Am I stealing teh internets if....

I move into my new flat and plug in my PC and my wireless adapter logs onto a router in the street somewhere who has turned security off?
I've got a week or so before my official broadband connection is hooked up and the free broadband is handy but should I be troubled by passively taking advantage of this clueless Virgin subscriber?

no I do it all the time when I pick up a signal.

It you use that connection to surf child porn or hack then it is a different matter, then you should feel very guilty.

we ride fixie b..cause we can..Edumnd Hilary Hunt climbed Everest.."b..cause it is there"..its there..you can..take the moment..take what has been given..
ianth

fair game frankly if they haven't bothered to put security on their router, just remember that the access works both ways, if you have open shares on your machine, they can see you too!

You should use it.... I find it really silly that in a building with say 10-20 flats (like mine), which is served by one Virgin Cable box outside.... we all have separate internet accounts.... we should just share their 20Mb connection with a powerful router system and all pay the £40 a month between us.

all your internets are belong to us!

You should use it.... I find it really silly that in a building with say 10-20 flats (like mine), which is served by one Virgin Cable box outside.... we all have separate internet accounts.... we should just share their 20Mb connection with a powerful router system and all pay the £40 a month between us.

Googling around that idea it seems that the usually not particularly forward thinking BT agree with you...

BT vs Fon

adoubletap [quote]You should use it.... I find it really silly that in a building with say 10-20 flats (like mine), which is served by one Virgin Cable box outside.... we all have separate internet accounts.... we should just share their 20Mb connection with a powerful router system and all pay the £40 a month between us.

Googling around that idea it seems that the usually not particularly forward thinking BT agree with you...

BT vs Fon[/quote]

I saw this a few years ago and thought it was amazing. Great that it's coming to the UK.

It's illegal to 'steal' someone else's wireless broadband.. but I work in I.T. and don't know anyone who hasn't done it.
Take it!

just make sure your set up not to share anything on the network.

there's Wardriving going on all over the place.

That's how i have had access to the internet for the past 2 years.

Last year i paid for halls internet THAT NEVER WORKED, this year the phone line to the flat i'm living in is dangling outside the livingroom window, and BT are being absolutely pathetic about getting an engineer round to fix it.

I do feel guilty, but putting a password on a router is the easiest thing in the world to do! You're asking for abuse if you don't.

I just got Leopard, and on it it shows up whos connected to your internet basically. I didnt realise I didn't have any security since I don't use WIFI at home much, anyway, there were two people STEALING my internets! I was rather annoyed. So I made a password. You can get arrested for stealing peoples internet on WIFI or something.

Yep.. but the people without passwords are the people who aren't going to know you're nicking their 'net.

Arrested for using someone's wifi? That's just stupid. It's the equivalent of leaving one of your possessions in the street and expecting someone to not take it.

There is no password on our wifi because one of my flatmates retarded laptop cannot deal with a password
(we have spent hours working this out, no matter what setup we use someone can't connect).
and we always have people over and bands staying so just makes life easier for us not having one.
I just block people who get on the network uninvited. with a 24mb connection we have bandwidth to spare anyway.
steal away just don't go overboard and slow their connection to much.

Ahh I see.

If you changed your mind and wanted some form of security, you could always use MAC address filtering, although you'd have to add each computer to the allow list when someone wants to use your wifi who hasn't used it before.

So you'd be cool if I wired up my house using electricity from your powerlines? It's outside your house, unsecured and you pay for it while I use it.
Just because it's there doesn't mean you should be allowed to take it. Anyway, I'm off to take all the outdoor chairs from cafe's to sell on ebay.. ;)

eeehhhh Arrested for using someone's wifi? That's just stupid. It's the equivalent of leaving one of your possessions in the street and expecting someone to not take it.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/2005/07/07/man_charged_with_stealing_wifi_signal_.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6960304.stm

It is wrong, and annoying. If you want to use the internet wherever you go, buy a £10 a month anywhere thing on Three. Don't steal half my bandwidth which I pay £20 a month for. The electricity comparison is perfect.

i haven't paid for personal internet since 2004 - and i know plenty of people who have spare bandwidth so leave their routers unprotected just so that the occasional passerby can share it with them. most of what i do is lowbandwith text stuff (checking emails, etc) so i occasionally have problems if i want to download big files or whatever.

hippy So you'd be cool if I wired up my house using electricity from your powerlines? It's outside your house, unsecured and you pay for it while I use it.
Just because it's there doesn't mean you should be allowed to take it. Anyway, I'm off to take all the outdoor chairs from cafe's to sell on ebay.. ;)

I never said you should be allowed to take it. I was making the point that arresting someone for wifi is completely over the top. People will take things that are left unprotected whether it's money, wifi, bikes, cars, whatever. I never said I personally would. I've never stolen anything in my life.

[cite]Jake[/cite]It is wrong, and annoying. If you want to use the internet wherever you go, buy a £10 a month anywhere thing on Three. Don't steal half my bandwidth which I pay £20 a month for.

If you don't want your bandwidth stolen, turn on wifi security as you have done now. As one of the comments on the Guardian article says:

Seriously, though, you don't want people in your house, you lock the door. Don't want people looking in your window, close the curtains. Don't want people stealing your bandwidth? Lock them out.

[cite]Jake[/cite]The electricity comparison is perfect.

No, it isn't. My meter is in a secured cupboard, therefore you can't take electricity that I pay for. You'd be stealing from the electricity provider - which has nothing to do with me!

Edit: Actually, to reconsider the quote from the comment, here's another comment reply.

The leaving your door open analogy is initially alluring - but utlimately incorrect. Leaving your door open, whilst non too clever, still obliges the nefarious scoundrel to physically trespass on your property to gain access to your valuable volts. The WIFI signal was, however, available in the street. A better analogy would be of someone installing a power socket in a phone box, to then call the police when someone else had the nerve to plug their hair dryer into it.

Don't set up your home network on WEP or unsecured. This is one method which crackers will use to gain anonaymouse access to the internet. Buy a mobile phone hack it so that you can dail into it from a computer, attach a wifi device to it, dump it out side someones house with WEP or unsecured network and do all the nasty stuff through here. Then when the police come knocking although it will become clear that it was not you there is staill the hassel of having to deal with them e.t.c.

But why should I have to protect something so people don't steal it? I understand, because I have to deal with people who steal things. Like I lock up my bike so someone doesnt see it and think 'oooh, I could use that' and run off with it. Equally with my internet, the point here is that it is NOT right to steal peoples internet, regardless of how you lock it up, or what you compare it to.

Is stealing a bike because it's not locked up OK? (sorry, I'm quite passionate about this, just because I found these two people connected to mine, and I live in the suburbs, so they've probably been doing it all along...)

Jake But why should I have to protect something so people don't steal it? I understand, because I have to deal with people who steal things.

Sadly, that's the reality of the society we live in. Perhaps in other societies - a commune in, say, China - it isn't the case.

Like I lock up my bike so someone doesnt see it and think 'oooh, I could use that' and run off with it. Equally with my internet, the point here is that it is NOT right to steal peoples internet, regardless of how you lock it up, or what you compare it to.

Well, whether it's stealing (if the network is open I don't think so, I think if it is secured it is theft because in effect someone has broken into it) is obviously debatable and also for whether it is morally wrong or not.

"So you'd be cool if I wired up my house using electricity from your powerlines? It's outside your house, unsecured and you pay for it while I use it.
Just because it's there doesn't mean you should be allowed to take it. Anyway, I'm off to take all the outdoor chairs from cafe's to sell on ebay.. ;)"

That's different though isn't it, and you know it is.

They are paying a fixed fee per month, so if you 'steal' someone's internet connection you are not stopping them from using it like you would be if you stole their chairs, and you are not making them pay extra like you would if you stole their electricity.

This is a stupid argument but they are my favourites so let's continue..

I wouldn't steal all their chairs. Just like I wouldn't steal all your bandwidth so it's okay? I don't think so.
Some people pay per MB downloaded - what makes you assume I am not one of them? That means every time someone uses or hacks and uses my connection it IS costing me money.

As for the point about stealing power 'before' it's been metered for your house.. you are assuming that I've not drilled a hole in your wall and connected your toaster output to my fridge.. now you know why your bill has increased and your toast takes ages to cook..

Don't steal bandwidth.

If you want to find people actually 'sharing' their bandwith with prior knowledge, get involved with [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FON]FON[/ame] and don't nick it off someone who doesn't know any better.