i do agree their is alot much more important things to do so please
when you end world hunger or end the nuclear crisis let me know.

thank you.

i kinda wrote what i was sying a little complicated.

what i was trying to say was NOT that folks automatically have the right becuase folks dont know.

what i was saying and ill clarify more
is that folks all the time will use someone elses bandwith and not even know it.
im talking about when my wife and i first moved into our new home and
for a month my wife was using the laptop thinking i had hooked it up.the entire time she was using my neighbors network and she didnt know it.thats what i mean.thats why we cant make criminals out of folks who might use open bandwith.not only did my neighbor not know but neither did my wife.some of this technology is so good it just finds itself without you really trying.that little network thing in the cornr of my pc screen.the status indicator.my wife wouldnt even know what that was when it pops up.

she cicks the E for explorer and goes!

do u get what i was trying to say now.-pete

If a person leaves his car unlocked with the keys in the ignition, and assuming the person KNEW it, that would be a stupid thing to do. But regardless of whether the person knew it or not, it doesn’t give anyone the “right” to steal the car.

Now … no one I know of would “want” someone to steal their car. On bandwidth, however, there are some people who don’t mind it at all. In some cases, there are even people who encourage others to use their bandwidth. And unless the SSID or some other identifier gives away the router-owner’s intent, it’s problematic to say whether a person is “stealing” bandwidth or just freely using “offered” bandwidth.

The only bugaboo I have about piggybacking is the negligence of router manufacturers in giving owners a “simple” and “understandable” method to secure their routers. If this method was offered (and if the router couldn’t be made active until after the owner “chose” whether to secure it or not), that would make the issue moot. In such a case, and if a person “chose” to leave their router insecure, it would be literally impossible to prove “theft.”

In the future, I hope router manufacturers become more responsible – and that ALL routers will be so engineered. You’d think they’d do this voluntarily out of respect for their consumer base. But, they don’t. That’s why, initially, I suggested a “law” might be necessary to “enforce” manufacturer responsibility. It took a law to enforce manufacturer responsibility in putting seat belts in automobiles, after all.

the difference between robbing a house and using a FREE and open access point is just that-FREE!you can acess a wireless point thats not yours without even knowing
it if your not say at all.you have to choose to rob a house!

this is a cast the first stone issue.

most likely at some pioint in your life or at least someone you love
will access a free connection without even knowing it.

jail time should be a case by case issue with exacts on what crime was actually committed.the only crime that i could possible see someone saying anything about
when it comes to simply just use-that would be a billion dollar isp service
screaming “we are loosing .000000000000000001% of 2.8billon dollars and it must be stopped!!!-quickly release 10000 murders from the prisons we own{yes prisons are becoming corporate giants} anyhoo…get them cells freed up for
some folks who used ….free…uhh..bandwith.huh?

home of the free
land of the brave.

this is a great topic.

free bandwith for all. yes i agree also PUBLIC DOMAIN.
if you can remember cb radio!! rgat was a blast!!!

It is MY home, I did not trespass onto YOUR property, or hack your codes. An electrmagnetic wave entered my property which coincidentally allows me to surf the web. Being on my property, I choose to use it if I like. You don’t like? Aim your energy waves somewhere elso or set up a password!!

In all the time I have lived here, there has never once been a “breech” to where someone’s info has been stolen.

Mind you I do PAY for my internet, but I can go anywhere in the city with my car & have internet(yes I have a PC in my car also), thanks to all the schools, hotels & such.

But the thought of someone gaining access to my wireless printer and printing stuff out remotely is rather creepy.

For me, piggybacking has always been a once-in-a-blue-moon activity – only when all else fails – and only to do bandwidth-light stuff like checking email or light browsing.

Here’s a thought for those who choose to leave their router insecure, however. If you have any other device that’s part of your “network,” it’s possible for a piggybacker to access it. My HP laser printer, for example, is part of my network. If I’m upstairs using my laptop and want to print something, the printout will be waiting for me when I go back downstairs. Imagine waking up some morning to see your printer tray full of vile printouts from piggybacking porn-vendors (sigh).

In theory, though, I could go insecure and still be secure (in a way). My Netgear router allows me to limit network access by Mac address. So, I could enter the Mac addresses for my printer and my laptop to keep others out – unless the piggybacker is good at guessing Mac addresses (grin).

But then I found out everyone else had already been doing it for years and that the practice wasn’t anything new….piggy backing thereafter lost its excitement and became more of a cost saver than anything else.