Comments on: Florida Man Arrested for WiFi Poaching

By: default

default — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 17:09:42 +0000

I thought that when someone doesn’t lock their wifi, that they are saying, “I’m sharing with whoever wants to use it”. I’m not kidding, I really believed this until I read today that it is illegal. But this was based on my assumption that everyone has unlimited traffic. I didn’t even know that there was such a thing nowadays as limited traffic except outside America. Another reason I assume they are intentionally sharing is because of what local governments and cafes are doing with their freebee wifi nodes. Our apartment complex has an open wifi and I’m sure they don’t care who connects. I’m too far away from the node though, so I just connect to whoever is ‘sharing’.

By: MRM

MRM — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 05:36:41 +0000

I agree with the aspect of using a connection if the owner does nothing to protect it. Even the smallest security measure. This though I think is different because he was in a residential neighborhood at night. When someone was checking him out he left. Then he returned later!? I would call this suspicious behavior. A more open public area, Library, Panera, Bruggers, would not find this odd. But in a residential area!! There might have been something else involved here.

By: KSH

KSH — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 04:52:14 +0000

Stealing? Hardly. If they sniffed the airwaves they would have seen that the owners router issued a DHCPOFFER, as in OFFER. He offered his service whomever REQUESTED it. If I request to use your water spigot and you have a robot that says yes, I guess you gave permission. His router gave permission by offering the DHCP IP. If he didn’t want people using his router, he should have turned off DHCP. Pretty simple stuff.

This should die soon in court. The owner was lazy, or ignorant, but willingly gave the service.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 20:09:11 +0000

MAC address filtering as a Wi-Fi security measure is highly overrated. Most cards allow for users to set the MAC address themselves. On an unencrypted transmission, it is a piece of cake to pull a MAC address out of the air and assign it to your card.

Encryption is BY FAR, the best means to protect your network. Beyond WEP and WPA, you can use things like certificates and VPNs to increase security.

MAC fitler is another form of “security through obscurity”.

By: Miguel Lopes

Miguel Lopes — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 18:17:17 +0000

AB CD, in principle all routers can be configured to do something called MAC Address filtering, which basically is ‘talking’ ONLY to the PCs whose Wifi cards MAC addresses are on the list you define on the router – or the opposite, not talk to those on the list.

It’s very easy to setup, however, for non-techies it *may* look complicated, and the required trials and errors to get it working, if they never done it before, may be enough to convince them they’re not doing it right and give up.

I hope manufacturers come up with some very simple, very secure way to do this, maybe pressing a red button on both the router or the card or something… No web configs, no nothing – just press those buttons at the same time… And then they’d get synched forever more…
I dunno, I’m sure there’s lots of clever people working on this – it’s just that they have to make it as simple as turning on a TV. If it’s as complicated as setting the time on the VCR… well, you know…

By: Teyecoon

Teyecoon — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 05:37:35 +0000

A better analogy of the water would be if the guy left his hose running and it ran down the driveway and on to the street and then had someone arrested for stealing the street water. The point is that it is not unrealistic to believe the person is providing “community” access as a nice guy as opposed to just being ignorant of how he can connect to this router without wires. For this case to be even remotely valid would have required the “victim” to have warned the “perpetrator” that he wasn’t allowed to use his “published” access point. If they begin to criminalize taking advantage of stupid & irresponsible people then they’ll have to start with the entire marketing industry.

By: AB CD

AB CD — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 19:29:29 +0000

Is it possible to get a wi-fi router that gives preferential treatment to selected addresses? This way, noone could slow down your own usage,but you can still share excess with others.

By: Tom G.

Tom G. — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 05:44:45 +0000

“The way I see it, the fellow was in a public place and there was a signal violating his car. The 802.11 broadcaster should be cited if anyone should. If you are going to put law enforcement in the position of having to deal with this, it is going to be a taxpayers and legal nightmare. If you do not want to be poached then ENCRYPT!!! Is that asking too much??? Geez.

Hopefully the judge will see this and throw this case out. How can anyone defend this action?”

Amen! As well to several others here. It’s super-easy to psot “No Trespassing” signs on one’s wifi hotspot; neglecting to do so is as innocnet as picking wild berries in an apparently open field on the side of the road. Hopefully the judge / jury / defense will see that.

I haven’t seen your take on these guys yet. Hopefully they, with their claimed 40x expanded bandwidth on practically every frequency, will make connectivity so cheap that stories like these will become as common (and laughable) as lawsuits against a passerby who paused to enjoy the scents and sights of the flowers in his neighbors front yard.

By: Mike Voice

Mike Voice — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 20:24:36 +0000

I find it interesting that the charges stem just from using the network.

My current Cable (and previous DSL) connection are (were) flat-rate systems – so a “poacher” would not cost me any money. My only complaint might be if the “poacher’s” bandwidth was causing a noticeable slowdown in my downloads.

Sounds like a “victimless” crime, to me.

By: Miguel Correia

Miguel Correia — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 09:53:46 +0000

Do you arrest people for peanuts?

I mean… yeah, the man was stealing, but come on… to be fined or forced to pay some other sort of financial compensation would seem fair… but to arrest the man?? Don’t you have REAL criminals out there needing to be arrested first, like murderers, rapists, etc. I mean, do you think the victim wouldn’t feel justice had been done by simply having been compensated for any lose. Maybe he didn’t even have any loss at all? If someone used my access point, as long as my total traffic didn’t exceed the limit my ISP allows me before charging more than my monthly bill, and as long as he did it when I wasn’t using my internet access, so I wouldn’t notice a slow down, then I wouldn’t have felt any damage whatsoever.

Have you ever seen Les Miserables? Of course you cannot compare steeling bread to eat with steeling someone’s bandwidth. But there is one similarity, the very low value of what’s been stolen. It’s just like arresting someone for steeling candy.

I’m another Portuguese who has Netcabo access. Being a software developer, I bought my own wireless router (instead of buying a kit sold by the ISP) and configured its security right away… I did feel that an ordinary user would have very easily skipped that step because of not even being sensitive to the issue. Maybe routers should be built differently.

By: Jack Nork

Jack Nork — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 02:30:36 +0000

OK, this is just dumb anyway you look at it.

1. The guy with the wireless router should turn on basic encryption. It’s simple and it keeps out the common riff-raff. Just about every wireless router on the planet has WEP or WPA built in. Use it!

2. The guy “stealing” the bandwidth was dumb for sitting in his car to snatch a signal. Go to Bruegger’s or the local library for FREE access!

3. The police were dumb for actually arresting the guy. Come on!

Comments? – Feel free to post em here: http://www.mason23.com/blog

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 01:34:03 +0000

John, you are exactly right. Somehow people have it their head that they can broadcast a signal and then incriminate people that pick it up. This is like yelling secrets at the top of your lungs from your door and then arresting people that listen.

IMO, if you broadcast it over the airwaves anyone it’s far game for anyone listening. You thwart people unfairly receiving your content through encryption.

Unfortunately, the second worst law ever written, the DMCA, prevents people from attempting to break encryption routines. (The assault weapons ban has the title for the worst law ever written). The effect is that encryption routines are weaker as there are fewer white hat hackers that attempt to break it. But that’s another discussion…

By: R. Tatmuller

R. Tatmuller — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 23:07:35 +0000

I think this guy Site Admin got it right.
This would almost be like criminalizing the overhearing of conversations in public places.
Be great for our CA trial lawyers, though.

By: Pat

Pat — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 22:22:12 +0000

What would be the difference between this and a ham radio or CB operator? No one owns the radio waves. Both the radio operator and the accused here use transmitters to get their signals out.

If this case is not thrown out, then, as the site admin suggested, the base owner should be charged with radio interference.

I believe the prosecutor will try to make a deal so the guy gets a fine on a misdemeanor and it doesn’t go to trial. The guy will go along with the deal as it is too expensive to fight. The guy could also take it to the FCC, which would force them to act, and out of the hands of the local law enforcement.

By: Ed Campbell

Ed Campbell — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 21:44:15 +0000

Damn it! I can always find an article in the online archives of our local paper — except when I really want it. I was going to offer a link from a recent article on how a number of local folks who can’t get broadband at their homes drive to any one of several local free hot spots and just sit in their cars using their laptops.

They’re out there at 2 in the morning in front of one local bakery and coffee shop. The newspaper interviewed one guy who’s out there just about every night. He can’t get anything but dial-up at home. He has a rocket connection at work; but, when he wants to get a lot done on his own time, he just hops in his car and drives over and parks in front of the bakery.

Cops don’t mind — once they found out what he’s doing there. And he keeps on eye on the shopping center while he’s there. The bakery leaves everything on 24/7 as a service to the community.