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Woman Discovers Her Wireless Internet Is Not Free 62

Posted by samzenpus from the was-that-wrong dept.
But she'd been using it for a year and a half.

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Woman Discovers Her Wireless Internet Is Not Free More

Woman Discovers Her Wireless Internet Is Not Free

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  • I noticed she didn't have an issue interrupting the guy but from 2:45 on, you never hear her voice regardless of gaps in his speech. I wonder if when he mentioned that the internet was only $14.95 and she was just being cheap, did she hang up on him and he just kept going on?

    • I'm guessing she disconnected. She clearly had just avoided the unpleasant thought that someone somewhere had to pay for that service that she has been using for free all that time. When it finally sunk in, it wasn't what she wanted to hear and just dropped the call.

      What is truly a shame is that this is a sample of what a lot of people think - that if it's out there for the taking that it's ok to do so. I liked his comparison to justifying shoplifting at a grocery store. Then this one had the arrogance or i

      • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        While mooching someone else's wifi is hardly a good solution, I'm not sure it compares well to shoplifting or that it's "illegal". It's an open network, meaning anyone can connect -- so you can hardly say you're using it without authorization as there is, effectively, a blanket authorization for anyone to connect. Moreover, the signal itself is broadcast over your property, so it's really hard to make an argument for stealing. IANAL, but I don't think you can really compare this to shoplifting or call it

        • s/wirelist signal/unlocked car/g;

          s/wireless signal/unlocked front door/gi

          In both cases, you are still going to be arrested and convicted. Why? Because it's not YOURS to take.

          • s/wirelist signal/unlocked car/g;

            s/wireless signal/unlocked front door/gi

            But in neither of those cases are there circumstances where it is find to take what is available (the car, the opportunity to enter the house) whereas there are unsecured wireless APs out there, many of them, that are free for you to use as far as the owner is concerned. So you can argue that you thought it would be OK to use the wireless where you can't so easily argue that it would be OK to borrow the car for an hour. Whether the law takes account of this sort of difference I don't know though, I'll leave

            • The accepted way to let people know you want your AP to be free is to name it something like "FREE" or "FREENET" or "PUBLIC" (if you want to get lots of users, name it something along the lines of "FREEPORN"). Have all incoming http requests redirect to your home box, which should list hundreds of videos - all with "interesting" names - and all just being another copy of a Rick Roll vid. After all, Rick Rolling the Vice Squad == PRICELESS!

          • In both cases, you are still going to be arrested and convicted. Why? Because it's not YOURS to take.

            Not necessarily. Some areas have free and open Wireless providers e.g. some airports and cities plus some people opt to share their network access with others. Hence if you see an open access point it is possible that it is intended to be used. This is hard to argue with an unlocked car or house....although it is also somewhat hard to argue for a network called "LINKSYS" as well!

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by MarkvW ( 1037596 )

            Nope. Still gotta prove intent to prove theft.

            • Nope. Still gotta prove intent to prove theft.

              Actually, you don't. Not for things like communications theft. It's in the statute.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ziwcam ( 766621 )
        You can see him reach over and hit a button. I imagine he just muted her.

      • I'm guessing she disconnected. She clearly had just avoided the unpleasant thought that someone somewhere had to pay for that service that she has been using for free all that time. When it finally sunk in, it wasn't what she wanted to hear and just dropped the call.

        I use unsecured wireless networks all the time, and I quite frankly have no problem with using a service that somebody else paid for. They obviously don’t care if other people use it, and I feel no reason to refuse a gift.

  • 1. When you log into most webmail servers (hotmail, google in the early days, facebook, etc) the password is not transmitted "over the air, unencrypted". Most of the time the password page (and the password submission) is encrypted with ssl, but after that they drop back to regular non-encrypted http for reading of the email. So the password is encrypted, but reading the emails are not. Also the cookie (which could be seen as a temporary password) is sent not encrypted during the reading of the email. T
  • Okay, I'm pretty sure Gmail never sent passwords over the clear. Like everybody else, they used encryption only for establishing credentials.

    • Okay, I'm pretty sure Gmail never sent passwords over the clear. Like everybody else, they used encryption only for establishing credentials.

      Actually, Gmail used to have a login scheme where you could send your username and password as GET parameters encoded in the URL. If you weren't using encryption between your computer and router and that URL went out over the air, yeah, someone could have pulled it right out of the URL itself.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by adolf ( 21054 )

      Define "everyone else," please.

  • if you can get arrested for using someone else's wireless signal, then they can get arrested for trespassing. if the signal wasn't in your house, you wouldn't be able to use it!!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z34107 ( 925136 )

      if you can get arrested for using someone else's wireless signal, then they can get arrested for trespassing. if the signal wasn't in your house, you wouldn't be able to use it!!

      But then, you would be arrested for trespassing by transmitting your HTTP requests into THEIR house.

  • If they're going to beam THEIR microwaves onto MY property, then I'll be damned if I'm not going to beam microwaves of my own right back at them.

  • What a moronic waste of skin.

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