot, I can only speculate.
Hey, did anyone notice the date attached to this 'story'?
Last Updated: Thursday, 28 July 2005, 08:51 GMT 09:51 UK
Was this submitted as a joke, as a troll or what?
Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try. ~Yoda