Canadian war driver busted
p2p news / p2pnet: New York Times columnist Jeffrey L. Seglin thinks it’s OK to hook into an unsecured Wi-Fi connection.
The responsibility for, "deciding whether others should be able to tap into a given access belongs squarely on the shoulders of those setting up the original connection," he wrote recently
But cops in Ontario, Canada, don’t agree. The OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) charged a 25-year-old man last week under Section 326 of the Criminal Code – ‘Theft of Communications’," says CFRA News.
The war driver, "was using his lap top computer to steal a wireless Internet connection in Morrisburg," says the story.
However, Ottawa Police hi-tech crimes sleuth Marty DomPierre does agree with Seglin on one thing:
"DomPierre says if you are using a wireless network computer, you should install a protection system on the network," adds CFRA News.
Also See:
unsecured Wi-Fi – Using someone else’s Wi-Fi, February 27, 2006
CFRA News – Cops Urge Computer Users to Protect Wireless Lap Tops, March 7, 2005
March 8th, 2006 at 10:22 pm
Heaps of people leave their connections open for other people to use freely. How do you know whether you’re “stealing” or using a free pipe?
Anyway, if the person with the unsecured connection is too stupid to lock it up, they shouldn’t complain when someone uses it. If it’s that damned important, they’d spend 20 seconds changing the connection name from “default” to something else.
March 8th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
Just brought my laptop home as usual, after being on a wireless network at work.
My laptop connected to a neighbour’s open network, not mine (also open), and checked my mail before I had a chance to switch over.
There are three open wireless networks currently.
Sheesh. Should the police charge my machine for inadvertently connecting to a neighbour’s signal?
I tried to secure my own network, but the complained it didn’t work, and so I opened it up and now there are no complaints. I’ve been meaning to figure out how, but the Linksys instructions and CD are for Windows, not Macs.
I’ll eventually get around to troubleshooting the situation, but “theft of communications” only makes sense if my neighbours were hacking this post or my email.
I’m glad we can share each other’s signals so we can improve connectivity in our neighborhood. Just plain friendly and cooperative IMHO.
March 10th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
More discussion on this at:
http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com/2006/02/surfing-on-borrowed-time.html