Whether or not "Joe" wants to give Internet service away for free is irrelevant. You would be stealing it from the ISP provider. The "spirit of the law" is if it's a service you need to pay for it. If are you receiving something you aren't paying for, you are stealing. -----Original Message----- From: owner-crime@private [mailto:owner-crime@private] On Behalf Of Crispin Cowan Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2004 12:56 PM To: warren@private Cc: Priscilla Oppenheimer; CRIME Subject: Re: CRIME wireless case study URLs? Warren Harrison wrote: >> AFAIK, the law is rather untested on whether it is actually illegal >> to surf on an open wifi network. It seems to vary based on intent and >> activities, i.e. it likely is illegal under existing wiretap and >> computer break-in laws to use open wifi to break into someone's >> network. OTOH, there does not appear to be any law against connecting >> to someone's open wifi to just get some free Internet access. > > actually, there is an Oregon statue: > > > 164.125 Theft of services. (1) A person commits the crime of > theft of services if: > (a) With intent to avoid payment therefor, the person obtains > services that are available only for compensation, by force, threat, > deception or other means to avoid payment for the services; or > > ... > > (2) As used in this section, "services" includes, but is not > limited to, labor, professional services, toll facilities, > transportation, communications service, entertainment, the supplying > of food, lodging or other accommodations in hotels, restaurants or > elsewhere, the supplying of equipment for use, and the supplying of > commodities of a public utility nature such as gas, electricity, steam > and water. "Communication service" includes, but is not limited to, > use of telephone, computer and cable television systems. > > ... > > note there is the issue of intent, so if you think > you are connecting to your wifi access point, and inadvertently > connect to your neighbors', you really aren't at risk. Hmmm. So it clearly is illegal to hack your way past the payment portal of a for-pay WAP like a T-Mobile. But what if the "service" is *not* intended for pay? I.e. I'm hanging around some street corner, and my wifi picks up the WAP for "Joe's Auto Insurance" located above me on the 2nd floor. Joe clearly is not offering any WAP service for pay. It is ambiguous whether he intends to just share his connection for free, or if he meant to close it down and forgot. And really mucking the intent is if Joe didn't even know this was an issue, and thus had formed no actual intent either way. Now is it a crime to use Joe's WAP to access Yahoo and eBay? This is a real question in practice, as hacking past T-Mobile is not very easy, but war-driving to find someone like our hypothetical Joe is very easy. And in fact I know people who have not bothered to purchase Internet service for their apartment after they discovered that they can "share" a connection with one of their anonymous neighbors. Crispin -- Crispin Cowan, Ph.D. http://immunix.com/~crispin/ CTO, Immunix http://immunix.com -------------------- This e-mail may contain information that is privileged, confidential, or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the addressee or it appears from the context or otherwise that you have received this e-mail in error, please advise me immediately by reply e-mail, keep the contents confidential, and immediately delete the message and any attachments from your system. Thank you.
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