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I suppose that the only real difference is that you can drive up within
a few hundred feet of any house with a unsecured wireless network, and
get online without anyone knowing (or caring most of the time). Its
more like walking up and getting a drink from your water hose in your
yard than JohnnyO's analogy of using your wife. A sip of water from the
hose or 5 minutes on your wireless router neither one significantly
costs anyone. While it is technically "stealing" it is hard to suggest that it costs the paying subscriber has sustained any monetary loss or any cost of real performance, internet speed, or water pressure. If his files on his PC were shared on his insecure WLAN, and you drove up and snooped/altered/deleted them, then it would seem that there is grounds for vandalism/business interruption, unauthorized information access, etc, etc. If I walk up to your water hose, steal it, cut it, or run several hoses together and fill my 30,000 gallon pool, or stick it in your window and flood your house, then there is a problem, and a real issue, and a crime has been committed, since it legitimately costs you real money to remedy. If I drive near your home, get on the internet, check my email, make a VOIP call, look up a stock price, or whatever, then I don't suspect anyone will complain, or know that I did it. It also won't cost you anything. If I sit out there for hours downloading copyright violations (P2P) or cracking your file server, or send 10,000,000 spam messages getting your IP added to the RBL's, then there is a real issue. An emergency communication plan that includes "war driving" to establish VOIP is akin to a fire department that plans to put out fires with a series of garden hoses and outside hose bibs instead of installing real fire hydrants. As far as the legality of war driving, I am not sure that MOST war driving is "catch-able" "convict-able" or "quantify-able" (in the cost to the customer) or whatever. Its also against the law to sample grapes at the grocery store. I don't do that, but I am sure that people have done that for years. I have never even heard of anyone getting in trouble for it. (war driving or grape sampling). I suppose that if you got greedy with either one, you would get your hand slapped. Pete Davis NoDial.net. Rick Smith wrote: ah yes, but then you would've had a cop knock on the front door, and ASK your permission to use the phone. At which point, you COULD say "NO!" and shut the door on them. Or, you could let them in, and tell them "OK! here it is!"BUT...They wouldn't do the equivalent of walking up to your NID, plugging a butt set in and just dialing away... If I, right now, drove up in front of your house, got out of my truck, walked up to your Network panel that Verizon or the local phone co. put there as their demarcation point, and plugged my butt set in and got dial tone and dialed Hawaii to chat with someone at YOUR expense, I could be found / shot / arrested / sued / what have you. What's different with WiFi ? Nothing but the excuses we allow people to continue to make. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Pete Davis Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2006 3:11 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] recommendation for Client POE integrated radio for 802.11b/g The legality and ethics of using an open access point is questionable, but there is a liability issue as well. In most of the areas that I cover with my network, there is a strong signal with SSID of NoDial. Connecting to this will get you a DHCP address even, without a WEP or other encryption key. Until I know that you have connected and moved your mac address to a list that authorizes your connection, all of your outbound packets will be sent to http://64.123.108.28:80 This brings up a liability issue. If the emergency communication van tech wastes 2 hrs trying to get hold of me, get connected to the internet, or whatever, and $10M of houses burn down, because they couldn't get to the fire department via a hacked VOIP solution, then am I gonna get sued? If they connect to my private home network that I intentionally left open, and my custom made uber-hacker passive/aggressive firewall unleashes a blackops virus that turns their laptops into bricks. Then what? I guess, that by JohnnyO's example, if you come into my open door and try to visit with my wife, and you step on a rake that gives you a brain anurism, I guess that makes me guilty (or not guilty) of manslaughter. I lost score in this ballgame. If the cops are in a pursuit in my neighborhood, and run their squad car off the road breaking the radio, and they want to use my home phone to call the office, I would let them. Not because I HAVE to, but to be a good citizen. If I HAD to, then the 4th amendment just went out the window. pd Jack Unger wrote: |
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