Confessions of a Wi-Fi Thief

Michelle Shildkret from Time wrote in to tell us about a story about "the ethics of stealing Wi-Fi. Many of us been guilty of the same crime at one point or another — according to the article, 53% of us at least. But how guilty do we really feel? As it is officially a crime to steal wi-fi (Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 47 of the United States Code, which covers anybody who 'intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access')."

Comments

Authorization

[Hatta]

Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 47 of the United States Code, which covers anybody who "intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access"

Open routers have a policy of allowing authorization by default. As such, using an open router is not illegal under this act. If you have to crack anything, then it is illegal. But a simple open router is no different than an open anonymous FTP site, web server, irc server, etc.

Re:Not a thief

[evilandi]

I believe it is a lesser crime to enter without breaking in.

Correct. Burglary is the act of breaking AND entering AND committing theft (logical AND; all three must happen). Theft is the intention to permanently deprive someone of physical property. Since accessing open WiFi does not involve depriving someone of physical property (neither permanent nor temporary), it is neither theft nor burglary.

Fraud covers many crimes such as obtaining goods or services through deception. Since there was no deception, there was no fraud.

A door does not reply with a message granting me access; the fact that it is open, closed, locked, unlocked, slightly ajar or otherwise is legally irrelevant - the important thing with burglary is that you had to break something to gain entry and then take something without permission, with no intention of giving it back.

An open WiFi router does specifically reply with a message granting me permission. The fact that it uses a particular protocol or particular encryption is legally irrelevent - the important thing is that it replied back with a message specifically granting me permission. Users are authorised.

(Declaration of interest: I run a deliberately open WiFi hotspot - albeit heavily firewalled and bandwidth-throttled. )