maemo.org - Talk - View Single Post - Man arrested for stealing (wifi) broadband

Liam1	2007-08-23 , 19:11
Posts: 22 \| Thanked: 0 times \| Joined on Jul 2007	#27

No, it's not. Why? Because you CANNOT prove in a court of law that there was any damage to you or your property from someone else's 802.11 signals somehow winding up on your property. And it would be VERY hard to prove since - by law - unlicensed 802.11 spectrum MUST accept interference from any other device.
That's why you have no civil - and definately no criminal - case at all. No lawyer is going to even attempt to try that case.
Let's say YOU were running your own 802.11 wi-fi lan and the neighbor's wi-fi router was "jamming" you up somehow, probably because you're both running on the same channel.
Not a damn thing you can do other than jump channels (freqs) since both devices are operating in accordance with the law.
But that's what the "auto" setting on most wi-fi routers is there for.

Iball, understood. Your example is almost the equivalent of saying in a noise disturbance, as long as no damage is done or there is no one in the house actually listening to the noise, then there is no case. It is only when the noise interferes with the listener (eardrums aching etc) is when there is a case. Good explanation.

The flashlight analogy I gave was for connecting. To be able to actually use a wifi connection, you have to transmit back to the access point, at which time you are connected to their network.

Thank you Barry for the clarification. I understood your initial post, but I just wanted to point out that the flashlight analogy wasn't analogous an actual unauthorized wifi access, thats all.