My neighbour is using my WiFi. I know because she told me. But I’m sure other people are using it too, and they are not telling me.
On next week’s show our Techiquette expert Tom Howell will look into the ethics of piggybacking on your neighbour’s WiFi. It’s a funny thing, since you aren’t stealing anything tangible. Does that make the line blurry between right and wrong? Are there legal implications to stealing WiFi?
Tell us what you think. Is it ethical to pinch your neighbour’s WiFi? Post your comments and we’ll work them into the show.
Why wouldn’t you just password-protect your wifi, if you don’t like it being stolen?
I never feel bad about stealing wifi (although I’ve never done so on a permanent basis), if only because it’s such an easy thing for people to prevent, there is some level of tacit consent in an unprotected network.
Ultimately, the person who owns/manages the network is responsible for anything that happens on the network. Piggy-backing on the neighbour’s connection is not only unethical, I think it’s technically trespassing.
gimme a break, you are stealing unless you share the cost of service openly with your neighbour.
‘tacit’ approval does not work neither as most open wireless networks are there as the owner is not technically aware. So don’t use someone elses ignorance as a approval.
Hi Nora,
Nice cat picture.
I don’t see the big deal with using somebody else’s wireless. They can encrypt it if they don’t want people to use it and if they’re technically challenged they can get some help. It’s
very easy to do.
There is a school of thought, which includes myslelf, that deems it a communal good to leave your wireless
network open for others to use. If
everybody did this we would have free
wireless wherever we went.
Of course it could be a problem if you’re location is such that you get
too many freeloaders so that your own
access is compromised. In that case
you can encrypt to stop people from
using it or, better, install software
on your router to throttle back freeloaders to some reasonable fraction of your available bandwidth.
I think because networks can be “open” for others to access, doesn’t mean they’re “free game;” for instance, many business LAN networks can be accessed if you just enter the building and plug in – but you’re still not paying for that service.
I think if you’re going to use a neighbour’s wireless, you should *ask* them first, out of courtesy. Also, tell them what you’ll be using it for.
And for the record, I encourage people to share their WiFi.
If you’re smart enough to set up a wireless network, you should be smart enough to put some security on it.
Otherwise, free for all!
well if they want to send the photons into my apartment without asking of course Id take it. If there is no password I just steal it. At this age I can’t see why people still pay for “interet” service. The local good coffee place usually has it free…or just sit outside within signal distance with a thermos® of homemade coffee and surf the web with adblock on! Which works nicely to block ads on cbc.ca.
It dose not matter we are all dead when it stops.
I wonder what the legalities of this are. I guess it depends on what the correct analogy is. In the physical world, if you leave your door unlocked, it’s still stealing if you take someone’s TV set, but does the analogy really hold? If someone is piggybacking on my wifi, I still have my wifi.
This is making my head hurt!
I believe we need to be careful in presuming that without explicit permission to use something that it is somehow “theft”. The world “theft” is being thrown around all too often for things that don’t remotely work like theft (IE: copyright infringement).
Many organizations are setting up open wireless hotspots. In Ottawa there is a group called Ottawa-Gatineau WiFi (ogWiFi) which is setting up hotspots throughout the city. In this case you connect to an open wireless network, open your browser, and are sent to an information page where you can login. Until you log in you can’t access the network as a whole, but in order to even see the login page you need to have connected (without permission) to a wireless network.
I haven’t yet moved my home wireless to be an ogWiFi node, but I plan to soon. I want to make it much easier to share my internet connection with my neighbors than I am now, and the ogWiFi interface makes this much easier.
The wireless protocols have a trivial way to lock down the connection such that you need a password. While cracking the password and logging in without permission is clearly wrong, I believe it is correct to assume that if a network is open that it was intended to be open.
There may be people purchasing wireless routers without knowing anything about how to properly configure these devices. I believe the solution to this problem is education of those people purchasing hardware, just as there is an expectation that someone driving a car be adequately educated. Blaming the person who connects to an open wireless for connection is simply a bad idea.
Using your neighbour’s Wifi isn’t really stealing because there is, generally speaking, so much excess bandwidth available. In other words, you aren’t taking anything away from anyone else. It’s like helping yourself to a buffet of food that’s been left out for hours, that you know is headed for the trash if you don’t eat it. I guess if you were streaming net radio and downloading movies all day, which could slow your neighbour’s connection, that would present a tangible loss to them and therefore be unethical. But it seems to me that most WiFi freeloaders are only doing so occasionally, and that the hardcore downloaders value the reliability of a fast, legit connection enough to pay for it themselves.
Incidentally, I have always left my own connection open for whomever wants to use it. I used to have a downstairs neighbour who would informally give me a few bucks every so often to help share the cost. Even though I didn’t feel it was particularly owed to me, I thought it was a nice gesture.
Well, you could have some fun with this too.
I am the founder of a community wireless network called Ottawa-Gatineau Wifi (ogWiFi). Our objective is to encourage people to share their bandwidth. We are a not-for-profit group of volunteers that help cafes, households, galleries, small businesses etc. set up secure hotspots to share their bandwidth.
IMO utilizing a neighbours bandwidth is not stealing. However, it may be irresponsible for security reasons to just leave ones router open to the public without any security features. For those who know about security and knowingly leave their systems open, they are simply being generous. It is assumed that most are being generous while many do need some education.
There are many housing coops, social housing projects with tenants/members and marginalized households, non-profit groups, shelters etc. who may have a refurbished computer with a wireless card at home/institution but who currently cannot afford the expensive monthly fees to have an Internet hook up. On a low fixed income or if receiving Social Assistance or Ontario Disability Support it is in fact cost prohibitive. So we are working with community groups to develop models for people to share their lines with their neighbours using the ogWiFi portal page system. This is a way to bridge the infrastructure digital divide and it is a safe and community minded way to share.
In other words, knowingly and securely sharing one’s bandwidth is just plain neighbourly. I am not so worried about the neighbours I am more worried about the Telcos & providers (the or 2 or 3 of them) who prohibit the sharing of bandwidth. Further, spectrum in this range is a free and open near non rivalrous resource made for sharing.
Cheers
Tracey
Here in Fredericton, new Brunswick, we’ve got city-wide and city-funded Wi-Fi at our fingertips. It’s still easier in some areas to grab someone’s freely-shared wi-fi.
The biggest problem with this debate is most of the folks who believe it’s stealing don’t even know how the technology works.
It is not up to me to track down which of my eight neighbors own one of six different wireless networks, so that I can give them a crash course in wireless security.
If you can find the address of the store to buy a wireless router, you should take the time to read your manual. Do you let your vcr flash 12? HOW ABOUT YOUR ALARM CLOCK?
A router is quite simple to set up, with the disc and the manual you have everything you need to figure this out, therefore I can only assume you’ve left your line open for free access,as there is NO other reason to leave yourself wide open.
As for liability. The liability for illegal activity lies with the user who is downloading/uploading illegal content, there is no way to prove in a court of law what data you’ve got as a result of network access logs, you can only use what’s on the drive (or was deleted from the drive) as evidence. An IP address is not enough to convict!
I have a home Wifi system, and I leave it open. It doesn’t cost me any money, and it lets anyone near me free internet access. As long as it doesn’t compromise my home computers, I have no objections to “Guests” using the system, the exception being if some freak used my access point to access child porn.
There are many people who hook up an access point for their own use and simply don’t realize that it’s open for others to use as well. I’d consider it ethically grey to use this sort of link. It’s probably not illegal, but it’s also probably not what the owner intended.
On the other hand, there are many people/places out there who intentionally leave their wifi links open as a public service.
From the point of view of the casual passer-by, there is no way to distinguish between an access point that is intentionally open, and one that is open by accident.
So what do we do? Do we use random open access points and say that the owner has a responsibility to close it if they don’t want others to use it? Or do we only use links that are known to be intentionally open (thus reducing the available pool of access points)?
Maybe routers should default to having encryption enabled, or there should be some sort of standard naming scheme to indicate an access point that is intentionally left open.
New services in the states are popping up that aim to create mesh networking that effectively shares wifi access points with any other members who subscribe to the same service.
I think it’s only unethical to steal from a wifi network (legally it’s probably considered wrong but that’s another matter) if you don’t do the same …. leechers bring everyone down.
Did anyone follow those stories about how many of the ambitious plans for municipal wifi in the US were in trouble or had been canceled altogether largely because the private providers couldn’t make the business model work, and municipal governments were unwilling to make the investment…
Nora,
The projects weren’t killed because of lack of investment, but because the incumbent providers were suing the municipalities for competing with them. In some cases the excessively well funded phone and cable companies were able to lobby state legislators to outlaw municipalities providing wireless infrastructure.
Note: There are projects closer to home with the wireless projects in Toronto and elsewhere. In Ottawa where I live the electricity company owned by the city of Ottawa also owns a fiber network called Telecom Ottawa.
The best solution to the “net neutrality” debate is adequate competition in the last mile. The problem is that the old-economy phone and cable companies don’t want competition at all, and use every trick (some legal, some not so) to stop competition.
BTW: I believe the best model for the Internet is the model we use for roads. Basic infrastructure is managed by the government, and then there is a free market on services that are added on top of that. Phone and Cable companies would no longer own any of the last mile connections, and I would connect into a phone carrier or television broadcaster like I currently log into a pay website. In fact, while broadcasters like television networks will grow in this model, traditional phone and cable companies will cease to exist.
Nora et all.
just thought I'd bring your attention to yet another group that encourages sharing of Internet Bandwidth
In Ottawa we have a community internet provider, National Capital Freenet.
This is my current provider of DSL for quite a reasonable price as they are offering it not-for-profit.
They include in their FAQ a question about sharing…
"
Can I share my NCF DSL with neighbours?
Yes, NCF encourages members to share their DSL with their neighbours. NCF believes that cooperation among neighbours helps make Ottawa a better place.
"
So I plan to share a portion of my bandwidth through ogWIFI (ogwifi.org) when I get the appropriate hardware.
If we go around saynig that free internet is bad then I guess NCF is fighting an uphill battle.
Education and awareness is needed to allow people to make informed decisions.
For every right there is a responsibility. you have the right to use any technology you wish. You have the equal responsibility to understand that technology. If you don't, then the provider of the technology may have the inherent responsibility to educate.
Chris mentioned:
“So what do we do? Do we use random open access points and say that the owner has a responsibility to close it if they don’t want others to use it? Or do we only use links that are known to be intentionally open (thus reducing the available pool of access points)?”
This is a good question.
I do not feel that all open access points are fair game. Also, I do not believe that someone who is able to set up an access point automatically knows how to secure it.
The issue has to do with the difficulties that an access point owner face when it comes to informing potential wifi users about his/her intentions regarding the access point.
Unfortunately, the wifi technology does not provide much lieu of information that can be transmitted from the access point owner to the potential wifi user. Using the SSID, the access point owner can state “open” or “private” in the SSID itself. But, that is about the extent to which intentions can be broadcast.
On the other hand, a secured access point sends a strong message, where the owner does not wish to share.
Open access points that do not specify their intended usage are problematic. I believe that each situation has to be dealt with individually. Blanket statements or policies in this area to not help. It is up to the responsible wifi user to assess the situation.
I am involved with ogWifi, a community wifi group in Ottawa-Gatineau. I think that community wifi groups, like ours, can help in this situation. The technique we use involves a captive portal. In a captive portal, the first page seen by a wifi user is one designed by the access point owner. This page can potentially present a lot of information, including intended terms of use. After this page is shown, the access point is opened to the connecting computer.
The use of access points, where it is publicly stated that the sharing is encouraged, puts everyone at ease. In that case, there is no question. The person or organization that provides the bandwidth wants to share it. Users coming across the wifi service are welcomed to use it.
Obviously, setting up a captive portal is well beyond what most user can easily achieve. So, I think we need to encourage people to:
a. craft their SSID to better inform of their intentions
b. link up with their community wifi group to learn about wifi and gain the needed abilities to help in their wifi neighbourhood
Very grey area. Ethical? Hmmm. Is it unethical to listen to a neighbor's radio from across the road if he has the volume up too high?
Understandably (unless you are paying for satellite radio service), radio is free. Internet is not (but should be subsidized by the government with a fee set by the phone companies, but that's another debate). If the victim loses nothing (but some bandwidth from time to time) and is unaware of the infraction, is it realing stealing? Yes and no.
I have lived in a few apartment buildings where there are many open WiFi connections (5+)but are all clashing with each other (creating slower bandwidth and 'dropped connections' for everyone). I have been known on occassion to 'hack' (not hard to do as people don't change the default name and password) into everyone's routers and solve the conflict, resulting in a more efficient service for all.
I've also been known to 'bump' other 'pinchers' off many users' WiFi and reserve the bandwidth for the 'client' and myself, exclusively. So in some ways, I'm preventing a larger 'problem' for a smaller one.
This makes me feel a bit better about pinching. There were many sleepness nights before coming to this resolution, I can tell you
Most ISPs have a bandwidth cap. Let`s say it`s 60GB of combined sent and received bytes. If your neighbours and everyone else access your internet service, they are essentially running up your bill, since there are penalties for going over your limit. So wether it is stealing or not, who can say, but you are definately at risk of doing a great disservice to the person responsible for paying the bill.
LOL…where there is a will there is a way….AIRSNORT!!!! AirSnort is a wireless LAN (WLAN) tool which recovers encryption keys. AirSnort operates by passively monitoring transmissions, computing the encryption key when enough packets have been gathered. Anything is possible now a days.
I currently have access and use several WiFi connections from my neighbours and believe it is both ethically and legally okay. They have the option of encrypting their signal if they choose. It is equivalent to free TV transmittion. When I tune my bunny ears into a station and receive an open signal that passes through my house I am doing nothing illegal or ethically wrong. If I on the other hand cracked into an encrpyted signal then I have crossed the line.
The fact remains that if somebody using your wifi access point does something illegal (downloading kiddie porn, hacking, whatever) it’s YOUR name that your broadband provider is going to give to police.
IMO providing network access to strangers with no questions asked is no different from selling guns to strangers with no questions asked.
Research that I am my colleagues at Ryerson U, York U and the University of Toronto in the Community Wireless Infrastructure Research Project (CWIRP.ca) are currently conducting sheds some light on these interesting questions of wifi signal sharing and internet development for the public.
We are finding that while it is common for people to encrypt their wireless signals to prevent others for accessing their service, there are significant numbers of people who are willing to share their wireless internet access especially when there are measures available to prevent excessive use and protect personal data. One approach to this in Toronto is offered by Wireless Nomad, an ISP cooperative that provides relatively open internet access while facilitating sharing among members.
Also Russell (Nov 4, 09:40) is right about roads being a good model for the provisioning of basic internet access and the main challenge to community and municipal broadband service being the resistance from the incumbent cable and phone companies. In Toronto, city-owned Toronto Hydro Telecom has the opportunity and the technical means to provide a proper utility type internet service but chose to pursue a commercial route which will not offer nearly as much in the way of opening access and lowering prices.
I think it is ethically ok to use an open wifi connection. Kyle mentioned you should ask if you want to use your neighbor’s wifi before you use it. Well, your computer does the asking for you.
What goes on from a technical perspective is this: the computer that wants to join the wifi network asks the wifi router for an IP address. The router either rejects this request or accepts it and sends back an IP address to the requester. So technically, someone who joins a wifi network that has no security turned on *has* asked permission to join that network.
The problem arises because some people are *so dumb* that they don’t know enough to turn on security on their router, so their network is wide open to the world, possibly against their own wishes. Those are the same people whose computers are full of viruses, probably part of some zombie network participating in criminal activities without their knowledge. Those people are a danger to everyone else on the internet and shouldn’t be allowed to have an internet connection at all.
In conclusion, if I stumble upon an open wifi network, I like to assume that it is open by choice of the owner of the router.
2 things. A) How would i know which neighbour has the wifi so i can pay thme for the signal? is there a sign posted on windows like Block Parents? B) If someone sends a wifi signal into my residence why wouldnt that signal then become my property? Are they not performing a sense of trespass by placing in my domicile something i dont want in it? How would i tell them to stop it? (esp. if i dont know who has it in the first place)
Rather than gift, theft or loan, it’s more like trespassing and rights of way. We could have a system of mostly private roads, but we prefer our mostly public system. That may apply to frequency channels as well. Furthermore, you can bet a lot of public roads were established on private property by owners yielding a right of way to people who we would otherwise have to call trespassers. Granted, we don’t want private loggers slashing a route across our parks, but the land is a very longstanding resource that people began carving up very long ago, and often in a quasi-collective way through their governments. Not-so wi-fi. Marconi was a while ago, but he wasn’t shopping on Amazon.
My roommate’s dad (who works with computers) has been here for over an hour talking on the phone on the 1-800 number trying to get the damn thing to work. So it’s not easy to set up with a password, and not everybody has someone that is good with computers to help them.
I think it’s not that bad if you need to go on to check your email and you have a good reason (in the process of trying to figure out how to get your own router to work) but not to do things like youtube or downloading stuff.
Here's a thought for those of you with no hesitation on using open wi-fi. How do you feel about your neighbour knowing every website you visit and even being able to access your online banking information?
That open connection can work both ways. Not everyone with an unsecured wi-fi is as technically ignorant as you might think.
Let's stop and think and put the digital shoe on the other foot. Being thorough with legalities, shouldn't I be asking permission for my wifi signal to be passing through my neighbour's property. If years later we find there are health risks associated with all these frequencies pulsing through the air, will I be responsible for raising the cancer risk to my luddite neighbor due to my wifi signal.
How about a compromise for now, if that signal is going through their property they should be able to use and if i want I should be able to encrypt it .
It's 'theft' right enough!
for Theft Sections, go to > http://www.lawyers.ca/statutes/criminal_code_of_c…
326. (1) Every one commits theft who fraudulently, maliciously, or without colour of right,
(a) abstracts, consumes or uses electricity or gas or causes it to be wasted or diverted; or
(b) uses any telecommunication facility or obtains any telecommunication service.
Definition of "telecommunication"
(2) In this section and section 327, "telecommunication" means any transmission, emission or reception of signs, signals, writing, images or sounds or intelligence of any nature by wire, radio, visual or other electromagnetic system.
327. (1) Every one who, without lawful excuse, the proof of which lies on him, manufactures, possesses, sells or offers for sale or distributes any instrument or device or any component thereof, the design of which renders it primarily useful for obtaining the use of any telecommunication facility or service, under circumstances that give rise to a reasonable inference that the device has been used or is or was intended to be used to obtain the use of any telecommunication facility or service without payment of a lawful charge therefor, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.
Forfeiture
(2) Where a person is convicted of an offence under subsection (1) or paragraph 326(1)(b), any instrument or device in relation to which the offence was committed or the possession of which constituted the offence, on such conviction, in addition to any punishment that is imposed, may be ordered forfeited to Her Majesty, whereupon it may be disposed of as the Attorney General directs.
Limitation
(3) No order for forfeiture shall be made under subsection (2) in respect of telephone, telegraph or other communication facilities or equipment owned by a person engaged in providing telephone, telegraph or other communication service to the public or forming part of the telephone, telegraph or other communication service or system of such a person by means of which an offence under subsection (1) has been committed if such person was not a party to the offence.
untill the wifi police come knocking on my door im going to have my antenna up and receive free wifi all day long, how are you going to say it,s stealing when it,s in the air,uncontrolled,wtf?maybe we better set a price on our air?