Thoughts from the abyss

I posted some time ago about another instance of supposed “theft of services” on an open wireless network. Without going back and looking, I believe it was a man in Illinois. I ran across yet another guy arrested for “stealing” access to an open wireless network. Here’s this story, but basically he’s been sitting outside a coffee shop for a few months using the open wireless connection that the coffee shop provides to customers. He’s not been going in to purchase anything, but instead sitting outside in his car connecting to the wireless connection. I said it before, I’ll say it again…

Ethically, I don’t think you should be leeching off of anyone’s network. BUT if the place isn’t securing it’s connection to the internet, then how exactly is it considered a crime. I don’t get this, especially if you’re sitting on public property (which I don’t know in this case, I’m assuming he was because he was in his car). The responsibility to lock down the connections should be inherent on the company or business providing the wireless connection. The other problem I have with this….

They said this guy has been doing this for months, ok. Why didn’t they block access to him then? It takes about three seconds to find a MAC address of who’s connected and put a filter on it to block access on a wireless router. It’s not brain surgery. I won’t go into the rant I went into before about the same topic, but it just annoys me that everyone always want to pass the buck to someone else. When it’s so simple to follow a few logical steps and a few common sense steps, to avoid problems then why wouldn’t a human being simply do that to begin with. Wait, I keep forgetting most people in this world seem to lack that whole common sense thing.