Bah, you should be missing us! And you abandoned us when we were arguing about Christians drinking!
I miss ya already, man.
Well, I stole bandwidth when I first moved to Denver earlier this year. I -did- pay for a dial-up account, but ended up using one of the THREE unsecured wireless networks that were within range of my computer. Idiots.
Where the heck is Bane's blog today?
"Oh dear... I'm being a bad influence... whatever shall I do...."
Well, as long as you're not spreading around the knowledge of how to steal bandwidth, I s'pose you're ok.
(psst. How do you steal bandwidth?)
If the wireless network is open then they want to share it, or they're stupid and won't be using it much anyway. Either way I don't see much harm being done. As long as you're not perpetrating some crime while using their bandwidth then I really don't see a problem.
You can always offer to help them pay their bill, if you use it enough.
Actually Pell,
Astro is not stealing from his neighbors. Astro is stealing from the cable provider. The neighbors have only bought a license access for themselves, they do not own it, so they can not give permission for thier neighbors to use it. Nor can they "split the bll" with thier neighbors.
Interesting you blame the person with the router--we have two. The one we bought, a Linksys, is all nice and secure. The one from the DSL provider (Quest) is not securable. The programing doesn't allow for it to be secured, and you can't tell it to just use the ethernet or usb ports and not broadcast the wireless signal. It crashes at least every other day, too.
Nate, check out netstumbler.com.
http://www.netstumbler.com/downloads/
DL NetStumbler, good stuff.
I run it on my PDA (or laptop) while driving around my neighborhood and find all sorts of interesting unsecured spots.
I have named my SSID, FreeNet4U (when it is open)
When I want to lock it down I call it NoNet4U
It is especially fun in hotels, all the ummmm, information you can find on unsecured computers. Not saying that I do that sort of stuff or would blackmail anyone for thousands of dollars but I just figure that there is interesting stuff out there and people willing to be blackmailed, ya know.
I do not believe that sharing wi-fi has been deemed illegal (or legal for that matter), yet.
I view Net access (bandwidth) like a movie, a book or a car. If I buy a movie, a book or a car and I want to let a friend use it for a little while I can let them borrow it, whether they use it at my house or away from my house. When they are done they stop using it.
If they want to give me some $ for their use, that is fine... hasn't happened yet but I am open to people giving me cash.
I assume Nate, you know that anything you do Net-wise while on someone else's connection is open and available to them if they have the proper software.
Finding the secret location of the mountain fortress wouldn't do them any good...
Wireless and security is an oxymoron.
Pff. Don't transmit anything too sensitive over a wireless connection; if someone wants information bad enough, they'll crack it. WEP encryption can be cracked in anywhere from a few hours to a week.
Where I used to work, the breakroom food policy was "if it's open and unattended, it's fair game." Same applies for WiFi, in my book. Stupid people... just for fun one time, I drove though Lancaster City with KisMac on -- I picked up over 90 unique networks in about 20 minutes. One third were encrypted, but one third were obviously not configured at all -- the routers still had their default SSID and channel. I bet I could access their routers settings and make life miserable for them if I wanted to. (I actually did that once -- logged in, but didn't actually change anything. Idiots.)
WiFi is sorta my emergency cell phone if the need arises. My laptop goes everywhere with me. If I get immensely lost or stuck, I can drive around any town and find an open network within 5 minutes. Then it's just a matter of IMing someone or looking up mapquest.
Thought this might be of interest to those who are using wireless in their homes or business:
http://www.research.earthlink.net/ipv6/
I found this via the Inquirer:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?arti.../?
article=23535
"THE RESEARCH ARM of the american ISP giant Earthlink, has released experimental firmware for the popular Linksys WRT54G routers (currently selling for $59 greenbacks), modified by them to add IPv6 support. This removes the need for "NAT" translation and can in fact make every device in your home have a public IPv6 address (if such devices and computers support IPv6)."
Commenting by HaloScan
