Posted on 07/07/2005 5:02:32 AM PDT by blackeagle
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Police have arrested a man for using someone else's wireless Internet network in one of the first criminal cases involving this fairly common practice.
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Benjamin Smith III, 41, faces a pretrial hearing this month following his April arrest on charges of unauthorized access to a computer network, a third-degree felony.
Police say Smith admitted using the Wi-Fi signal from the home of Richard Dinon, who had noticed Smith sitting in an SUV outside Dinon's house using a laptop computer.
The practice is so new that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement doesn't even keep statistics, according to the St. Petersburg Times, which reported Smith's arrest this week.
Innocuous use of other people's unsecured Wi-Fi networks is common, though experts say that plenty of illegal use also goes undetected: such as people sneaking on others' networks to traffic in child pornography, steal credit card information and send death threats.
Security experts say people can prevent such access by turning on encryption or requiring passwords, but few bother or are unsure how to do so.
Wi-Fi, short for Wireless Fidelity, has enjoyed prolific growth since 2000. Millions of households have set up wireless home networks that give people like Dinon the ability to use the Web from their backyards but also reach the house next door or down the street.
It's not clear why Smith was using Dinon's network. Prosecutors declined to comment, and a working phone number could not be located for Smith.
Sitting in a condo, watching it rain
Interesting. Thanks for posting.
"My dsl modem went down briefly for some reason and my laptop tried to jump onto my neighbor's network. I practically had to wrestle it to the ground to keep it from logging on. Apparently windows xp is like a cat in heat and will hook up with any wireless network it can sniff."
I have the exact same problem at our condo in florida.
Interesting. I would compare this to walking into an unlocked neighbor's house where the door is wide open. Might be trespassing, but it ain't breaking and entering.
Back when I was using a wireless router, I had the encryption enabled to prevent this kind of thing. Just like we keep our front gate locked.
If you don't want someone using your network, lock it!
Interesting but it told me nothing. Kinda like a Mark Warner speech.
Ewwww!
Agreed.
I have the same problem when I start up my computer - it tries to logon to my neighbors wireless instead of mine. I've had to change the properties of my connections to not logon automatically.
None of the analogies apply. It's more like offering a telephone in a condo and expecting people to NOT use it. I did NOTHING to access the signal. It was simply there.
I think it is the restaurant across the lot. It's a bad signal.
http://www.nga.org/nga/legislativeUpdate/1,1169,C_ISSUE_BRIEF%5ED_7993,00.html
Bump!
I have read articles where some people keep a port open to allow wifi access to such individuals in need.
As for the likening this to going into an unlocked house, that is a bad comparison. The airwaves are owned by the people. If I use a walkie talkie I can expect no privacy for my conversation. If you use a wireless access point/router and do not lock it down, you are emmitting a signal into the public airwaves and inviting others to piggyback onto your network to get to the internet.
Now all that said, using this access to break fraud, pornography or mischief laws is unacceptable and should be punished.
I found this access to be available by accident. I had my laptop in the car and noticed I had a signal so I checked my mail and then got directions. It's unreliable to think you will find access when you want it so it is not part of my routine, but I know it's out there.
"I have the exact same problem at our condo in florida."
I had the same problem in my old office. I kept picking up the signal of a local bank some 3 blocks away.
Bad analogy, because in the one case you lose your car, in the other case you lose nothing.
A better analogy would be a private road with no gate and no sign. If people drive on it, is it trespassing? Does it matter whether the drivers should have known it was a private road?
Sure you do - time, if nothing else. If you and I are splitting my bandwidth, my online activities now take twice as long as they would have otherwise. As well, your garden-variety wardriver is almost certainly not an authorized user of the ISP's resources, and hence is receiving a service he is not entitled to receive.
Almost nobody saturates their bandwidth like that. Unless both the wardriver and you are continuously transferring large files, you're unlikely to notice any performance hit.
As well, your garden-variety wardriver is almost certainly not an authorized user of the ISP's resources, and hence is receiving a service he is not entitled to receive.
That's the real issue. It's similar to the Napster argument: for each person who puts 1000 albums on his laptop, a record company claims a $20,000 loss, because that's what it would have cost to buy all that music at retail prices. But that's not quite right, either, because most of the music available on the internet is clearly stolen, whereas many of the "promiscuous" wireless ports are intended for use by the public, and there's no way to distinguish public from private.
Bump for a later reference/read.
If I'm not home at the time, I'm unlikely to notice that you've come in and spent some time watching my TV - that doesn't make it okay to do, though.
But that's not quite right, either, because most of the music available on the internet is clearly stolen, whereas many of the "promiscuous" wireless ports are intended for use by the public, and there's no way to distinguish public from private.
Err on the side of caution, I suppose. The question is whether he reasonably believed that this WAP was intended to be freely available to the public. Opinions on that will vary, I imagine :)
Correct. Physically entering your home is clearly trespassing.
Now, let's suppose you are at home watching HBO, and someone is watching your big-screen TV from the public sidewalk, and listening to it blare through your bay window, is that OK? He knew he didn't have your permission. He doesn't pay the HBO subscription fee, through which the studio gets royalties. Is he a thief, a trespasser, a loiterer, or merely another libertarian swinging his fist past the tip of your nose?
I'm not trying to win points off you AndrewC-style; I think this really is a grey area, both legally and morally. I'm of two minds as to whether the perp deserves punishment for this.
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