Moral Dilemma - Do I take advantage of "free" Broadband

DKLS

Well seeing as its only a couple of months, I will go with the moral minority, thank you startrekker & amcluesent, Its not as if i will be downloading tunes and movies, just to check my email once a night

superscaper

DKLS wrote:

Well seeing as its only a couple of months, I will go with the moral minority, thank you startrekker & amcluesent, Its not as if i will be downloading tunes and movies, just to check my email once a night

What you choose to do is up to you but announcing that you are going to willingly break the law (whether it is moral or not) I don't think fits with the ethos of this forum and the forum rules.

MadCowMan

I'd say it also potentially exposes you to identity theft ( those network may well be honey traps design to grab as much username / password details as possible )

As previous people have mentioned , it may be worth trying to find out whose networks they are , and helping them secure it. I'm sure for the price of a bottle of wine , you could enjoy legal and dilemma free email foer the duration of your stay.

jampton

startrekker wrote:

Use it, people who are senseless enough to leave their access it open deserve to be taken advantage off.

Some people choose to leave their access open - a conscious decision rather than a senseless one

DKLS

In review of posts, I will contact my neighbours and offer to secure their networks in exchange for small donations of alcohol

Woby_Tide

MadCowMan wrote:

I'd say it also potentially exposes you to identity theft ( those network may well be honey traps design to grab as much username / password details as possible )

I'd be surprised that anyone with an ounce of techie sense would be leaving 'honey pots' around on teh offchance that some unsuspecting new resident happens to stumble across their network (what sort of coverage are we talking about on routers up to 50 metres max say and thats probably pushing it?) Then at the same time we're saying that someone with a decent amount of tech savvy would quite happily leave a network open and leave themselves susceptible to info being stolen or being compromised themselves? Just doesn't ring true. The easiest check is logging on to the router, if the SSID and password are still the defaults, then it's some clueless local who decided they needed to have wireless. I'd have no moral issues about using a connection such as that for email checking etc., downloading stuff or more serious use I'd just wait till my own connection was in.

MadCowMan

There isn't enough unfo to be sure , but take a hypthetical example of a swanky block of flats , next to an office block - there have been cases of phishing gang creating fake hotspots to act as a honey trap

The point is that you dont know exactly what you are connecting to and as such should be aware of what data you send out to that segment of the network.

Maybee I've been in sysadmin too long and got overly paranoid - I'll go get my tin foil hat

Woby_Tide

I'm afraid if you haven't already got your tinfoil hat on it's too late. You need to reboot.

superscaper

The moral issue is really irrelevant, the forum rules state that illegal topics can't be discussed here. Accessing unsecure wireless networks without permission is illegal and has case precedence. I don't think there is anything else that can be said on the matter.

startrekker

superscaper wrote:

I suppose you check whether people have left their doors unlocked and rob them if they have because it's their own fault ?!?

I certainly dont, but there are those who do, and if they sre foolish enough to leave their doors open , well!!!!!!!!