WiFined

July 7, 2005

Benjamin Smith III of St. Petersburg, Florida used to park his SUV outside the home of Richard Dinon for one reason only -- to steal his WiFi! Shocked and appalled, Dinon called the police and had Smith arrested for using someone else's bandwidth.

Is this even a crime? If Dinon left his WiFi network wide open, which he did, and Smith was sitting outside on a public street and just happened to have his laptop and just happened to find the signal and just happened to... you know, it is kind of creepy. But is it stealing?

Florida law enforcement arrested Smith for unauthorized access to a computer network, which counts as a third-degree felony. So I suppose it really is a crime -- at least in Florida.

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Scott added:

I thought the public owned the airwaves. Isn't that the reason we have the FCC? Because people cannot easily prevent these signals from intruding on them?

So if I'm driving down your public street and you're pushing 802.11g into my path, you can't bitch if I pull out a laptop and surf your unprotected waves.

Posted on July 7, 2005 11:04 AM

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doinkicarus added:

That's hilarious, actually. My father is a police officer, and he often carts his laptop around on the job, and parks it outside of restaurants and hotels (and I suppose, private residences) in order to access their WiFi Networks so he can check his e-mail and work on his blossoming Web Design business.

Posted on July 7, 2005 12:22 PM

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