Quote:
Originally Posted by TheJohnNewton
I guess I haven't been paying attention to the law in the US. Many years ago when wireless started appearing in homes in the US there were people who would purposely not protect their wifi in the spirit of sharing, there were sites that would list all open networks so people could find access. My understanding at the time was if it's open and you only use it to access the internet it was fine. It was only a crime it you used it to access other peoples computers. I guess the laws have changed or I misunderstood them before. It makes me wonder what happened to the "Open network" movement from years past.
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Evolution, primarily.
Now we do almost everything online and personally-identifiable information has value to others (at our expense). Many people store their entire lives on their machines. Even if the only access is to the router/gateway, a criminal can use it as a proxy IP to do all sorts of wonderful things and leave the account holder to possibly take responsibility for crimes he/she didn't commit.