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Originally posted by: RiskyChris
The neighbor is broadcasting a public signal. It's not illegal to connect to a public access point.
If he doesn't want people using it, he should use more security (i.e. ANY AT ALL).
You're saying two different things here.
First of all, by default, all wireless signals are projected into - for all intents and purposes - the public. Since it's more or less like a radio wave and dissipates out radially from the router, it's going to reach areas/people/devices that we can't control. It's not connecting directly to, say, your Wii/laptop/etc. It just puts the signal out there and lets devices latch onto it.
Now, if this is truly a public access point, then we've got no problem here. But by saying "he should use more security" makes me think the guy running it is just a typical clueless wireless owner, and he hasn't gone through the trouble of setting up WEP or WPA.
That said, while I am unsure about the legalities (every time this argument/discussion appears on the 'net, there's a volley of different opinions), it's generally accepted that you don't connect to an open wireless network UNLESS it is thought of as completely open and public (i.e., Starbucks) for "reasons," but I can't say criminal because, again, I'm not sure it constitutes criminal behavior.
The point to all of this is that it isn't a good argument/defense to say "well it's his fault for not putting security on it." That's like saying - albiet exaggerated - that "well it's totally their fault for getting robbed, because they didn't lock the door."
Generally the idea here is that an ISP could find a user recording large amounts of bandwidth and realize that their connection is getting abused by more than one person/account, at which point they can hit the person with termination or fees if it violates a TOS/EULA.
Summing up is this - you shouldn't connect to someone's network unless they've given you permission OR if it absolutely is public, because "they should secure it" makes it sound like it's not public. You're probably not going to face any consequences at all (barring the small chance you could get hacked, but I have no faith in the average computer user being able to do that), but the fact remains that you shouldn't do it.
Again, I dunno if this is considered criminal/misdemeanor/etc yet. Someone else would have to clarify that.
Topic: 3rd party USB ethernet adapters (Read 4903 times)
