There is an article over at Ars Technica on WiFi Ethics.
WiFi is everywhere, even in Prague panelaks, where I faced the dilemma common to every traveler with a laptop: to leech or not to leech? See, from our flat at the edge of the city, my wife and I discovered a range of WiFi signals coming from the gray apartment block next door. Most were secured, but a single network was tantalizingly open. The options were stark; as renters, DSL was out of the question, and although dial-up access could be had for free (from the ISP), you paid a per-minute charge (to Český Telecom) that quickly became ruinous. Now, I know that most terms of service for broadband connections include a provision that the connection not be shared beyond a user’s house, but I hadn’t signed any such agreement. And, since most Czech broadband plans are paid for by the month and not by the megabyte, we weren’t running up anyone’s bill. So we connected—for two months.
I’m happy to say that no came pounding on our door in the middle of the night to haul us off to in handcuffs to Ruzyne, but we were working in an ethical and legal gray zone. Here in the US, it’s a common issue that confronts the business traveler on a daily basis, but it is potentially problematic. For instance, you may remember the widely reported story about the Florida man who went to jail for his surreptitious use of someone’s open WiFi connection. Local laws, such as this proposed one from the enlightened state of New York, could make it illegal for users to leave the routers open to others. (It’s all for security—well, security and the children. Identity theft and child porn are the usual boogeymen here.)
In this increasingly rigid climate, it’s always interesting to hear from the other side, in this case ethics columnist Jeffrey Seglin. Seglin is obviously not the first to make the argument that using open WiFi networks is acceptable, but it is a sign of the times when the issue appears in a syndicated column across the country. Here’s a taste:
“While I suppose that an argument could be made that you should never use what you don’t pay for, I don’t think this would apply here—and I’m not even sure that I agree with the broad sentiment. Unless it is made clear to users tapping into wireless connections that they must agree to certain conditions before proceeding, they have not breached any ethical mandate by logging on in any way that they legally can.”
There are other ethical considerations, of course, such as whether you should alert your neighbor about his open network and see if he minds your use of it. How much bandwidth is too much to use? Are you causing your neighbor to inadvertently violate the terms of service he signed, and could this have legal repercussions for him? Using wide-open WiFi seems fine to us at the Orbiting HQ, but just because you’re an anonymous user doesn’t mean you’re entitled to behave like a total cad (defined as downloading a gig of porn through BitTorrent over your neighbor’s wireless link). Where are the lines of courtesy and responsibility to be drawn?
This was also an issue discussed very thoroughly over at SpyMac forums about eight months ago. There are several viewpoints on the use of open WiFi access points. The first, is that it is theft of service and electronic tresspass, and should be illegal. The second viewpoint is that it is okay to use the WiFi network, provided you do not abuse it, but that you have not been given permission to do so. A third point of view is that by being open and unsecured, the owner of the WiFi access point has given de facto permission for you to use it within reason. The state of the current law varies from state to state and is currently evolving.
I’ve also written about WiFi security on this blog before. I personally believe in the third view. It is a generally accepted in the law to post “No Tresspassing” signs or make it obvious that tresspassing is not allowed, by say putting up a chainlink fence. By not securing/encrypting a WiFi access point, then the owner of the access point is essentially leaving it open for public use. Another reason I see this as a valid viewpoint, is that the radio spectrum used by 802.11a/b/g equipment is public. If the signal from his WiFi access point is available in my living room, why should I not be able to use it. Please note, that this is different from what happened in Florida, where the man arrested was sitting in a car, parked outside someone’s house, in order to use their WiFi connection. In a court of law, that would probably be seen as unreasonable, where sitting in my living room is a reasonable action. Wardriving is skirting the edges of what is reasonable and what is unreasonable.
Personally, I would recommend that anyone with a WiFi network secure it as I’ve recommended in my blog article on WiFi security.
I agree with your conclusion. I was amazed when I first bought a computer with WiFi that I could immediately use my neigbor’s networks if I wanted to. Once I realized how easy that was I included encryption on my own network when I set it up.
I have to admit that I have already adopted the viewpoint that if it is open and unencrypted I use it – and in turn I leave mine open. If someone started hogging my bandwidth I’d notice and stop it happening. It is very convenient when travelling to just be able to hop onto someone’s network, and I hope that one day most cities at least will be universally wifi.
Unfortunately, the lobbyists for the Telecom industry are trying their best to kill any efforts by municipalities to setup city-wide WiFi. In Pennsylvania, the only city that will be allowed to do it is Philadelphia, as they started the process before the law banning it was passed and are grandfathered in.