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Is this illegal or morally wrong ?
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Manchester, UK
Status:
Offline
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I have just arrived in SF on vacation from the UK, and I have brought my 12" PB with me.
I have an Airport Extreme card installed and I hope to use a wireless network in a cafe near to my hotel.
When I got into my room at the hotel (actually a B&B), I booted up and started Airport. To my surprise I found a signal 2-3 bars and tried to connect, and it did. The name of the network is 'linksys', not very descriptive and does not seem to show me who it belongs to.
I now seem to have high speed internet access provided by someone's insecure wireless network.
Is this illegal or immoral ?
Will the person know that I am doing this?
There are a number of other networks visible (4), but they are all password protected.
I don't feel bad doing this, as they should really make it a secure network, but it may be inexperience of the user. I can't tell if it's Airport either, it just worked as soon as I connected.
Ian
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Computers - Au MacBook 2.4Ghz, iMac 24" 2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo
iPods - 5GB original iPod, 4GB nano - Red, 1GB 2G shuffle - Silver, 4GB 3G Shuffle - Black, 16GB touch, 16GB nano Red, 16GB iPhone 3G.
OSX User Since Public Beta, current OS 10.6.1, iTS UK purchases - 5377 songs.... and growing!
My website - www.idparkinson.co.uk
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Mar 2002
Status:
Offline
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I now seem to have high speed internet access provided by someone's insecure wireless network.
Is this illegal or immoral ?
It may be against there isps's tos (which of course you didn't agree to), but whether or not it is immoral is a matter of opinion.
Will the person know that I am doing this?
They might. At least some Linksys waps have a DHCP client list, and also a list of the MAC addresses for currently connected wireless clients. However, apparently those lists aren't very accurate anyway. Besides, if they haven't secured their network, the odds they would either check them, or ping their ip range, are slim and none.
There are a number of other networks visible (4), but they are all password protected.
If you had cracked those ones, I would suggest that would definitely be immoral, if not illegal.
I can't tell if it's Airport either, it just worked as soon as I connected.
Judging by the SSID, it is probably a Linksys wap.
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Administrator  Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
Status:
Offline
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Unfortunately there's no direct way for you to track down your benefactor and let him or her know that 1) you've appreciated their largess, and 2) they really should protect themselves. Sad but true.
There is a replacement for WEP, called WPA that will (supposedly) be ON by default, will be very simple to set up, will be (because it is supposedly going to be implemented the same way on every client) without all the "how do I enter the key from my BrandX access point in my Mac?" issues, and will be VERY, VERY SECURE. This will prevent the sort of serendipity that you've experienced in SF, but will keep people like the owner of the access point you're using from being victimized by folks that do more than just surf with other people's connections.
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Glenn -----
OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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