Three people arrested for using unsecured wireless internet, outdoors!
August 23rd, 2007 by Kavan WolfeToday BBC news reported that a U.K. man was “arrested after being spotted allegedly sitting in a street with a laptop using someone else’s unsecured wireless connection.” Apparently, at least two others have been arrested on similar grounds, those grounds being a UK law called The Communications Act (2003). This act makes it an offense to “(a) dishonestly [obtain] an electronic communications service, and (b) [do] so with intent to avoid payment of a charge applicable to the provision of that service.” It’s basically a law against quietly splicing into your neighbor’s phone line to get free long distance or into your neighbor’s cable so you can watch Mr. Bean for free. The fact that this is a result of corporations manipulating the laws to protect their profits aside,
Does anyone else see the almost comic idiocy of what’s going on here?
The BBC news tried to turn this into an ethical debate: if it’s a victimless crime how can it be wrong. But what about these poor schmucks who are facing fines or jail time for using freely a available service. Never-mind the cute analogies on the BBC page. The fact is,
Using free wifi has nothing to do with The Communications Act!
These guys didn’t dishonestly obtain anything. These guys didn’t lie about who they were - nobody asked! Its like when someone is giving away free movie tickets to parents - it’s not your fault if s/he doesn’t bother to ask if you are a parent, especially if there’s no sign up saying anything about parents. Second, what charge were they dodging? If something is just sitting there on the street, and using it does not seem to create any problems or losses for anyone, it is an accepted assumption in every society I know of that you can go ahead and use it. This is like being pulled over for not paying a toll on a bridge with no toll booths.
This is clearly false arrest or intentional misuse of law. Either way, it’s bullshit. Listen up BBC:
Nevermind whether using unsecured wifi is moral, arresting people under laws they didn’t break is definitely immoral.
So how about giving the crown prosecutor a call and asking him what he’s been smoking?
August 24th, 2007 at 8:15 am
I have always found this topic to be somewhat of a pain and I will probably sound very hypocritical to some, nevertheless, let me put my 2 cents in.
You say that using unsecured wireless connection does not cause anybody any harm and does not create any losses to anybody. Well, I think it does. You might say that the loss is minimal, but the internet provider has just lost at least one customer, if he/she decided to steal the internet signal from a paying customer. The company providing internet service has lost however much it costs per month. If everybody in the neighborhood decides to “share” one unsecured internet connection, then all of a sudden we have a bigger problem (for the internet provider, that is). And just because they are a huge corporation doesn’t mean that we should disregard a loss of one customer.
If you buy your groceries this weekend and you happen to be in the backyard and you forgot to lock your front door, would you like your neighbors to come in and help themselves to your food? Yes, I know, you will tell me that that would be a loss to you, not the grocery store and you would have a good point there. But I also don’t understand your analogy with the greedy non-parent taking free tickets that were meant for parents. If we know the tickets are for parents only, then there has to be a sign of some sort telling us that. Or the person giving them away is screaming at the top of their lungs that the tickets are for parents.
A.
August 30th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Your analogy about someone coming into your house doesn’t make any sense. These people are on the street and the signal is being beamed to them. If I was on the street and someone tossed a sandwich at me and as I started to eat it they came back and told me that I had stole it, nobody would believe them. Now, if I walk into the business and plug into their RJ-45 jacks in the lobby, your analogy would be correct and yes, in that case I would consider it stealing.
August 31st, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Dave, I was making a point that if I pay for something it is mine and I don’t want any unauthorized individuals to use it, whether it is protected by a password, key or other security measures. I am not throwing my wireless connection at other people to use it and it should not be taken just because it is unsecured.
August 31st, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Hi,
One point to note is that in the UK there are quite a lot of broadband ISPs that charge by the amount of data transferred. My own for instance charges me a fee if I exceed a certain number of gigabytes transferred each month, but there are others who actually have a per GB charge. (For instance £2/GB or £3/GB transferred)
While I know nothing about the actual case, there is a distinct possibility that there was a real financial loss to the owner of the access point.
Though obviously it should have been correctly secured. The fact that something should have been locked doesn’t affect the fact that might have been stolen.
Just a thought to think about anyway…
May 20th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
I have to agree with dave…. if the person who is paying for the service dont secure it then what exactly is being stolen….. you could knock on their door and tell them your not happy with them beaming wifi signals through your living room….all it takes is a “click” “click” and its secure… if someone was to crack the wep encription then it is theft in my eyes…. but its like leaving your football in the front garden, the kids from next door borrow it, play with it for a while and return it……what would happed if a public phone box broke down and allowed ppl to make free calls? would it be theft to use it? surely not if the device allowed you access.. my internet is unlimited and i very rearly use it to its limits….i cant say i would be to bothered if someonw wanted to use my conection… the ppl like Angus Hardie who pay per gig should have been advised by the company that provided it to secure it..otherwise i think its their fault for sending the signal to unauthorised computer devices.. all the info that would of been needed from them to do it would of been the router code example “192.168.0.1″ A while ago the goverment sided with mobile networks over contract debt, networks like orange and vodafone…. although this has nothing to do with broadband i think its very similar to how the law has been used here…. communications act?? this law was passed in 2003 or something like that…. its being missused on a massive scale,,, i think if someone was up in court for this offence then i think a good solicitor could get them off….
For the amount of money we pay in taxes, internet should be free for everyone….. i think every street light should be fitted with a device that assigns any device that wishes to conect a uniqe IP just like a router…. i know there are security issues with this,,, but the amout of money virgin media , bt and sky are making out of the avarage joe is way to high…… it probably cost me a month what “nasa” pay to send info to their satalites in a year…. We get ripped off…
If they could charge us for oxigen they would… they would have meters fitted to our faces just for profit…..
June 10th, 2008 at 7:50 am
Doesn’t this just reflect the state of the UK today. Personally, I think that we have too many police deployed in low risk areas, probably too many police anyway and too many social workers. Everyone I know is a social worker! All they do is take kids, who are not bad but bored, on day trips out that costs the UK taxpayers millions. This prevents crime so why have so many police. This country really is falling apart, the sooner we get tougher and get rid of this ridiculous government, the better!