Re: Surfing for Free--

Rob wrote:

> Eric wrote:
>>>I don't know where you live, but most places in the States consider what
>>>you are doing to be illegal. It doesn't matter if your neighbor is
>>>intentionally allowing access, many locales still consider it stealing
>>>and his ISP may also.
> Snip..............................
>> What laws are being broken by someone connecting to an open, even
>> unintentionally open, AP?

"Theft of service", but it would have to be without even implied consent.
You _can't_ steal from someone if they don't object to it. Just because
the authorities "consider" it to be illegal doesn't make it so.

> In the UK
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4721723.stm
> he was prosecuted under the Communications Act and found guilty of
> dishonestly obtaining an electronic communications service
>
>> (Ethically, I agree that someone shouldn't take advantage of an AP simply
>> because it is unintentionally left open.)

In Canada, and I'm pretty certain in the US, it would require the owner of
the open AP to press charges. If sharing his Internet connection was a
violation of his terms of service, the ISP might force him to press charges
to keep his service. Nothing in the cited article indicates whether this
was or was not the case in the UK.
--
derek
.

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