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.
I know, but just like the RIAA and the MPAA - they could care less about our rights. even fair use is coming to an end shortly with digital TV (already happening with analog TV).
if the ISP wants a law that will disallow someone from using their own home router, because that router could be used to provide the service to someone else like a neighboor, they will get government to pass such a law.
yes but how do you differentiate that example from someone who sees a $20 bill on the floor and picks it up? are both people thieves?
that's nuts, because if they do something illegal with their internet connection - its your IP address that's getting sent.
What if someone shoves a $20 bill though my window into my house?
Went to meetings, called my sponsor, worked the steps. And most importantly, I didn't pick up -- no matter what.
Oh, you aren't talking about how I stayed clean. You are talking about router lockdowns. Well, can't help you there.
that would probably be classified as a gift.
Or maybe it's more like the equivalent of parking your car in a public lot and going home. We prosecute folks who take cars all day, every day.
As for the couch analogies that keep popping up on this thread: Nobody has to tresspass to connect to your 802.11 network.
Now, now - no smuggled premises. That's precisely the question, whether or not access to a WiFi network that is not specifically authorized constitutes a trespass. It's not relevant to say that nobody has to trespass to use my WAP - the question is whether the use of my WAP is itself a trespass.
If your signal intrudes into a public space like a park, street, or even a neighbors house, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy unless you secure your network. YOUR signal is intruding into THEIR space.
I believe we've already agreed on one notable exception to such a presumption, insofar as your neighbor's phone calls are concerned. Why shouldn't it be treated like a cordless phone?
that classification works for me.
If my daughter found a $20 bill on the floor at her school and she didn't know whose it was, I would expect her to bring it to the office. No matter how she came across it, it isn't hers.
And I don't see how it's possible for someone to accidentally connect to a network. I am not particularly knowledgeable about Wi-Fi or computers in general and even I know which network is ours and which is the neighbor's because of their names.
I also think that anyone out looking for a connection would be knowledgeable enough to figure out which ones were private and which were public.
All of that is immaterial regarding the case in this article anyway. This guy knew exactly what he was doing.
"If I am driving by, I don't know if the connection is private or public."
he was sitting outside the dude's house in his car for crying out loud...this isn't a case of, "oops I thought I was using the Libaries wi-fi."
In the real world, half of all wireless routers declare to the world that they are named NETGEAR, broadcast on the same frequency, and accept all connections. Most people who use wireless at home just set their laptop to connect to a service (any service) called NETGEAR. When they open their laptops, it takes care of all the networking connections for them. They don't know how it works or what to do; all they know is that they don't do much of anything, and it just works.
I'll bet a fair percentage of WiFi users routinely connect through their neighbors' routers, never have the slightest notion of what's really happening, and would have no idea of how to find out or what to do about it. They buy it, they turn it on, it works, and their curiosity ends there; they never notice that their router isn't actually turned on.
for later discussion
By that logic, it's not stealing the car if all I do is pull some donuts in the parking lot.
Congress and the FCC designated certain parts of the radio spectrum as unregulated public domain, and then placed special protections on one specific use of that spectrum....But PLEASE don't try to paint people as criminals simply because they're participating in a perfectly legal activity as defined by every applicable federal law.
Congress has nothing to do with it. Wired or wireless, it's perfectly appropriate for the state of Florida to decide what constitutes electronic trespass or unauthorized use of computers within its borders. The fact that the access was done over the airwaves rather than via a couple of alligator clips on the junction box is wholly irrelevant. The mere fact that the sending and receiving of data over a 2.4 GHz wireless connection is legal doesn't magically make everything you do with that spectrum legal - following along with the argument you're developing, stealing credit card numbers, committing identity theft, and transmitting child pornography must all become legal, so long as you use a wireless connection to do it. After all, Congress said that 2.4 GHz is an unregulated Wild West zone, where no law applies, right?
I think not.
Unregulated public spectrum is unregulated and public for a reason, and it's a bit hypocritical to make use of that resource and then whine because other members of the public are also making use of it.
The issue at hand is not that other people are simply using it, but that they are using the resources of others to do so. You want wireless? Go buy your own.
the MAC doesn't show up at the remote location - in any case, the only MAC the network is seeing, is the MAC for your router - its acting as a proxy for all the IPs on your internal network. if your DSL is like mine, you had to configure your router to "spoof" the MAC you had when you just had your single PC on the service - that's the only MAC for which you ISP will provide an address for.
there is no chain of custody for the logs on your router - you could edit them.
turn your security on.
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