Using free wireless at library described as theft

Anchorage Daily News ^ | 2/24/07 | ANDREW WELLNER

[ErieGeno]

Make sure the judge understands this.

Yep, after explaining the marvel of 8-track recordings to the judge, make sure he understands wireless technology!!!!!!

[blu]

He was using it to run an online game...his parents don't let him use the home computer after 9p.m. (sheesh! he's 21, FGS!)

[Obi-Wandreas]

If you are sitting where you legally have a right to sit (a public street or your home) and are able to connect - you are not invading.

Your computer does not invade their house to look for the network. Their network invades your house and is picked up by your computer. Reception is not broadcasted. The network is. If you broadcast something with no access control, you are giving it away.

We've got our Airport Base Station configured for WPA encryption with a password. I can see 3 other networks from our house. I someone broke into our network, that would be stealing. But if we didn't require a password, we'd be giving it away.

[FReepaholic]

Seems to me the only thing they could charge him with would be trespassing since they had told him to leave the day before.

[goldstategop]

Free wireless networks are open and there's no theft of service. Now if the guy had tried to breach a SECURED witreless network, THAT would be a crime and theft of service. By definition, you can't steal from something that every one has access to. He should take a lawyer and sue the Anchorage police for abuse of authority under color and for illegal arrest and unlawful confiscation of property. He didn't commit any crime and the police had NO business rousting him and seizing his laptop.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Poser]

Correct. If the Library knowingly allows free public wireless access, it's no crime. If they don't, it's theft.

[Richard Kimball]

That's possible, but it's also possible that they suspect he was downloading child porn or using peer to peer to download illegal music, movie files, etc. They might also suspect that he was looking around for downtown businesses that were easy targets for breakin on a Sunday, when there isn't much traffic. Sometimes if the police are suspicious, they'll ask you to move on.

When my oldest daughter was in elementary school, a guy used to park on a motorcycle at the back of the school on the other side of the playground. I thought it was odd, because all the parents pick up their kids at the front of the building. I noticed that when different groups of kids would walk by, he'd roll along beside them in low gear and talk to them. It wasn't illegal, but seemed awfully odd. The third day I saw him, I jotted down his license plate and called the police and told them what he was doing.

I don't know what the police did, but I never saw him again.

This kid may not have been doing anything, but if you park in a place where there's not a logical reason for you to be, especially for extended times, the cops are going to ask questions.

[zook]

Right. If my neighbor doesn't want me to use his wireless, then he ought to put in a password.

[bigfootbob]

This is a serious issue to me. We have a newly elected 26 year old RAT county commissioner who stated on the stand under oath at a election residency hearing in county superior court, (kid lied about where he lived to carpetbag an easy seat), that he had been "piggy-backing" his neighbors wifi signal for 6 months.

He had been challenged after a P.I. followed him for 3 weeks and he never once went to his "apartment" and a utility company representative testified the power usage the kid did not live there. Additionally, after admitting theft of broadband on the stand, he stated he registered to vote at his former high school teachers home with no intention of living there so he could meet the residency regulations. ('06 Berkeley Graduate) Our illustrious RAT county prosecutor won't file charges.

More of these cases we see the better chance the WA State Attorney General will act on the complaint that has been filed.

[Jet Jaguar]

Absolutely.

[diogenes ghost]

Can a one-armed man ride a motorcycle?

[DTogo]

He should have told the cops he was viewing online gay porn. They would have left him alone, lest they be accused of homophobia...

[Wormwood]

While traveling, I've stopped by motels that advertise wireless internet and spent a few minutes checking email and Free Republic's latest threads.

I do that all the time. I've spent more time in parking lots with a laptop than I'm comfortable admitting.

If you don't secure your network, consider your bandwidth mine.

[Oztrich Boy]

You think you can break in and read the books when the library is closed?

[CharlesWayneCT]

I just picked your response to disagree with.

If I leave my bicycle sitting on the curb in front of my house, and you get on it and ride around for an hour and bring it back, you stole it and can be arrested.

The fact that my internet is accessable to you doesn't give you the right to use it. I pay money for my internet access, and when you use it you are using up bandwidth I paid for.

I do agree that the public library, if it allows users to access the wifi, should not be considered stealing.

But I should not have to inconvenience myself with passwords and keys in order to legally keep you out of my stuff.

Of course, I should use those things to protect myself, just as I wouldn't put my bike on the street or leave my house unlocked.

But if I leave my house unlocked, and you come in and sit in my den and watch my TV, you are still breaking and entering.

[conservative in nyc]

If you are sitting where you legally have a right to sit (a public street or your home) and are able to connect - you are not invading.

There have been a few recent cases where charges were brought against someone in a car using someone else's unsecured wireless network. The most famous case happened in St. Petersburg, Florida in 2005, where Benajmin Smith III was arrested and charged with unauthorized access to a computer network. The homeowner spotted him outside his house and called the police. And in 2006, David Kauchak was fined $250 and given one year court supervision for accessing a non-profit organization's open computer network in Winnebago County, Illinois. He was also sitting in his car out on the street. The common theme in these cases is strange men sitting in their cars with a laptop in the middle of the night.

Wardrive at your own risk.

[Jet Jaguar]

Wrong.

You can lock your bike up. You can password protect your internet wireless connection.

[randog]

However, illegal parking, loitering, or other public nuisance seems like a better approach if there is a violation of the local ordinances.

That's what I think the problem is. And if the library doesn't want anyone outside their building using their wireless service then they should quit spraying it outside their building.

[Jet Jaguar]

Well said

[BykrBayb]

You can read any of the material that is legible from the street. Even when they're closed.