Originally posted by: Rogue
No one yet in this entire thread has addressed the true complexities involved here and how current laws must be changed or updated for this purpose.
First off, who owns the wireless signal coming into my house? 2.4GHz is public spectrum. Does the person broadcasting that signal bear responsibility for where it goes and who accesses it? Or does the person receiving it now own it as "found property"? That has not been clearly defined with regards to Wi-Fi.
Second, in order to actually connect to that network, I must send a signal back to the broadcast device. I would say that my neighbor now owns my signal as well, so I am putting myself at risk for them to use my signal aren't I? Could the argument not be made that now my neighbor is stealing my signal, despite the fact that it's intended to reach HIS receiver? Signal broadcast is not as simple as a car analogy or an apple tree as everyone has made it to this point.
Third, there is such a thing as "found property" laws. If a kid leaves a bike laying in the middle of the street and another kid picks it up and rides away with it, would the law charge the kid with theft? 99% of the time, no. It's not his bike, he probably knew it, however, because it was essentially "abandoned" in a public area, it technically is no longer the property of the owner. This is how the police find evidence on suspects in trash cans, etc. Is my neighbor abandoning his signal he's sending to everyone in the neighborhood? Could his signal allowing my access be considered "found property" as well? The car analogy fails because there are systems in place to uniquely identify such property by VIN, license plate, owner registration, etc.
Having said that, do you wish to see the government require you to register your wireless access point and subsequently pay taxes on it to facilitate the process of maintaining all that data like we have with vehicle registration? How about taxes on your wireless devices? What about government mandate that you MUST uniquely identify your WAP with government provided identifying information to allow for easy identification by passers by that the signal belongs to you and you only? When any of you can start answering these questions, you're well on your way to drafting the start of any legislation which should govern wireless network access. So far, no one has even come close to approaching the answers to these questions.
The best analogy I can come up with and I'm sure it has flaws, would be my neighbor placing his televsion set in a publicly viewable window. If I sit on my property and watch his TV attached to his cable, am I stealing his cable? I can photograph that TV from public property, so if I can see it, it's legal, right? So here's another question that needs to be answered. If I connect to that same cable that is "displaying" internet access and I am on public property, is it stealing? I can watch his television signal from public property through his window and that's not stealing. I can photograph him/her naked from under the same circumstances and that's not illegal, right?
The only sticking point here is that in order to use that internet access, I have to send my signal back onto his property. To those who said there is no gray area, you've not thought of all the possbilities and current laws yet.
Facebook
Twitter