On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 1:15 PM, SJS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The problem is that we have three categories of use here -- the person > who gets on to an open wireless network, checks a few things, and then > quits; the person who spends a moderate amount of time and bandwidth > on open wireless networks for extended periods of time; and finally, a > person who saturates the wireless network with their own traffic, > rendering it unusable to anyone else.
I was recently in Dubai (Middle East) for a couple of weeks. International phone calls are not cheap, and the time difference made it difficult anyway. This is where Internet comes in. But the people I was staying with had no Internet, and I had no car to get to an Internet cafe. They could take me after work hours, but they always wanted to go clubbing or the like. What to do? Well, it turns out that somebody in the apartment building had wireless Internet and it was unsecured. I used it to do email, check my bank account, some web surfing, and otherwise fulfill my communication needs. I spent probably an hour an a half at a time online. I don't know that this person purposely made his or her wireless access point available for use by strangers, but I like to imagine they did. I would have been happy to have provided such a service for such a situation. At the end of my stay I posted a thank you to the local LUG list. Odds are strongly against my benefactor having seen it, of course. But I agree with Stewart on this point. One can't assume that open access points are due to ignorance, and there is some level of use that most people would agree is acceptable. > If I build a road on my property, so that it looks like a public road, > and then people *use* it as a public road, what cause do I have to be > upset? If I object to people using my private road as a public road, > but take no action to distinguish it from a public road, it doesn't > make those people using my road _wrong_ or _bad_. Certainly. I'm a hold hands and sing kumbaya kind of person, politically. We shouldn't assume a cynical view of others. > I agree that taking advantage of the unfortunate is reprehensible. I > don't agree that assuming everyone is incompetent and a victim is a > good idea -- for one, it's insulting. For two, it creates governments. -todd -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
