Rocket Silence

The ubiquitous SSID that has been delivering free internet access since 802.11b, but many have argued whether or not this is theft of service or criminal behavior. Unsecured internet access points like a fresh out-of-the-box Linsys router will share your internet connection for anywhere from 50 to 300 feet, likely extending beyond the walls of your home. Without encryption and a password, something rather easy to configure, anyone with a WiFi enabled device is able to hop onto the network and use your internet connection. Most open access points are open inadvertently as a result of those not savvy enough to see multiple risk of an unencrypted wireless router running – a few are open because of generosity and invite users, but let’s be realistic.

Two questions are raised with this issue – whether it is legal to use an open wireless network without explicit permission of the owner, and whether it is morally ethical to use an open network. The former is simple and difficult to answer depending on how you look at it. The development cycles of technology have far outpaced the legislative cycle – this coupled with the ineptitude of elected officials with respect to the issue makes for an unclear legal standing for many activities such as this and file sharing. It’s not an illegal practice for one primary reason: there is no circumvention of a protection scheme or barrier to entry. When one looks for a network to connect to, an attempt to connect to an open access point is met with an acceptance of the request for an IP address by the router’s DHCP server. In cases where encryption technologies are present and a pre-shared key are required to connect, attempts to circumvent this security scheme are most definitely illegal as the operator of the network has done their due diligence to protect their internet service from theft. In this scenario, theft of service is occurring, in the former, not so much.

Is it ethical? Absolutely not. This is where I differ from most technology enthusiasts (read: nerdoids) insofar as I believe accessing an open home network is wrong because you are in some capacity depriving the operator of the bandwidth they pay for. The common analogy is that you’d think of a WiFi access point as a lamp in the outside someone’s home. Is it wrong to sit under the lamp to help you read? Absolutely not. But it’s a completely flawed idea because it failed to take into account usage patterns. Using an open network is consuming a portion of the avaialble bandwidth, for the analogy to work, you’d have to say the lamp grows dimmer as another user sits under it. Remember, most of the open APs you come across in a residential area are open out of ignorance to the security risks and/or because the user just doesn’t have the knowledge to enable an encryption scheme. The other argument is that anyone is entitled to use the network because the network is being trasmitted through their walls into their property or onto public property. Again, this doesn’t put the nature of the issue into perspective – and to get technical about it, the government owns and licenses the radio airwaves.

Simply put, using an open network is not illegal. It is not theft of service since a request for access is met with acceptance rather than rejection. However, it is unethical. Have I done it? Rarely, but yes. Does that make me a hypocrite? Probably, but it’s food for thought anyway.

Rather than driving around looking for open APs or leeching off a neighbors connection, just subscribe to mobile broadband. It’s really not that expensive…