Am I a thief? - moral quandry

Asiacat

Whilst I always like to get anything at the cheapest possible price and am proud of my frugal living one thing I would never do is steal from or cheat anyone.

Now for my current situation i have been connecting to the Internet by an aircard for the last two years. I normally pay 250 baht (I live in Thailand - about 5 pound) a month for a 50 hour credit.

However just lately my laptop has sniffed out an unsecured network on the housing estate where I live and I can now simply click on the browser icon and get a faster free connection to the Internet.

I'm not near any businesses so it's obviously a residential connection that one of my Thai neighbours must be paying for.

Will the fact that using this person's network cost him/her any more money or will my usage have no impact on his/her monthly costs.

Should I top up my card or continue to use the free network?

mark55man

if your neighbour is on unlimited tarriff you won't cost him anything but you're still a scrounger - in effect everyone else is subsidising you and the network will charge more to make up (for you and your kind)

if your neighbour is on a limited package there is a real chance of you causing him to incur costs. so thief may be not, but receiving goods through fraudulent/deception - uh YES

Softstuff

It could well be costing them money, depending on how their internet is billed. They could have a monthly limit, and your usage could send them over that.

You know what to do, or you wouldn't have asked the question

Buy yourself a new card.

Asiacat

Softstuff wrote: »

It could well be costing them money, depending on how their internet is billed. They could have a monthly limit, and your usage could send them over that.

You know what to do, or you wouldn't have asked the question

Buy yourself a new card.

If that is the case then I will definitely top up my card.

If i could figure out who it was I would offer to share the costs as it's a lot better than my aircard connection.

song_of_calliope

Put up a sign in the housing estate asking to share the network. Hopefully the owner will contact you, and then the two of you can share costs. If this happens, you will definitely want to secure the network, otherwise the rest of the estate will probably be leaching off you!

Beccatje

There's different ways to look at this I think.

If my neighbour put his lights on in the house or garden, that radiates so bright so that I can switch my lights off and 'use' his light.. for which he is paying the energy bill.. Would you call that stealing?

If my next door neighbour has a habit of putting his radio on loud enough for me to hear, so I don't have to put mine on... is that stealing?.. (besides the question of whether or not I like his choice of music)


But on the other hand, other than the question of whether or not it is stealing...
There is a security issue. If you are using another persons network, that means you are working with his IP address. You could in theory do lots of nasty/illegal stuff and he'd get the trouble for it. If you order stuff online, and don't pay up, send threatening messsages, or download illegal material, a police investigation would end on his address as it was his IP address that was used.

Soooo... I guess what I would do is try and track down who's network it is, ask to share, AND advise this person to secure his network for the mentioned reasons...

SunshineBear

It's called 'piggybacking' and is unlawful in the UK

The Computer Misuse Act 1990, section 1 reads:

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if— (a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer; (b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorised; and (c) he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that is the case.

In London, 2005, Gregory Straszkiewicz was the first person to be convicted of a related crime, "dishonestly obtaining an electronics communication service" (under s.125 Communications Act 2003). Local residents complained that he was repeatedly trying to gain access to residential networks with a laptop from a car. There was no evidence that he had any other criminal intent. He was fined £500 and given a 12-month conditional discharge.
In early 2006, two other individuals were arrested and received an official caution for "dishonestly obtaining electronic communications services with intent to avoid payment."

MsHoarder

Also, any data you send across and unsecured wireless network can be viewed by anyone with the right technology, including whoever you are piggybacking off. This is what Google picked up when they did their streetview survey.

Pink.

Hi Asiacat,

As your thread is not related to Old Style moneysaving I've moved it across to the internet access board to see if you can get more advice there.

Pink

easyhost

SunshineBear wrote: »

It's called 'piggybacking' and is unlawful in the UK

The Computer Misuse Act 1990, section 1 reads:

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if— (a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer; (b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorised; and (c) he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that is the case.

In London, 2005, Gregory Straszkiewicz was the first person to be convicted of a related crime, "dishonestly obtaining an electronics communication service" (under s.125 Communications Act 2003). Local residents complained that he was repeatedly trying to gain access to residential networks with a laptop from a car. There was no evidence that he had any other criminal intent. He was fined £500 and given a 12-month conditional discharge.
In early 2006, two other individuals were arrested and received an official caution for "dishonestly obtaining electronic communications services with intent to avoid payment."

well someone should inform Plusnet of such. when i joined plusnets some months ago i was have connection issues and i was told by a plusnet agent to check other wireless connections showing on my computer and try one of them to see if i could connect through them. neither to say i refused becuase of the above mentioned act

spannerzone

SunshineBear wrote: »

It's called 'piggybacking' and is unlawful in the UK

."

But is this the case in Thailand where the OP is ?

morally of course it's outrageous!!