Is "borrowing" wireless wrong?

whoaru99 said:

I'm in full agreement that I can't force it on anyone. What disappoints me is that that point should even come up because it seems that fundamental to a functional society. Don't take what isn't yours. It's really beyond my comprehension why this seems to be a point of contention.

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You're entitled to that opinion, but your also treating it like a hard consumable asset in most of your comparisons (apples etc).

What if I was in my garage with the door open and I was watched a blacked out game on nfl Subday ticket. You walk by on the sidewalk and glance at my tv and see who's playing and the score. Did you just take what wasn't yours? Shouldn't you have averted your eyes?

Here's another one for you, it's 105 out and your walking down the sidewalk. I have my sprinklers on and the water is hitting the sidewalk. Are you contributing to societal decline if you stand on the sidewalk and enjoy the refreshing mist for a few minutes, because the water wasn't yours?

What if you use this forum but don't become a paying member

passedpawn said:

What if you use this forum but don't become a paying member

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Then you miss out on the glory that is the boneyard, duh.

Jukas said:

Then you miss out on the glory that is the boneyard, duh.

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Actually, I keep assuming this thread will get swiped into Debate, and whoaru99 will not have access. That would end it since he's buoying the thing anyway.

Jukas said:

You're entitled to that opinion, but your also treating it like a hard consumable asset in most of your comparisons (apples etc).

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It is, for me, and for more than 64% of broadband subscribers. Admittedly though, I never get close to my cap limit, but I paid for every single one of those 2.147e+12 bits.

Jukas said:

That's a terrible analogy and completely irrelevant to the situation.

I personally would use a neighbors open wifi in a pinch, but I wouldn't use it permanently as my primary source of Internet and I certainly wouldn't use it in a manner that would impact their quality of service.

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I was going to post up a longer response but there's not much point. This is not borrowing, it's theft. It would be borrowing if the OP asked the neighbor with the WAP (unprotected) if he could jump onto it. Since that's not been done, it's theft. Doesn't matter how you try to justify it or claim you're not costing them anything or doing harm. Stealing is still stealing. IMO, it shows how bad this country has gotten when people cannot see that. Or think it's fine since it appears to be a victimless crime. IF you really need to get online that bad, and your home connection is down, and you have no alternative that YOU pay for, then go someplace which advertises 'Free WiFi' for use. Or ask the bloody neighbor if you can suck on their internet pipe.

BTW, I'm done with this thread so

passedpawn said:

What if you use this forum but don't become a paying member

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ZOMG THAT'S A TERRIBLE ANALOGY YOU IGNORANT NAZI PORNOGRAPHER!!!

Ahem, uh, er, excuse me.

Golddiggie said:

This is not borrowing, it's theft. [...] Stealing is still stealing.

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No, it really is not theft nor stealing. It might be illegal and it might be wrong (or it might be both), but it's not nearly as simple as applying a concept that was developed for physical objects to information or its ephemeral representations.

You can't simply write off the victimless nature that many cases have as irrelevant. Well, you can, but that means you're not really thinking about why something is right or wrong, you're just blindly following a rule that you picked up somewhere. In 99.9% or more of these cases, no one is inconvenienced.

Ok, so a few kb of whoaru's cap are used up by a stranger, but unless he actually approaches that cap, it's going to reset in a month or two and there is literally no consequence. What is it that makes this ethically wrong?

Ok, so maybe you are accessing the ISP's network without authorization. This isn't obviously the case---the owner of the wireless AP is authorized, and he's permitting anyone who attempts to connect to his network to forward packets through his authorized connection. It's unclear, legally at least, whether or not you're authorized to do this---it's not at all obvious that you are making unauthorized access. But, again, other than the possibility that you're violating a ToS agreement, what is it that makes this access unethical?

"It just ain't right" is not an argument. Acceptance of it as one, and god forbid a convincing one, is a more troubling sign for the future of a civilization than a rational debate about the ethics of a new technology.

zeg said:

"It just ain't right" is not an argument. Acceptance of it as one, and god forbid a convincing one, is a more troubling sign for the future of a civilization than a rational debate about the ethics of a new technology.

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Bravo. I am not surprised with the major disagreement in this thread, but I am surprised that a few people see it as so "obvious". One can easily make a plausible argument that people who allow their wireless to invade another persons home or property are breaking a law themselves, whether the signal is locked or not. What of the people who still believe wireless signals cause cancer? Too bad for them?

Do I agree with this? Not at all, but I'd be interested in hearing someone defend that position, I wouldn't just say "jeez why is this even an issue? Mankind is a failure obviously!"

If the owness is on me to implement security to protect myself from your piggybacking, if I'm concerned about it, does it not follow that the owness is on you to seek refuge in a Faraday cage to protect yourself from my EMI/RFI, if you are concerned about that?

Should I even bring up the fact that on my old laptop my device would roam and reconnect to the network with the most bars and least restrictions. Sometimes it would hop off my password protected network to jump on some local linksys network and then jump back. That wasnt my choice, it was the way the device was set up to work.

whoaru99 said:

If the owness is on me to implement security to protect myself from your piggybacking, if I'm concerned about it, does it not follow that the owness is on you to seek refuge in a Faraday cage to protect yourself from my EMI/RFI, if you are concerned about that?

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I don't have any opinion on hiding from rampant wi-fi at all. My point was that you see question as obviously and clearly a black and white issue as if those of us who question the matter further are immoral society destroyers.

CreamyGoodness said:

Should I even bring up the fact that on my old laptop my device would roam and reconnect to the network with the most bars and least restrictions. Sometimes it would hop off my password protected network to jump on some local linksys network and then jump back. That wasnt my choice, it was the way the device was set up to work.

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I mentioned that already. It was ignored I believe.

You all will be happy to know Comcrap has restored my Internet. Only took them 2 days to do it. So now i am "legal" again.

whoaru99 said:

If the owness is on me to implement security to protect myself from your piggybacking, if I'm concerned about it, does it not follow that the owness is on you to seek refuge in a Faraday cage to protect yourself from my EMI/RFI, if you are concerned about that?

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Oh good lord..

Airborneguy said:

I mentioned that already. It was ignored I believe.

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I think I commented on it, at least in a draft of something at some point.

Accidental/incidental connection to a wireless network is a very different scenario. That is probably true legally, and certainly true ethically.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that in that case, it is an open and shut ethical question. It's not "wrong" any more than any other accidental act is "wrong." To me, that means it's not wrong at all, but you are responsible for any injuries that result from it.

As a practical matter, that sort of automatic connecting behavior is a terrible configuration, for numerous reasons, but it's not exactly unethical if you're not doing it intentionally.

Jukas said:

Oh good lord..

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Really? I think it's a better rebuttal than Airborneguy was expecting.

zeg said:

As a practical matter, that sort of automatic connecting behavior is a terrible configuration, for numerous reasons, but it's not exactly unethical if you're not doing it intentionally.

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When does it stop becoming unintentional if you know it's happening and can prevent it from happening? If one expects people to be smart enough to secure their wireless I think it's reasonable to expect they're smart enough to turn off the automatic connection function.

whoaru99 said:

Really? I think it's a better rebuttal than Airborneguy was expecting.

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It wasn't. One is an active decision (or lack of) on your part in terms of securing your network. The other is a passive action that is subjected upon someone else, possibly without their awareness.

Of course you could always provide the rebuttal that if they were concerned about the radiation/rf signal saturation it it's responsibility to do the due diligence to see what they're being subjected to. That would beg the natural rebuttal that if you were concerned about people using your wireless it's your responsibility to do the due diligence to make sure your network has at least minimal security preventing random and unauthorized use.

Your basal argument is flawed, it would be like me playing HBO on a street facing tv in my garage and then expecting passerby's to make the moral decision not to look at it because it's my cable subscription, not theirs.

Jukas said:

Of course you could always provide the rebuttal that if they were concerned about the radiation/rf signal saturation it it's responsibility to do the due diligence to see what they're being subjected to. That would beg the natural rebuttal that if you were concerned about people using your wireless it's your responsibility to do the due diligence to make sure your network has at least minimal security preventing random and unauthorized use.

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Which is exactly what I said.

As far as my base argument, that is unchanged; don't take what isn't yours. Simple.

Before I continue, let me ask... is this an actual debate (discussion of opinions and facts to support a thesis) or has it become an invitation for an argument? Because frankly, I dont give a flying arse-buggery against a rolling doughnut about the actual "crime"...

whoaru99 said:

As far as my base argument, that is unchanged; don't take what isn't yours. Simple.

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Ever picked up and kept any denomination of money you found lying on the ground anywhere?

whoaru99 said:

Which is exactly what I said.

As far as my base argument, that is unchanged; don't take what isn't yours. Simple.

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If it's in my house, it's mine.

I'd say this one has been settled.

Since the Op has his internet back. I think all sides are at this point

You should go into the router settings and change their SSID to freeporn download.

Jukas said:

Ever picked up and kept any denomination of money you found lying on the ground anywhere?

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Yup, ~30 year ago I found a partial roll of quarters in a phone booth and took them. I've changed a lot over 30 years.

Airborneguy said:

I'd say this one has been settled.

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I doubt anyone is changing their opinion.

In college I used to logon to the routers of the neighbors that didn't have it protected, do some MAC filtering to allow my IP and my roomates. Then I would change the logon password and make the local ip start with a 10. addy. I had almost a whole floor of internet to myself once. It's so funny to walk down the hall and hear people ***** about how they somehow can no longer log onto their internet even though they can see it and it was still unlocked..Ah the good times.

Jukas said:

Ever picked up and kept any denomination of money you found lying on the ground anywhere?

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This has happened 2 times to me in the last month

1st time a $20 on the ground at the register, picked it up and gave it to the Cashier.

2nd time a $10 outside a Resturant, in the middle of a parking lot. I kept it.

Now that said the second time I was behind my 18 year old son and I was 99% sure it fell from his pocket.. and well I am SURE he owed me.

CoalCracker said:

In college I used to logon to the routers of the neighbors that didn't have it protected, do some MAC filtering to allow my IP and my roomates. Then I would change the logon password and make the local ip start with a 10. addy. I had almost a whole floor of internet to myself once. It's so funny to walk down the hall and hear people ***** about how they somehow can no longer log onto their internet even though they can see it and it was still unlocked..Ah the good times.

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This is textbook asshattery... you realize that, right?

Actually, at that point it ceases being unethical and becomes awesome.

homebrewdad said:

This is textbook asshattery... you realize that, right?

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Like you've never been an asshat? It only lasted a few hours until the word got around on how to reset the router. The asshattery would have been me making money off that by fixing it for them. It was college fun.

CoalCracker said:

In college I used to logon to the routers of the neighbors that didn't have it protected, do some MAC filtering to allow my IP and my roomates. Then I would change the logon password and make the local ip start with a 10. addy. I had almost a whole floor of internet to myself once. It's so funny to walk down the hall and hear people ***** about how they somehow can no longer log onto their internet even though they can see it and it was still unlocked..Ah the good times.

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About 10 years ago while I was doing network administration for an ISP I discovered a lawyer in the building had completely open wifi. To make matters works they were using a completely peer to peer based network with full public read/write access on their file server where they stored all their client case files.

Because there were several law offices in the building I had no idea which one it was so I started sending letters to their laser printer warning them. Eventually they figured out who was sending them and came down to ask me what to do. Turns out they new nothing about IT and had a guy on contract who told them everything was groovy.

I ended up throwing basic wpa protection on their wifi and referred them to a friend who did smb it consulting. Old guy got fired, my friend picked up a new contract and found he basically had to redo their entire network. I ended up getting a gift certificate to a local b&b as a thank you.

I'd say it's not the greatest thing to do, especially if you're doing it and forgoing paying for internet.

In a pinch though, as the OP was, it's not completely wrong. The right thing would be to explain to the neighbor your predicament and ask to borrow their wireless. However if you decide to just hop on till Comcast sort you out then at least be as unobtrusive as possible.

People really need to take more ownership with their tech though. I'm not condoning WiFi hoppers, but if you buy a wireless router and don't take the time to understand how it works and then properly secure it then it's partially your fault for the consequences.