Wireless Internet theft is always wrong
Leo Laporte who started off as a popular radio and TV tech guy is now one of the more popular Internet tech personalities. Laporte is someone who has always helped the average person with their technology troubles, but Jennifer was one lady he had to give some tough love advice.
What started off as a typical helpline call from a lady named “Jennifer” turned into a really embarrassing story of deceit, theft, and rationalization. Jennifer came on the line needing help with her Wi-Fi Access Point “Linksys” which had “disappeared” and that she can no longer connect to the Internet even though she purchased a more powerful Wi-Fi extender. Out of a long shot hunch, Laporte asked her if she was the owner of the Wi-Fi Access Point to which Jennifer initially answered that it disappeared. When asked if she owned it, she finally admitted that she was a “wireless thief” which is when the real fun begins.
Laporte then explained that she should buy her own broadband access and her own Wi-Fi Access Point, but Jennifer started to rationalize the situation by saying that Wi-Fi theft was “not uncommon”. Laporte then explained that this wasn’t legal, and that the owner probably caught on and they locked it down or moved it, and then explained why it was so dangerous to use an unsecured network. Jennifer explained that she had no problem doing her online banking through the system to which Laporte told her that she was endangering herself by being so cheap.
Now comes the rationalization part where Jennifer complains that broadband access is too expensive, but Laporte asks her if $14.95 for DSL access is too expensive. Laporte goes on to ask if she would be fine with stealing from the grocery store since it’s so expensive and that was pretty much the end of Jennifer’s rebuttals.
What’s disturbing is the ease with which people can rationalize the theft of broadband service which is an industry that employs 1.4 million people. Another common rationalization people make is that they think they have the right to share their Internet access with their neighbors or anyone on the street (often used as plausible deniability to defend piracy charges). But would it be acceptable for someone to “share” their subscription TV service with their neighbors and everyone close enough to get a Wi-Fi signal? Would it be OK to charge the neighbors a share of that bill? Would it be OK to start a new “innovative” food service business that minimizes expenditures by getting a daily supply from a $10 all-you-can-eat buffet? Most people would think no, so why would Internet access be any different?
A subject that can get touchy in a hurry.
While I fully agree that wifi sharing is illegal and wifi stealing should even be more illegal, I am surprised that some Apartment complexes and other areas take measures to provide the service to their tenants.
I know of a number of cases in the college town where I live that there are simply too many APs in a specific area for them to be even functional.
There could be mechanisms to allow the landlord communicate a monthly key to the service which could help the tenants have access to a bigger shared pipe verses a single smaller pipe.
Granted the Landlord could pay a bill that is higher since he is a business distributing to customers, but he could also save the monthly headache of having a cable installer drop by, hook up internet service, then drop by for every little additional problem that an individual user has to deal with. Personally, I would love this as a landlord could deal with having to catch the Cable/DSL company verses the numerous times I had to take away from work for an install of sorts.
So, while this is theft, there is a sense of savings to the Cable company. Whether it equals the amount of that a second customer would provide or not, I can’t say. But there are occasions where one less customer equals one less headache.
And George, can you never say that you had some friends over for supper? Did you ask them for help for the cost of the food as well as labor to cook it at the end of the night?
Would this also be stealing?
wondering if the reason pc at home is getting so slow is because someone else is accessing our wireless connection. we have our internet thru comcast and use a mother computer located on 1st floor and a secondary “wireless” connection upstairs. but in the weeks following the secondary connection setup, particularly the last few weeks of feb., i almost think i have dial up service, it has gotten so slow. any ideas?
David, I’ve given out the following advice before but I’ll paste it here.
For consumers, the only thing they need to do to ensure an practically unbreakable wireless security system on their home router is pick WPA security with Pre-Shared Key (PSK) authentication using a random 12 character key such as J3sh1NrcZpw2 and TKIP or AES encryption. There is not a single security researcher in the entire world that has come forward to claim that they could break this kind of security setup within the next thousand years using modern cracking hardware and techniques.
“And George, can you never say that you had some friends over for supper? Did you ask them for help for the cost of the food as well as labor to cook it at the end of the night?”
When I *invite* someone to my house, I never charge them for food or labor. However, there’s usually a minor squabble when they insist on paying for stuff and we refuse.
But food is different in that I’m sharing food that I’ve bought in whole. Now if I went to a buffet and bought a $12 all-you-can-eat meal, it doesn’t mean “all my friends can eat”. That’s the difference with sharing broadband.
If an apartment complex resells broadband service, they’re allowed to do this so long as they purchase a dedicated business connection which by nature is a full-ownership circuit. A broadband connection is by definition a fractional ownership (typically 1/30th) connection. I can’t resell or share out the other 29/30th of that circuit.
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