Bob

""As reported by KATU in Portland, Oregon, a man was arrested for parking outside a coffee shop in nearby Vancouver, Washington, and using their open wireless AP — for three straight months. '"He doesn't buy anything," Manager Emily Pranger says about the man she ended up calling 911 about. "It's not right for him to come and use it."' Turns out the guy was a registered sex-offender as well." A different computer expert might have pointed out some ways to see if anyone is piggybacking on a wireless signal (many APs have a Web-interface client list), or even suggested something like NoCatAuth...."

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article...47213&from=rss

Thought this was a bit amusing, but how could the guy be braking the law for piggybacking a free connection? and what's his past offence got to do with it...

so what do you think of that? and any of you piggyback a wifi signal?

peterbainham

That man deserved to be maced, shot and incapacitated so that he could no longer pose a threat to our free and fair society. What's next? People using the radio waves in their car for free so that they can listen to their music like some pinko degenerate. Scum like him are the lowest of the low and anyone who disagrees is a terrorist.

Kate2112

Yep

gruffbrown

They were just pissed off he wasn't buying their Coffee

I can pick up my neighbours WiFi Signal and it's not encrypted, silly man, the signal strength is crap though.

Philgr

Nope - it's too easy for the AP owner to see all your network traffic.

As for using a free access point without buying anything or even entering the coffee shop - obviously we don't know the details but with most service agreements from ISPs I would have thought it would be difficult for the lawyers to argue he couldn't connect to it without also admitting their client was breaching the terms of their sevrice agreement. Most of these things strictly restrict "business re-use" (i.e. selling access on) unless it is through a business that pays something back to the ISP.

peterbainham

Why Kate? Why? How could you do this? Do you have no respect for your family or you country or yourself for that matter? Think of the kids Kate, just think of the kids.

Kate2112

Rock Kids! ....schmids!

Bob

aye, i do on the missus laptop, but then it's only to stream the footie when she's recording the her soap...or for checking email, still not bother with a router yet *l*

signal is a bit iffy, but it's good enough

Bob

probably shite coffee

Bob

to true, but when people don't even bother to encrypt it, why not just piggy back for a quick check on the email *l*

Philgr

Because if the AP owner knows what they are doing and is really fishing for people to connect through their "foolishly unencrypted AP" they can get enough information to hack your email pretty easily. If they then know where to look think about how many accounts will email you passwords to your pre-registered email address - to which they now have access.

If you know what you are doing, data theft through intercepting traffic is much easier and less hassle than hacking into someone's computer.

mandpete

I am sure my neighbour piggybacks from our wireless system, he often comes out with his laptop as though he is trying to get a better signal. My son has also spotted a woman in her car outside our house using her laptop, he thinks she is a Realtor. Maybe I'm just paranoid, I thought I had managed to encrypt it but I could have done it wrong. As long as it doesn't interfere with my system I'm OK with it.

gruffbrown

Walk out with a coffee and tell them it's 3 Bucks

Philgr

Until he starts downloading kiddie pix and you get a call from the vice squad. There should be an admin function with your access point whereby you can see if anyone is connected to your connection - it's worth taking a look and making sure the encryption is working.

Bob

there's also a good link in the slashdot article about protection as well...