[TheForge] Wireless internet connection - OT from blacksmithing

[Jerry Smith]

Clyde,

Are you volunteering to be a test case? In 1980 there
were no uniform laws for theft of service for the
cable companies. The satellite companies had no
standards that year either. In 1982/83/84 when the
cable companies and later the satellite companies
found out how many dollars of services were being
lost, they march to Washington with lots of facts and
figures. The Cable TV Act of 1984 became law, plus we
all know that Big Brother is watching us thru cable
TV, just read the book.

The question becomes is this a civil lose or a
criminal act. If it is civil, it's is a lot easier to
prove and you could end up owing a lot of money. We
can have a debate over this matter until the cows come
home, but what happens when a good case ends up in the
courts and makes clear cut judicial law? 

Jerry


--- Clyde Wynia <clyde at fibernetcc.com> wrote:

> Apparently you are not going to get a definite legal
> answer. See
>
http://news.com.com/FAQ+Wi-Fi+mooching+and+the+law/2100-7351_3-5778822.html?
> tag=nl.caro
> 
> 
> Here is part of that page: 
> 
> Is it legal to use someone's Wi-Fi connection to
> browse the Web if they
> haven't put a password on it?
> Nobody really knows. "It's a totally open question
> in the law," says Neal
> Katyal, a professor of criminal law at Georgetown
> University. "There are
> arguments on both sides."
> Wi-Fi roundup
> Wi-Fi's urban push
> Cities take on big Wi-Fi projects--and face
> challenges to their plans.
> 
> That doesn't make much sense. Is there a specific
> law that regulates Wi-Fi
> access?
> Sort of. The primary law is the federal Computer
> Fraud and Abuse Act.
> 
> You can read it for yourself, but the important part
> (check out paragraph
> (a)(2)) covers anyone who "intentionally accesses a
> computer without
> authorization or exceeds authorized access." Nobody
> knows exactly what that
> means in terms of wireless connections. The law was
> written in 1986 to
> punish computer hacking--and nobody contemplated
> 802.1x wireless links back
> then.
> 
> What do prosecutors think?
> We asked the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday. A
> department
> representative who did not want to be quoted by name
> said, essentially, that
> it depends on the details of each case.
> 
> The representative said in an e-mail exchange:
> "Whether access is considered
> authorized can be determined in part by the precise
> circumstances of access,
> just as it would be in the physical world. The
> prosecutor and jury would
> look at how the access was accomplished and what was
> done with the access
> before definitively determining that it was
> unauthorized." In other words,
> the representative said, someone sitting in a
> company's parking lot at 3
> a.m. for the sole purpose of network connectivity
> might be viewed as a
> lawbreaker.
> 
> Will we ever get a straight answer?
> Yes, but expect it to take a while. "This is a
> problem with the way the
> legal system works," says Orin Kerr, a law professor
> at George Washington
> University who has written a detailed article on
> unauthorized network
> access. "Nobody knows how an ambiguous law works
> until a prosecution is
> brought and a court decides."
> 
> Alternatively, Congress could rewrite the Computer
> Fraud and Abuse Act to
> clear things up, but nobody expects this to happen
> anytime soon.
> 
> How about sharing? Is it legal for me to share my
> cable modem or DSL
> connection with my neighbors?
> In many cases the answer is no. It depends on the
> wording of your contract
> with your broadband provider. Many don't want you to
> share. As far back as
> 2002, Time Warner Cable was sending warnings to
> customers with open Wi-Fi
> access points, and a year later it sued an apartment
> complex on charges of
> illicit sharing. Also, AT&T Broadband has
> acknowledged monitoring customers
> for "inordinately high" usage.
> 
> "Our terms of service for Verizon Online DSL
> customers do prohibit them from
> sharing their connection," says Verizon spokeswoman
> Bobbi Henson. "The
> service is meant for use in one location, which
> would be their home."
> 
> Henson adds: "We haven't seen a lot of problems with
> this, to tell you the
> truth. Because of the way the DSL network is
> configured (with one line into
> each house), sharing doesn't cause us the network
> problems, frankly, that it
> can cause for cable. If we were to receive some kind
> of complaint, like
> maybe a neighbor calls and says, 'I know my neighbor
> is sharing my
> connection and it's making me mad because other
> neighbors are getting it for
> free,' we might warn that customer."
> 
> Do all broadband providers feel the same way?
> No. DSL provider Speakeasy, for example, doesn't
> mind wireless sharing. Its
> policy says: "Speakeasy believes that shared
> wireless networks are in
> keeping with our core values of disseminating
> knowledge, access to
> information and fostering community..."
>