* Man bites dog; airwaves encroach on intruder
Earlier this month, there was a widely reported story about a man arrested in Florida for squatting on a home user’s Wi-Fi network from an SUV. Details about exactly what mischief the “intruder” was up to were skimpy, which could greatly affect how the saga plays out.
But for now, the blogs and chat room banter I’ve seen on this issue tend to diverge from the direction I’d take. They focus on whether it was the Wi-Fi owner’s fault for not “locking the wireless door” with encryption and whether this should give an outsider the right to “steal” resources. This is an important issue: if the fellow in the SUV indeed hacked into the homeowner’s computer and stole information (a privately owned resource), he should indeed be prosecuted. But this isn’t the only issue.
If all the laptop-toting SUV passenger did was use the airwaves to bridge to the Internet – which, at 2.4 GHZ and 5 GHz are unlicensed in the U.S. and available for use by anyone so long as their equipment meets certain standards – he didn’t really do anything wrong on the Wi-Fi side of the things. In fact, the signal was leaking out of the house to the car; the resource came to him, rather than the other way around.
If I ran water out of my hose to the street, would a neighbor’s dog be free to drink it? If my microwave oven blasted as far as the street (remember, this is only an analogy!), would someone walking by be free to toast their hot dog in the waves? If music from my radio or stereo blared through my walls, would it be legal for someone outside to listen, sing along, or jive?
If they can get the poacher on anything, I would think it would be for the unauthorized use of the plaintiff’s last-mile broadband link to the Internet, a paid-for resource that has state and federal regulations and tariffs associated with it. It would seem that even the broadband provider might have a case for restricting the unauthorized use of its network. Poachers could seriously affect a service provider’s oversubscription ratios (a.k.a., network planning).
And, finally, if this is airwave controversy we’re talking about, isn’t this an FCC matter, with federal jurisdiction? What does it have to do with state or municipal prosecution?
Send me your opinions!
* CORRECTION: Due to an editing error in the last newsletter headlined “Scanning grabs 802.11 spotlight”, the first line under “In this issue:” should read “Companies enhance wireless IPSs”.
