On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 11:45:11 +0000, Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:


http://blog.pff.org/archives/Hale%20...0Liability.pdf

Interesting. There was nothing in there about the reception of wireless
signals.

To wit: What if you just wanted to monitor a broadcast signal - similar
to, let's say, listening to a police scanner? It's fairly well
established law, both domestically and internationally, that once the
signal is in the "ether", it belongs to everyone.

I remember you mentioning that about radar. Seems reasonable to me.
However, they did have a bit in there about the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act that sounded rather ominous.

That could keep lawyers busy for about a zillion years. :)

On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 11:45:11 GMT, Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:

Interesting. There was nothing in there about the reception of
wireless signals.

To wit: What if you just wanted to monitor a broadcast signal -
similar to, let's say, listening to a police scanner? It's fairly
well established law, both domestically and internationally, that once
the signal is in the "ether", it belongs to everyone.

That could keep lawyers busy for about a zillion years. :)

Years ago in a medium-sized community, a company offered a movie
channel service that was broadcast, non-scrambled, over the air. When
you subscribed you got a small antenna and receiver.

A few industrious souls figured out how to make an antenna and
receiver of their own, and proceeded to put them up on their roofs,
getting the service for free.

The company caught wind of this, and took them all to court. One of
the people had some spare cash, and fought the company based on the
belief you mentioned. He lost, and they all had to take down their
receivers and pay a hefty "fine".

This *was* in Kalifornia, however, and we all know that what goes on
there can defy logic at times. :-)

Jack

On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 11:43:06 GMT, Shortwave Sportfishing
wrote:

The law and its jurisdiction is very muddy with regard to
"unauthorized" WiFi access. My advice is to be discreet, and above
all, admit nothing.

Ah - the Sergeant Schultz defense.

"I know nothing.... " :)

Precisely. The only evidence of a "crime" is likely to be what you
say in a situation like that. There are plenty of public hotspots
available and searching for one is no crime.

On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 18:05:49 GMT, Shortwave Sportfishing
wrote:

On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 15:59:54 GMT, Jack Goff wrote:

On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 11:45:11 GMT, Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:

Interesting. There was nothing in there about the reception of
wireless signals.

To wit: What if you just wanted to monitor a broadcast signal -
similar to, let's say, listening to a police scanner? It's fairly
well established law, both domestically and internationally, that once
the signal is in the "ether", it belongs to everyone.

That could keep lawyers busy for about a zillion years. :)

Years ago in a medium-sized community, a company offered a movie
channel service that was broadcast, non-scrambled, over the air. When
you subscribed you got a small antenna and receiver.

A few industrious souls figured out how to make an antenna and
receiver of their own, and proceeded to put them up on their roofs,
getting the service for free.

The company caught wind of this, and took them all to court. One of
the people had some spare cash, and fought the company based on the
belief you mentioned. He lost, and they all had to take down their
receivers and pay a hefty "fine".

This *was* in Kalifornia, however, and we all know that what goes on
there can defy logic at times. :-)

Bet money it was a use issue and not a reception issue.

I understand your point, but there is no real difference.

The people in question were just receeiving the signal. They had an
antenna pointed toward the provider, and ended up in court. No one
knew what they were doing with the signal.

If they had an antenna on their roof, they were found guilty.

If the fact that you are figured to be *capable* of using a signal
(since you can receive it) makes you automatically guilty, then
*reception* of the signal *is* the issue.

Understand... I'm right there with you. I believe that if it's in the
public "air", it's fair game. However, we've seen time and again that
the deck is stacked, and not necessarily in our favor.

Jack

Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:
On Sat, 25 Mar 2006 18:10:09 -0700, "RG" wrote:


"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message
.. .
When you guys are out and about with your laptops, do you pay for
wi-fi?

How does that work?

I'm sort of new to public wi-fi, and don't really have a good feel as to
where the free hot spots are vs. where you have to pay to log on.
Therefore, I took a different approach and subscribed to Verizon's wireless
Broadband Access service. It's a bit expensive, but it's got good speed and
you don't have to worry about whether you're in range of a hot spot and what
the costs might be. I'll use traditional wi-fi when I can see that I'm in a
free hot spot, but the Verizon deal is a great fallback. Plus, it allows me
internet and email access at the lake.

I'm just curious how it works. Like how do you know if there even is
a hot spot? Can you log in to anybody's network? How do you pay if
it's a non-free access?

Just curious.

Tom, there's software that sniffs out hot spots for you, like this:
http://www.tucows.com/preview/353008

While on vacation in Phoenix, last fall, I was able to catch WiFi hotspots
near some businesses, and also the RV park I was in. If they were
unsecured, I would use them to access the net. However, in this weeks
Rockford, IL. newspaper, there was a story that goes like this: A cop
was
driving through a parking lot and observed a man sitting in a car. Got
closer and sees that he's using a laptop. Gets out to investigate and
finds
the man is accessing the net on the unsecured WiFi of a not for profit
organization in the nearby building. End result..the man gets arrested
for
using the WiFi without permission..pays a $250 fine. No jail time but
supposedly there is the option of up to 6 months of jail time. The paper
says this is similar to the theft of services you can get nailed with if
you
use a descrambler on your dish or cable.

Where is the law that was applied to this? Under what statute?

Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:
On 27 Mar 2006 12:34:49 -0800, "basskisser"
wrote:


Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:
On Sat, 25 Mar 2006 18:10:09 -0700, "RG" wrote:


"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message
.. .
When you guys are out and about with your laptops, do you pay for
wi-fi?

How does that work?

I'm sort of new to public wi-fi, and don't really have a good feel as to
where the free hot spots are vs. where you have to pay to log on.
Therefore, I took a different approach and subscribed to Verizon's wireless
Broadband Access service. It's a bit expensive, but it's got good speed and
you don't have to worry about whether you're in range of a hot spot and what
the costs might be. I'll use traditional wi-fi when I can see that I'm in a
free hot spot, but the Verizon deal is a great fallback. Plus, it allows me
internet and email access at the lake.

I'm just curious how it works. Like how do you know if there even is
a hot spot? Can you log in to anybody's network? How do you pay if
it's a non-free access?

Just curious.

Tom, there's software that sniffs out hot spots for you, like this:
http://www.tucows.com/preview/353008

Thanks man - I've been looking around and getting some edumacasion on
the subject. This will help.

I understand, I had to do the same thing when I got my first wireless
lan connection. With that software, I can actually drive around with my
laptop on, and it will alert to a connection. Pretty interesting where
you find them, too!

Tom G wrote:
"thunder" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 00:01:02 -0500, Wayne.B wrote:

On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 04:41:59 GMT, "Tom G"
wrote:

End result..the man gets arrested for using the WiFi without
permission..pays a $250 fine.

The law and its jurisdiction is very muddy with regard to "unauthorized"
WiFi access. My advice is to be discreet, and above all, admit nothing.

Yup, quite muddy, but your advice is quite accurate.

http://blog.pff.org/archives/Hale%20...0Liability.pdf

Interesting PDF. In the future, I think it would be prudent to have a
solitaire game ready to pop up and a story about the wife kicking me out of
the house to have a "girlfriends" only Tupperware Party or similar. When I
got a DSL line in my home, I observed that my new laptop would identify
another WiFi access point nearby. That's since disappeared...hmmm..maybe my
neighbor has figured out it's cheaper to use mine instead of paying for his.
I'll have to look into password protecting mine.

Your neighbor(s) may have got wise and stopped broadcasting system IDs.
I broadcast my ID because my wife's work laptop seems to have too much
trouble finding the network without it. I don't worry much about it as
I keep it enrypted and restrict access to a list of known MAC
addresses.