“The conventional wisdom is that using an open Wi-Fi network is theft. The argument goes something like this. “It’s my network, and my bandwidth, and by using it you’re stealing. It’s just like breaking into my house and eating my food. What gives you the right to use my property?”

But that metaphor doesn’t match what really happens when you connect to a Wi-Fi network.

A wireless router isn’t passive, or contained within the home or business of the owner. It actively broadcasts a radio signal dozens or hundreds of feet in 360 degrees. If you can see your neighbor’s network on your computer, that means he’s breaking into YOUR house, not that you’re breaking into his. That signal penetrates your walls and your body (the full effect on health has yet to be determined conclusively) and, of course, your computer. He’s affecting to a small degree what’s going on inside your computer. (What gives him the right to use YOUR property?)

If you connect via the signal of your neighbor’s router, you’re connecting to something that is inside your home, and has been placed inside your home without your permission. So it’s not like breaking into your neighbor’s house to eat his food. It’s more like your neighbor breaks into your house without your permission and leaves his food in your refrigerator. If you eat it, the legality or ethics of that usage or consumption is different, isn’t it?”

Makes total sense to me.

Imagine the outrage you would feel if you moved into a new apartment, but didn’t realize it came with a doorman who would invite any passerby into your living room. If you came home and found your neighbors in your house, you would call it trespassing, when in reality your doorman had actually invited them in.

The problem is that many people simply do not understand wifi, and that manufacturers do not accommodate this lack of knowledge with more secure defaults.

My neighbor is not Google; an advertised business that gets paid by your frequenting it.

It’s theft, stealing, trespassing, and it’s wrong.

Your cable example makes using the wireless seems like theft. But it ignores the whole advertisement aspect. Here’s a modification that more accurately represents the transaction: A person stands on his front porch holding a cable connected to his modem. He yells “Free Internet!” at anyone who walks by, and if they stop, he hands them the cable and invites them to plug in.

Does it still seem like stealing?

The owner has invited anyone in the area to use his connection, although perhaps he didn’t intend to. Using it is hardly in the same league as breaking & entering or stealing a bicycle. Trying to equate the two smacks of the same disingenuous propaganda as the movie trailers that try to make us believe that downloading a movie is as bad as stealing a car.

We both seem to agree on the core problem, at least: Some people would be surprised to realize that they’ve configured their router to eagerly attempt to share their Internet connection. At the same time, wireless users can’t easily tell if the owner intended to share his connection (as some of my friends and many small businesses do) or whether the owner made a mistake.

it is sad, because this is something that could be solved fairly easily by the router manufacturers: If they shipped routers with open access turned off by default, then any remaining open nodes would be obviously intentional. I would much prefer a technical solution like this to a cumbersome legal solution, which I fear we will be saddled with.

If a person has a cable between his home modem and his living room computer, then even an idiot has to agree that breaking in and attempting to use his broadband is illegal. Ditto if you tried to tie in outside the house.

Just because the person decides to remove the cable and use a wireless connection, his broadband doesn’t suddenly become free. It’s still theft of the services that he’s paying for.

The only valid argument is: how do you know what’s freely given and what’s not. There needs to be a standard for SSID naming, so that it’s clear.