Should browsing on an unsecured wireless network become legal?

[pshrynk]

I just wish that the instructions for encryption were in English, or at least had a translation. Sort of a walk-through. I want to secure my wi-fi, but have no idea how to do it.

[RWood]

Originally Posted by pshrynk

I just wish that the instructions for encryption were in English, or at least had a translation. Sort of a walk-through. I want to secure my wi-fi, but have no idea how to do it.

I am told that the best security is to unplug everything (including the power connection) from the wireless.

[UncleDuke]

one down at the doughnut shoppe and another inthe next condo

[sherman]

Here in New Zealand, not many people would intentionally leave their Wireless network unsecured. Those that do leave their networks unsecured are usually those who don't know any better...

The reason is that unlike the lucky buggers in the US (and some other countries) we have very stringent data caps here (either that or we pay-per-meg/gig).

It's not uncommon for a NZ family to have a cap of 10GB/month or less, which counts against downloads AND uploads. High end plans usually have 20GB-40GB/month caps depending on the ISP.

Hence no one in their right mind wants "Rangi" to connect to their unsecured wireless network and use their precious data allowance...

PS: I don't think it is legal to use another persons wireless network here in NZ, although I'm not certain of this.

PPS: This also explains why NZ'ers aren't terribly sympathetic to those poor moaning Comcast users getting their internet capped at 250GB/month (or whatever the cap was)

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Obviously, if every stranger who came into your house did so just to use the bathroom, there'd be no reason to discuss the point. If whatever they were doing was hurting or robbing someone, however, it would be a different matter. How would you react, for instance, if you knew people were using your WiFi network to download child porn, or to coordinate a robbery or attack on your neighbor?

About the same if I found out they were using my bathroom to flush their drugs or aborted fetuses. Upset to say the least. However, if I had a guest in my house who was using my internet connection to download porn or attack a neighbor, or was using the bathroom for illegal purposes, it would be much the same.

Of course, I am in an unusual situation in that no one in their right mind is going to drive out into the middle of nowhere just to get a free wifi connection. They would spend more on gas getting here than they would paying for the connection. I think it is more of a problem in areas where there is a higher concentration of people.

It is sad to hear of people who would knowingly jam up a neighbor's paid for connection by piggybacking on it and then dare the neighbor to stop them. In this small valley, we tend to be protective of our neighbors and would never think about doing something like that to them. I'll give you an example ... the other day, I noticed that one of my neighbor's garage door was open .. in the middle of the day, when no one should be there. So, I walked over there, checked to see if the door from the garage into the house was open (it was), so I walked in to see if anyone was home (no one was). Next step was to call the neighbor at work and find out if the garage door was supposed to be open or not .... and then closed it when I found out it wasn't.

I mean ... here, I've got keys to nearly all the houses around me. They all have my key. Anyone who drives all the way out here is either going to be a friend or relative of someone who lives here, or they are contractors doing work for them (and who have probably done work for me). It's just a different world view .... very very different from when I was living in an urban setting.

Oh, and not with regard to you post, but another .... it is not a violation of my terms of service to allow other people to use my internet connection. Where there might be a problem would be, as Steve noted, if someone used my connection for an illegal purpose. And, as noted, because I live out in the middle of freaking nowhere, that's just not that likely to happen.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by sherman

The reason is that unlike the lucky buggers in the US (and some other countries) we have very stringent data caps here (either that or we pay-per-meg/gig).

It's not uncommon for a NZ family to have a cap of 10GB/month or less, which counts against downloads AND uploads. High end plans usually have 20GB-40GB/month caps depending on the ISP.

Same here in the UK. Typical caps here are in the range of 10-50GB/month. There are essentially no "unlimited" internet services left in the UK, simply because it only takes a tiny percentage of people trying to "download the entire internet" to dramatically downgrade performance for everybody. Eg, when my own ISP introduced a "fair use policy" they said at the time that 1% of the users were using 80% of the bandwidth.

[JSWolf]

We did a browse of what wifi we could see from here the other day and we saw that all the wifi we could possibly access were secure in some way. Not that many people leave their wifi access open like they used to.

[Azayzel]

Looks like I'm in the minority in this one. I believe that using someone else's wifi network, unsecured or not, without permission is essentially trespassing. To me, it would be the same as walking down the street testing for unlocked doors and when one is found you walk in and use their TV or telephone to do your business. I don't think people intentionally leave their networks unsecured, I believe it's more a matter of education and understanding the implications of not securing your AP. I would venture to guess that 80-85% of all wifi users have no clue about wireless security so they either a) see no need for it, or b) feel it's too complicated to set up.

No if all wifi AP's displayed a banner, that the user could modify, for all previously unregistered MAC addresses, people would know for a fact that they could jump on someone's wireless AP. Alternatively, if wifi manufacturers preconfigured all AP's to not broadcast their SID we really wouldn't have to worry about casual users "borrowing" their neighbors AP's and all users caught "borrowing an AP then would be liable for trespass as they would have had to have had some means for obtaining the SSID of the AP unless the owner explicitly gave it to them.

Sorry, but that's my opinion and no my AP is as locked down as it can be without my house being in a Faraday Cage.

[ProDigit]

Originally Posted by sherman

PPS: This also explains why NZ'ers aren't terribly sympathetic to those poor moaning Comcast users getting their internet capped at 250GB/month (or whatever the cap was)

I just came to live here in USA, after living in Belgium. There I had a 1GB monthly cap. (light package).
Normal internet there is more expensive and gives you 15GB highband (you could download upto 35GB highband if you wanted to, but I didn't need that amount of data, so I preferred the smaller account to save some $$$.
It was a 24hours highband connection, so as soon as the first day of the month appeared my connection was online downloading about 7GB the first 24 hours.
Then the lowband was on for the rest of the month, mainly downloading TV episodes.
When I 'bought' an additional 500MB for 3euro's, I could download an additional 3GB before they capped me to lowband.
That way I had a monthly traffic of about 10 to 15GB lowband connection included.
All above 1,5GB was actually 'free', but I'd leave my pc on 24/7.

Now that I'm here I'm pretty content with a 240GB cap.
I last 2 months I had less than 15GB total transfer data (up and down), and know that my wife loves youtube, and uploading pictures to her flickr account...

I understand that a cap sometimes is necessary.
I once did a test on my connection back in Belgium, and downloaded as many TV series as I could watch in a month, via bittorrent.
I set my down/up to 100/20 ratio. My total transfert was 120GB that month, and I literally spend loads of days watching avi and wmv's.

I can't understand someone that could actually be doing things twice like this nearly every month of the year...
I wouldn't know what to do with all that data...

However 10GB is just too little.
In sweden internet is still cap-less as I heard...
I think the average internet should have at least a 35GB cap or more to comfortably be on the internet.
I mean, I'm also a linux noob, and downloading a large linux could easely cost me 4GB of my bandwidth...

So, I feel pitty on you; I know the terror of the 10GB cap!

[ProDigit]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

About the same if I found out they were using my bathroom to flush their drugs or aborted fetuses. Upset to say the least. However, if I had a guest in my house who was using my internet connection to download porn or attack a neighbor, or was using the bathroom for illegal purposes, it would be much the same.

Of course, I am in an unusual situation in that no one in their right mind is going to drive out into the middle of nowhere just to get a free wifi connection. They would spend more on gas getting here than they would paying for the connection. I think it is more of a problem in areas where there is a higher concentration of people.

It is sad to hear of people who would knowingly jam up a neighbor's paid for connection by piggybacking on it and then dare the neighbor to stop them. In this small valley, we tend to be protective of our neighbors and would never think about doing something like that to them. I'll give you an example ... the other day, I noticed that one of my neighbor's garage door was open .. in the middle of the day, when no one should be there. So, I walked over there, checked to see if the door from the garage into the house was open (it was), so I walked in to see if anyone was home (no one was). Next step was to call the neighbor at work and find out if the garage door was supposed to be open or not .... and then closed it when I found out it wasn't.

I mean ... here, I've got keys to nearly all the houses around me. They all have my key. Anyone who drives all the way out here is either going to be a friend or relative of someone who lives here, or they are contractors doing work for them (and who have probably done work for me). It's just a different world view .... very very different from when I was living in an urban setting.

Oh, and not with regard to you post, but another .... it is not a violation of my terms of service to allow other people to use my internet connection. Where there might be a problem would be, as Steve noted, if someone used my connection for an illegal purpose. And, as noted, because I live out in the middle of freaking nowhere, that's just not that likely to happen.

I think that's one of the major differences between town or village life, and city life.
Mostly in cities people hardly know their own neighbors.
I was raised in a town, and I knew the people upto about 10 houses to the left and 10 to the right of me, and an additional few houses in the street where my friends used to live.

Times have changed and my 'town' from 1980-1990 now is a city in 2008, with lots new people moving in and moving out.

[RickyMaveety]

Oh well, if I had a cap on my usage, I might feel differently about leaving my system open to public usage. Scratch that ... I would definitely feel differently.

If the public piggybacked on my system and caused me to incur additional charges as a result, then I would absolutely feel robbed. No question.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

In sweden internet is still cap-less as I heard...

Yes, it is and cost 15-40 Euro per month depending of the band width you want to have.

Bad performance when other are using the WiFi can probably be solved by using traffic shaping so you can leave it open but with reduced bandwidth for "guests".

Since it is so cheap getting your own connection I do not think is is a problem at all in Sweden with constant uses from neighbours.

[sherman]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

However 10GB is just too little.
In sweden internet is still cap-less as I heard...
I think the average internet should have at least a 35GB cap or more to comfortably be on the internet.
I mean, I'm also a linux noob, and downloading a large linux could easely cost me 4GB of my bandwidth...

So, I feel pitty on you; I know the terror of the 10GB cap!

For me personally, it isn't such an issue as I don't have a cap as such. I simply pay 0.01c/MB on top of a base monthly price, although if I wanted to I can "cap" my usage and then get slowed down for the rest of the month. My ISP is extremely flexible with it's plans and pricing.
I personally use no more than 20GB per month, although more typical usage is between 8GB and 15GB per month.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Oh well, if I had a cap on my usage, I might feel differently about leaving my system open to public usage. Scratch that ... I would definitely feel differently.

If the public piggybacked on my system and caused me to incur additional charges as a result, then I would absolutely feel robbed. No question.

"I don't care... wait, it's costing me what? In that case, I care!"

As is often the case, when the issue does not directly impact a person, they are okay to allow things to be open. But when there is a direct impact on them (higher price, reduced usage, possible liability), they prefer things to be closed. Unless, of course, they were the ones taking advantage of the open system in the first place.

This doesn't address legality in terms of right and wrong, but in terms of advantage vs disadvantage. The question is: Which terms should be applied to this issue? Is this a property question, or a morality question?

[thinker77]

As a new user here at mobileread, I feel I need to again post my feelings on wifi sharing as I have done elsewhere. I am in favor of sharing an open connection, but feel it is necessary to impose limitations to maintain a degree of control and prevent abuse.

I was an early adopter of and still share my broadband using fon. Using a fon router, lets me (and others I have authorized) have secure access to all of my bandwidth, but also transmits another, unsecured, signal using a controllable portion of my bandwidth to "guests". The guests must register or log in to gain access to a connection to most sites, so I suppose this is not completely unsecured. Those guests who also share internet using fon are permitted full use of the limited bandwidth at no cost. Other guests are allowed access to my connection at no cost for 15 minutes daily. If they wish to use the connection for a longer period they can join fon, purchasing the right to use the connection of those sharing internet with fon at a very reasonable price. The net revenue is shared by fon 50/50 with the operator of the fon spot where the sale was initiated.

I have had only a couple users who paid to use the open connection, but had quite a few more who shared their own wifi through fon, or who were only using the daily sample 15 minute period. It has worked well for me since I have been able to gain "free" wifi access in six countries (France, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain, UK, and US) while traveling.

I'm neither an employee of fon, nor do I receive any other benefit from them than those received by any other member. If you are interested after you read the fon website and send me an email or pm, I can send you a referral email that will save you a bit (at least $10 when I last checked) if buying a router, a higher gain antenna, or other related things from them. Please don't ask unless you think you will use it as I can send only a few referrals.