Using the neighbour's wireless
- Thread starter Syzygys
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I agree. I looked in the ban list, and 'not learning' being the reason, kinda worries me.
So I looked in his recent posts and I can't find the reason yet. So then I figured it was because this may be seen as illegal behavior.
But then we have that thread of tHE guy wanting to know how to turn off a cell phone without the person knowing and how to track a cell phone.
I'M SO CONFUSED!!! :bawl:
The reason for the banning wasn't anything to do with threads in Computer Science & Culture.
You have to understand sometimes we can divulge what the reason is, but what I can say is not everybody has agreed with it. So it's possible they might return.
You have to understand sometimes we can divulge what the reason is, but what I can say is not everybody has agreed with it. So it's possible they might return.
Back to wireless networks...
AFAIK, it's not illegal to connect to an unsecured wireless network. From what I understand the airwaves are "public property". My personal feeling...it's like your neighbor throwing fistfuls of dollar bills over their fence. It would not be illegal for you to walk over and pick up the money off the street, or off your lawn and keep it...because they have made that money "publicly available" on your property. Ethically, you might be inclined to return the money, and inform them on how to secure their money a little better. Or there are some that would keep the money, figuring if they're stupid enough to throw their money around, they deserve to lose it.
I personally see no problem using a unsecured network that is broadcast onto your property. Every wireless router installation program asks if you want to setup a password. If a person chooses not to secure their network, they are basically asking for others to use it.
AFAIK, it's not illegal to connect to an unsecured wireless network. From what I understand the airwaves are "public property". My personal feeling...it's like your neighbor throwing fistfuls of dollar bills over their fence. It would not be illegal for you to walk over and pick up the money off the street, or off your lawn and keep it...because they have made that money "publicly available" on your property. Ethically, you might be inclined to return the money, and inform them on how to secure their money a little better. Or there are some that would keep the money, figuring if they're stupid enough to throw their money around, they deserve to lose it.
I personally see no problem using a unsecured network that is broadcast onto your property. Every wireless router installation program asks if you want to setup a password. If a person chooses not to secure their network, they are basically asking for others to use it.
About two years ago I was in my backyard around ten p.m. enjoying a smoke when this cat in a little Subaru slows down and stops across from my driveway, on the wrong side of the street. He couldn't see me, so I start watching him, and he gets some sort of homemade antenna and fishes it out the window of his car.
At that time, I was only vaguely familiar with the concept of "War Driving", with regards to wifi, but I knew that the only way to get my signal is to get behind my house because of the location of my router.
I let him sit there for a few minutes, until I was sure he had a connection (at that time I was running unencrypted), and then I just casually strolled down my driveway to the side of his car. He was so intently surfing he didn't notice me in the darkness. So I slapped his back window with my hand, hard.
Poor bastard....damn near wrecked his car trying to get off my block.
At that time, I was only vaguely familiar with the concept of "War Driving", with regards to wifi, but I knew that the only way to get my signal is to get behind my house because of the location of my router.
I let him sit there for a few minutes, until I was sure he had a connection (at that time I was running unencrypted), and then I just casually strolled down my driveway to the side of his car. He was so intently surfing he didn't notice me in the darkness. So I slapped his back window with my hand, hard.
Poor bastard....damn near wrecked his car trying to get off my block.
The airwaves certainly aren't public, there are various frequencies that are restricted and should you be found on them, you would end up with a severe ticking off.
In short it's not so much about the Ethics of whether or not you should use a neighbours unsecure network, but more about the fact that it's called 'unsecure' for a reason, it doesn't have any security. Which basically means that your neighbour could be honeypotting like I said previously, or some Skript kiddie a bit further up the way knows how to manipulate the network to steal things from your computer making it look like your neighbour.
Like I also previously mentioned if they are on a tariff where they pay based upon bandwidth used, then you accessing through their network is indeed theft.
Pronatalist
Registered Senior Member
But bandwidth is practically free, thanks to the development of fiber optics.
Bandwidth isn't free, Every time you download something from the internet it's had to run through a number of proxy systems, some will cache with hard-drives which consume energy and have physical wear and tear while other systems will use RAM which consumes energy and too can suffer from heat stress.
While equipment used has to be maintained there will always be a price.
Quite simple it's illegal to steal bandwidth, however this doesn't mean that systems can't be put in place to be free. This has been down as wifi hot spots in Fastfood Restaurants in the US and has been trialled in the UK in a number of City centres (Making the whole city linked with free wireless)
Running a public Wireless system however requires checking out the finer details of the law in regards to your location, since you'll be surprised what you are suppose to deal with other than just having an unsecure wireless for people to plug into. (i.e. Logging, if people logged their networks properly, most of the spammers that fill your email inboxes would of been long ago caught)
Pronatalist
Registered Senior Member
Title: So bandwidth prices are jacked up ridiculously high, for, we don't know why, just like the gasoline prices?
Well if I could, I would consider putting a toll booth right on my street. Want to drive by my home? Pay me a toll. Surely some of those morons out there, are driving to someplace unimportant, when they ought to be boycotting the greedy oil corporations monopoly for arbitrarily restricting supply so that they can jack up gasoline prices.
But for some strange reason, the government probably would not let me set up a toll booth on my street. So why do they let corporations seek to clog up the internet with their toll booths? Why is it so expensive to get that "last few feet" to our homes, high-speed internet connection? Fiber optics have long been invented, and are working. So why can't we get a fiber optic data line, with computer data TV and who knows what other data, run right into our homes, without having to pay an outragious price?
According to the show on PBS, other countries are passing us by, while the U.S. languishes with the slowest internet around, because Congress is in the pocket of the evil, greedy corporations.
Well if I could, I would consider putting a toll booth right on my street. Want to drive by my home? Pay me a toll. Surely some of those morons out there, are driving to someplace unimportant, when they ought to be boycotting the greedy oil corporations monopoly for arbitrarily restricting supply so that they can jack up gasoline prices.
But for some strange reason, the government probably would not let me set up a toll booth on my street. So why do they let corporations seek to clog up the internet with their toll booths? Why is it so expensive to get that "last few feet" to our homes, high-speed internet connection? Fiber optics have long been invented, and are working. So why can't we get a fiber optic data line, with computer data TV and who knows what other data, run right into our homes, without having to pay an outragious price?
According to the show on PBS, other countries are passing us by, while the U.S. languishes with the slowest internet around, because Congress is in the pocket of the evil, greedy corporations.
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Everything costs, For instance to have a cable laid it requires people to dig up your neighbourhood. This means of course gaining permission from the various bureaucratic offices in advance of actually putting workman on it, which means there is the cost of administration applied too.
Some countries never had decent phonelines laid down, so with the advent of Fibre rather than replacing a system that already exists, they've managed to jump straight in with high quality networks. For the rest of the world it takes more time since they already had miles upon miles of copper cabling that housed most telecommunications.
In the UK for instance Cable isn't the same as the Phone company, yes the cable companies can offer phones but the actual cabling is independently laid. In fact prior to the Millennium the main phone company wasn't so interested in laying optics as opposed to trying to work out how to maximise the efficiency of the copper cabling it already had. (Maximum profit for little effort/resources)
There's always people that want something for nothing and tend not to realise that there is always a cost. Admittedly you can concern yourself with the fact that some self-important CEO's/Directors do take wages that are far beyond any mans needs, however the companies they usually control hire people and to keep food on the table and a roof over a their heads requires earning money, which doesn't just come by freely.
Some countries never had decent phonelines laid down, so with the advent of Fibre rather than replacing a system that already exists, they've managed to jump straight in with high quality networks. For the rest of the world it takes more time since they already had miles upon miles of copper cabling that housed most telecommunications.
In the UK for instance Cable isn't the same as the Phone company, yes the cable companies can offer phones but the actual cabling is independently laid. In fact prior to the Millennium the main phone company wasn't so interested in laying optics as opposed to trying to work out how to maximise the efficiency of the copper cabling it already had. (Maximum profit for little effort/resources)
There's always people that want something for nothing and tend not to realise that there is always a cost. Admittedly you can concern yourself with the fact that some self-important CEO's/Directors do take wages that are far beyond any mans needs, however the companies they usually control hire people and to keep food on the table and a roof over a their heads requires earning money, which doesn't just come by freely.
Pronatalist
Registered Senior Member
Title: Do you not know, how corporations are conspiring to bleed us dry, all the while, retarding our technology and much-needed wage "cost-of-living" and "merit"/age/possible-retirement advancements?
Gee, do I have to get into all the details of this program on PBS that infuriated me? Some water utility in some town wanted to run fiber optics, but the corporate telephone monopoly companies, countered or sued or something to prevent it, claiming "unfair competition." So what that means, is that they don't want to bother to update their antiquated, slow 56K dial-up, voice call network to meet modern data needs, nor do they want to let anybody else do it either. And yet they are charging us plenty in monthly fees, to have run fiber optics already.
And please don't give me that nonsense about how asking permission significantly runs up the costs. That's far more an issue why homeowners shouldn't have to get permits and inspections to do home improvements, because the hassle can be nearly as large as the pidly little project, and it's the homeowner that owns the home, not the government. In the case of running fiber optics, do you think they get the okays to do just one little ol' house at a time? No, they could get okays to do entire neighborhoods, if not the entire city.
And the problem isn't just self-important CEO inordinantly high amounts of pay, but that CEOs are like these unaccountable "kings" that can't be fired, because they gain control of too much of the actually-voting stock, of a company that they didn't even build to begin with. So their corporate "greed" incentive, is to rape the resources of the company, and then when it predictably goes belly up after rampant layoffs and customer dissatisfaction at poor service, they go find another corporation to rape and more underpaid employees to exploit.
I am coming to the conclusion that corporations may represent among the most undemocratic of institutions, denying the actual owners any say, as most stockholders can't go to places far away and inconvenient to vote their stock, denying any say to employees, denying much say to customers, and ruled by these power-mad, self-aborbed, greedy, rich elites who don't even live in the real world of the working poor that they employ. Corporations destabilize the economy, by greedily and hastily expanding into every niche they can find where they think they might make a slight profit (i.e. low wages always Wal-Mart), and then at the first sign the economy might be going soft, they bail out with layoffs and store/plant closures that would have been quite unnecessary, if they hadn't racked up the debt hastily growing too fast to devour the entire planet, if only the other greedy, not-merged-together corporations would just let them.
Gee, do I have to get into all the details of this program on PBS that infuriated me? Some water utility in some town wanted to run fiber optics, but the corporate telephone monopoly companies, countered or sued or something to prevent it, claiming "unfair competition." So what that means, is that they don't want to bother to update their antiquated, slow 56K dial-up, voice call network to meet modern data needs, nor do they want to let anybody else do it either. And yet they are charging us plenty in monthly fees, to have run fiber optics already.
And please don't give me that nonsense about how asking permission significantly runs up the costs. That's far more an issue why homeowners shouldn't have to get permits and inspections to do home improvements, because the hassle can be nearly as large as the pidly little project, and it's the homeowner that owns the home, not the government. In the case of running fiber optics, do you think they get the okays to do just one little ol' house at a time? No, they could get okays to do entire neighborhoods, if not the entire city.
And the problem isn't just self-important CEO inordinantly high amounts of pay, but that CEOs are like these unaccountable "kings" that can't be fired, because they gain control of too much of the actually-voting stock, of a company that they didn't even build to begin with. So their corporate "greed" incentive, is to rape the resources of the company, and then when it predictably goes belly up after rampant layoffs and customer dissatisfaction at poor service, they go find another corporation to rape and more underpaid employees to exploit.
I am coming to the conclusion that corporations may represent among the most undemocratic of institutions, denying the actual owners any say, as most stockholders can't go to places far away and inconvenient to vote their stock, denying any say to employees, denying much say to customers, and ruled by these power-mad, self-aborbed, greedy, rich elites who don't even live in the real world of the working poor that they employ. Corporations destabilize the economy, by greedily and hastily expanding into every niche they can find where they think they might make a slight profit (i.e. low wages always Wal-Mart), and then at the first sign the economy might be going soft, they bail out with layoffs and store/plant closures that would have been quite unnecessary, if they hadn't racked up the debt hastily growing too fast to devour the entire planet, if only the other greedy, not-merged-together corporations would just let them.
Challenger78
Valued Senior Member
WTF ? Why ? If the door's open, whats stopping you from walking through ?
The judge should have ruled that the user failed to guard himself properly.
Unsecured wireless networks are like unguarded doors to a pub, It's not a crime to walk through. If you don't want trouble at your door/pub, guard it.
I bought a wireless kit for my computer,
but it had amazingly complicated instructions
and I couldn't get it working.
One day it just seemed to connect itself up.
I used it for a few months
and then one day I had to do something with my phone line.
It was working with my phoneline disconnected!
I had been using some neighbour's connection for months.
Never did get it working properly through my own connection.
but it had amazingly complicated instructions
and I couldn't get it working.
One day it just seemed to connect itself up.
I used it for a few months
and then one day I had to do something with my phone line.
It was working with my phoneline disconnected!
I had been using some neighbour's connection for months.
Never did get it working properly through my own connection.
Challenger78
Valued Senior Member
wait, You didn't use the phone for months ?.. whoa..
No, I had to disconnect my phone line,
and the internet was still working. :bugeye:
And why are you saying whoa?
Do you have a horse in the house?
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Pronatalist
Registered Senior Member
Title: Clever programmers couldn't just program it with a "Okay connect now" button?
What? You tried to do wireless through DSL? There's your problem right there. Why didn't you dump the evil phone corporation, and get digital phone or something?
Having to put filters on every phone jack, tells you that DSL is just "tacked on" to an old inferior meant-jut-for-voice technology. Cable modems don't require installations of "filters" on every TV. Anyway, they said at my computer club years back, if you want complicated, and maybe it works, get DSL. If you want it to just work simply, get cable.
See, even the "getting too smart" technology isn't worried about all these silly "bandwidth" hangups that we clutter our minds with. It just searches for a path, and Pesto! it works.
BTW, are you sure that your phoneline was actually disconnected? There could be other reasons for lack of dial-tone, other than physical disconnection, that might not affect an always-on, no-dialing DSL connection.
What? You tried to do wireless through DSL? There's your problem right there. Why didn't you dump the evil phone corporation, and get digital phone or something?
Having to put filters on every phone jack, tells you that DSL is just "tacked on" to an old inferior meant-jut-for-voice technology. Cable modems don't require installations of "filters" on every TV. Anyway, they said at my computer club years back, if you want complicated, and maybe it works, get DSL. If you want it to just work simply, get cable.
See, even the "getting too smart" technology isn't worried about all these silly "bandwidth" hangups that we clutter our minds with. It just searches for a path, and Pesto! it works.
BTW, are you sure that your phoneline was actually disconnected? There could be other reasons for lack of dial-tone, other than physical disconnection, that might not affect an always-on, no-dialing DSL connection.
The router was switched on, but its connection to the phoneline ,and the phone itself ,was unplugged. Just an empty wall socket. My computer was connecting through my router, because if I switched it off the connection was lost, but the router was somehow using someone elses phoneline.
I found later on that I could get connection through two or three different people.
I found later on that I could get connection through two or three different people.
Challenger78
Valued Senior Member
Pronatalist
Registered Senior Member
Title: Uh, wasn't the internet originally designed, to do things like that?
Come to think of it, wasn't the internet originally some military network, designed to reroute itself in case of some enemy attack or disconnection?
So why do people act like it's almost some sort of crime, to piggyback somebody else's wireless connection? Unlike with a cordless phone, well except for families that spread maybe into a few neighboring houses, it can "share" with hardly any adversely noticable effect. Because it's fancy digital technology. Some people already are using the fancy "expandable" cordless phones, to put a phone out in their shed or barn, without wires, just electricity. Why not, when the radio signals can span the gap to the main house?
The way these laptops just hop on the internet these days, with no wires at all, why it almost looks "like magic."
Come to think of it, wasn't the internet originally some military network, designed to reroute itself in case of some enemy attack or disconnection?
So why do people act like it's almost some sort of crime, to piggyback somebody else's wireless connection? Unlike with a cordless phone, well except for families that spread maybe into a few neighboring houses, it can "share" with hardly any adversely noticable effect. Because it's fancy digital technology. Some people already are using the fancy "expandable" cordless phones, to put a phone out in their shed or barn, without wires, just electricity. Why not, when the radio signals can span the gap to the main house?
The way these laptops just hop on the internet these days, with no wires at all, why it almost looks "like magic."
I think you are mixing up Facts like the internet mixed up with Scifi's Terminator 'Skynet'. The initial networks for military use were to network data arrays together for logistics purposes, yes there would of been more than one way to connect to a certain location however it doesn't think for itself, connections required login scripts. (Of course to my knowledge the majority of the people that have joined the internet know nothing of Telnet and such login scripts)
I know we are going to keep repeating the crime point again and again, you people just don't seem to get it. Do you think that if you leave a window open in your house I should automatically have right to use all your household appliances or eat the food from your fridge freezer? That is the best analogy you can give to wireless theft, the windows left open and accessing their network is like letting yourself in through it.
It's not a door, a door in essence is a place of transit where a person can enter and leave a building, a door on a wireless network would be their legitimate connection through their router. If you are gate crashing their 'door' then you are Hacking.
It's got nothing to do with 'evil corporations', it's just the line drawn between 'My stuff' and 'Your stuff'.
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