Am I a thief? - moral quandry

Peter999_2

To be honest I don't think it is clear cut that it is illegal in the UK at all.

I have never used someone else's wifi, however, an argument could be of how you gain access to someone's unsecured wifi.

e.g. I find an available wireless network. I attempt to connect to it, my PC talks to the DHCP server on the network, and ask's permission to join the network and the DHCP server responds and gives my PC an IP address.

GettingItRight

About 4-5 years I had a friend who came from South America to study in London for a while. When I went to his house, he showed me his computer which had a little device plugged into the side, allowing him to "ninja" a connection from a neighbour. Using the internet at the time he was simply torrenting on demand for all his other house mates. He had a library on his computer of films and South American TV programs. The huge amount of files impressed but also shocked me.

While I am sure you are not constantly downloading files etc, I would personally deem using another person's internet connection morally wrong. That is though only if the person who owns that connection and pays for it is unaware of your usage. If they incur costs whilst being unaware of your activity, then it is no different to someone getting free electricity while the neighbour pays for it.

I would agree that it would be best to play safe and top up that internet card. If the neighbour were to somehow catch you, I doubt they would be impressed and from that you do not know what would happen next.

jobbingmusician

I have a friend through a computer forum who discovered when he moved house that during his whole internet contract (and he DID have a contract, for which he was paying) he had actually been piggybacking on his neighbour's account, without either of them realising :eek: :eek: :eek:

stilltheone

GettingItRight wrote: »

About 4-5 years I had a friend who came from South America to study in London for a while. When I went to his house, he showed me his computer which had a little device plugged into the side, allowing him to "ninja" a connection from a neighbour. Using the internet at the time he was simply torrenting on demand for all his other house mates. He had a library on his computer of films and South American TV programs. The huge amount of files impressed but also shocked me.

While I am sure you are not constantly downloading files etc, I would personally deem using another person's internet connection morally wrong. That is though only if the person who owns that connection and pays for it is unaware of your usage. If they incur costs whilst being unaware of your activity, then it is no different to someone getting free electricity while the neighbour pays for it.

I would agree that it would be best to play safe and top up that internet card. If the neighbour were to somehow catch you, I doubt they would be impressed and from that you do not know what would happen next.

If the neighbour was that Internet savvy, he would simply secure his connection.

obitoo

Peter999 wrote: »

To be honest I don't think it is clear cut that it is illegal in the UK at all.

I have never used someone else's wifi, however, an argument could be of how you gain access to someone's unsecured wifi.

e.g. I find an available wireless network. I attempt to connect to it, my PC talks to the DHCP server on the network, and ask's permission to join the network and the DHCP server responds and gives my PC an IP address.

A good point. Theres a big difference between an unsecured network running DHCP and an encrypted one that i need to go out of my way to crack into.
To use a bad analogy, its the difference between knocking at someones front door and them shouting 'come on in, the doors open' and someone breaking in by picking the lock.

Greensprout

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.

The OP is not in the UK.

In the UK which part of the above is the stealing of bandwidth applicable to? Would it be (b)?

Fat_Debtor

Asiacat wrote: »

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?

Sawadee Krap

Where are you? If you're in a largely farang area, I'd say don't worry about it. Besides, someone's probably stealing your leccy any way!

asbokid

stilltheone wrote: »

If the neighbour was that Internet savvy, he would simply secure his connection.

Perhaps it's a honeytrap?!

An open wireless access point that is a bit too conveniently available.

Fee-fi-fo-fum!

All the parasites of the neighbourhood connect up.

They all log in to their online banking accounts, their hotmail accounts, amazon and ebay, etc..

But, and here's the rub, the Thai bandit has set the wireless interface to promiscuous, and over many months, he secretly harvests all your log-in details.

Before you've even realised that he's emptied your bank account, he's vanished with his ill-gotten gains.

As the saying goes.. It takes a thief to catch a thief!

Asiacat

Fat_Debtor wrote: »

Sawadee Krap

Where are you? If you're in a largely farang area, I'd say don't worry about it. Besides, someone's probably stealing your leccy any way!

I'm in Pattaya but living on a Thai housing estate. I'm probably the only farang in the immediate area.

The thing is that Pattaya is becoming increasingly wifi covered. The Tourist Area of Thailand are installing many free wifi hotspots in and around the tourist areas.

In addition many hotels, shopping centres and restaurants have free wifi also. Almost anywhere in town I can open my laptop and log on to a unsecured free network in the area.

My concern is that where I live is about 5 km away from the tourist areas and that some poor soul is getting charged for my use.

And for all the moralists out there I have topped up my card.

stilltheone

Asiacat wrote: »

I'm in Pattaya but living on a Thai housing estate. I'm probably the only [STRIKE]farang[/STRIKE] foreigner in the immediate area.

The thing is that Pattaya is becoming increasingly wifi covered. The Tourist Area of Thailand are installing many free wifi hotspots in and around the tourist areas.

In addition many hotels, shopping centres and restaurants have free wifi also. Almost anywhere in town I can open my laptop and log on to a unsecured free network in the area.

My concern is that where I live is about 5 km away from the tourist areas and that some poor soul is getting charged for my use.

And for all the moralists out there I have topped up my card.

It's easy for you to see who the ISP may be(through a speedtest?) and from there check the packages available. AFAIK there aren't any packages in Thailand with a data limit.

For example; 3BB