begin quoting Andrew Lentvorski as of Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 05:10:29PM -0700: > SJS wrote: > >begin quoting MattyJ as of Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 05:45:00AM -0700: > >>Not necessarily. The Wifi is a service that I'm paying for, I expect that > >>only I'm going to be using it, not some freeloader across the street. How > >>about another analogy? > > > >I expect that you're going to send me $50 each week. You failing to > >fulfill my expectations constitutes theft! > > The assumption here is that the person with the open AP has an > "unlimited" bandwidth plan. > > If that person were paying by the byte, this would be quite clearly theft.
Or if I thought that person was paying by the byte, and I used that resource regardless. Then there would be intent to cause harm or defraud another. > This has also been established in various other arenas. Notably power > transmission. > > If you set up a gigantic induction coil to consume the emissions from > power lines, that is also theft. That coil creates a load on the line. I've seen pictures of TJ where hundreds wires tap into the power lines, as a lot of people would rather steal the power than pay for it. I figured this hinders the overall development, as it reduces reliability for everyone. I do consider that theft. I'm told that fluorescent tubes ... fluoresce ... when brought in to the vicinity of high-powered transmission lines. If you lived near enough to such a line, and could light up your garage without running wires, I don't think I'd have any problem with you doing so. > The issue is that your use of the resource diminishes the ability of the > original owner to use that resource. Who owns the airwaves? If both you and I are using a wireless network in the same area, we're going to get in each other's way. > This is in contrast to the intellectual property and copyright fields > where your production of a copy in no way diminishes anybody else's > ability to use the original (or any other copy for that matter). So long as "use" doesn't include "sell". -- If the purpose of property is income, then any free use is dumb. Stewart Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
