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That defense would only fail because there's a specific federal law that prohibits eavesdropping on telephone signals.

So when you said "all", you meant something less than "all", actually. Right? ;)

The lesson here is simple...if you don't want strangers using your network, you need to tell your computer equipment NOT to route strange signals. Otherwise, you're leaving your rubber ball in the middle of a public park and screaming when strange kids start playing with it.

If I've got my property with me at the park, and some strange kids start playing with it, I have no right to complain? If they monkey with my radio, eat my food, steal my blanket, I have no right to complain? If I park my car in a public lot, do I not have a right to complain when strange kids start playing with it? Interesting...

Regardless, that's not how the law is for rubber balls - they call that theft, when someone takes your property, whether it's in the park or not. Nor does it appear that Florida will make it the law regarding WiFi - it appears that the safe way to treat these things, legally, will be to presume that you cannot make use of the couch simply because the door's unlocked. As I said elsewhere, I neither condemn nor condone this presumption - it could just as easily go the other way, but there's no reason to think it can't go this way as well.

But we're not talking about you sitting next to your rubber ball or lunch. Certainly, if you see someone leeching your signal and you tell them to stop, they have to stop because you have declared the network private, but you're NOT always around to police it. Perhaps my rubber ball explanation wasn't clear enough. If you fire up an unsecured 802.11 network, it's the equivalent of dropping your rubber ball in the middle of a public park and going home. Certainly the rubber ball is still yours, but no reasonable person could EVER support prosecuting some poor sap who came walking though the park and decided to play with it. 802.11 is a completely unregulated public space, and by putting your "ball" into that space you're taking the chance that someone's going to want to play with it. If you don't want that to happen, you need to either guard it or chain it down.

As for the couch analogies that keep popping up on this thread: Nobody has to tresspass to connect to your 802.11 network. 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.

For the record, I have an 802.11 b network with an aerial and amp that give me a range of about 1000 yards. It's unsecured, and I have no problem with neighbors connecting and borrowing my network services (my personal machines are behind a private firewall, isolated from the WLAN).