Posted on 05/31/2007 12:51:13 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
A Michigan man has been fined $400 and given 40 hours of community service for accessing an open wireless Internet connection outside a coffee shop.
Under a little known state law against computer hackers, Sam Peterson II, of Cedar Springs, Mich., faced a felony charge after cops found him on March 27 sitting in front of the Re-Union Street Café in Sparta, Mich., surfing the Web from his brand-new laptop.
Last week, Peterson chose the fine as part of a jail-diversion program.
"I think a lot of people should be shocked, because quite honestly, I still don't understand it myself," Peterson told FOXNews.com "I do not understand how this is illegal."
His troubles began in March, a couple of weeks after he had bought his first laptop computer.
Peterson, a 39-year-old tool maker, volunteer firefighter and secretary of a bagpipe band, wanted to use his 30-minute lunch hour to check e-mails for his bagpipe group.
He got on the Internet by tapping into the local coffee shop's wireless network, but instead of going inside the shop to use the free Wi-Fi offered to paying customers, he chose to remain in his car and piggyback off the network, which he said didn't require a password.
He used the system on his lunch breaks for more than a week, and then the police showed up.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
You post reflects your biased assumptions and mistatements.
The store policy was to charge for use if no purchase was made.
I think this is the best analogy I have heard, and it highlights how absurd the prosecution is in this case.
“You’re clearly not a computer person. A WiFi node can be run in locked mode or in unlocked mode, as this one was, as a customer convenience. If unlocked, the owner can have a notice come up, “For use of our customers only...”. This coffee shop not only did not do that, but did not press charges against this heinous perpetrator. A messianic sphincter DA had to take special pains to spend the taxpayer funds it took to pursue this case.”
I’m enough of a computer person to know exactly what you are talking about.
Now;
A car can be in locked mode or in unlocked mode. Being unlocked does not give automatic rights to any walking by to use it without permission.
Like someone has said the owner could put a sign on the car could giving a passerby those rights, but the owner can take the sign off any time he wants. He has control of the car - because he owns it.
The ISP makes a deal with a subscriber for internet access, and the suscriber becoming the sole owner of internet access he pays for. The suscriber may or man not choose to use wireless distribution of that interent access. How he chooses to control any wireless distribution of the internet access he is paying for does not take away from the fact he is the sole owner of what he has paid for. He can choose to allow “free” access but any using that “free” access do not really have a “right” to it since the “free” access is still the owners private property to limit however he wants.
My gripe is too many people think they have a right to things owned by others. You see it everywhere, even in this thread. That increasing disrespect for private property is not healthy for a free society.
It is stealing but it is questionable. SUppose your neighbor played great rock and roll on his stereo and you were danciing around your yard to his tunes,,would that be theft?
Or your neighbor watered his lawn and you got a bit of his water.
No.
Your point?
My girlfriend was outside washing her car and the neighbor had his radio on loud. I caught her dancing to the music.
Sure am going to miss her since I turned her in to the cops.
What was the outcome of that case?
The defendent lost. You don't beat the entertainment industry in California.
My husband and I used the Dairy Queen for 10 days while camping. The business was not yet open for the summer but still had its WiFi up and running.
I had no idea that we were breaking the law.
By the way, Mc Donalds has a good WiFi service. A customer can sign up for a few hours, by the month, or by the year, but not all Mc Donalds are hooked up yet. We used it on our cross country camping adventure.
It's mentioned in ONE post and that poster cannot provide a link.
Had to ask. :)
It is still private property - which the owner has chosen to share with others.
That he can stop sharing it with others any time he wants proves it is his private property.
My point here is the diminishing respect that is shown towards the private property of another, will you deny that is happening?
Like this guy, the least he could do to show some respect for another sharing their private property with him is buy some coffee.
But no, it’s all take, take, take - use the system to get everything you can in any way you can for all to many people these days.
Did you say something? All I heard was some gibberish.
There are a lot of bagpipe firemen in Michigan.
There are coffee shops who charge for wi-fi. They get you to pay up then you get a password or wep key. This is clearly a service for sale, and if you hack into it, you are stealing. This news article is a bit of a gray area, as you said, like dancing to your neighbor’s stereo. If it is illegal, the fine certainly seems absurd. I’d sentence the guy to buy a large coffee for each day he got email.
It would be interesting to see how many of the folks on here calling it “stealing bandwidth” have actually posted photos on FR linked to another site. My guess is they’re all guilty!
But to fight it in court would have cost him more than the $400. Which is what the cops and prosecutors were counting on
Would you write that if it was your home network signal?
Just excercising the logic>
Did not the shop in question have a sign posted saying "Free Wifi"?
"Free Wifi". Not conditional. FREE. Free means free to all takers. Maybe "free" means something else in your lexicon.
If it is NOT intended to be "free to all takers", then it should be qualified, to wit: "our WiFi services are intended for use by paying customers only."
The owner in this case actually _stated_ that he didn't mind that the guy [who was charged] was piggybacking onto the service. By so stating, he is tacitly conceding that - at least in this instance - permission was granted to use the network.
How can you steal something that is being given away?
How can you steal something that the [somethings] "owner" has said you are free to take?
To go further, the owner's admission that he did not mind the parking lot guy using the service (or, to state it another way, that he did not complain of a "theft of service") grants full permission under the Michigan law, and as such, the prosecutor was totally wrong in pursuing the case.
This guy should have fought the charges. Is this actually supposed to be a _felony_ in Michigan?
If so, do not felonies warrant a jury trial?
If a jury had gotten hold of this, the prosecutor would not only have lost, but might very well have been laughed at by a jury of reasonable people! Certainly more reasonable than he!
- John
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