Ok, say I am stopped in a parking lot waiting for my wife to leave a store and I whip out my Nokia IT. It detects 5 wifi hotspots, 2 of which are unsecured...

What's the miss manners ruling on popping onto a network to check my email or grab a little internet radio?? Is this technically wardriving?

Funny, because in my house, I detect 5 separate networks. Due to a hardware issue on my stepdaughter's PC, it is currently non-password protected. I wonder if the 16 yr. olds behind me or next door have checked out my "Work" folder .

One could say that if I am non-intelligent enough to leave wireless unsecured, I deserve to have my bandwidth stolen and my pr0n copied. But recent events indicate that people seem to be getting arrested for using unsecured wireless.

So if I'm in a bind, I use whatever is open. The odds are still against getting caught. It is bad manners though.

There has already been a (locked) thread on this. Read your heart out: http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ead.php?t=9108

What if someone puts a water fountain on their front lawn? Is it ok to take a drink? I think it is.

There are different laws in different countries. But for my part I don't see any moral, ethical or criminal problem with connecting and syncing mail for 30 seconds or so, disconnect and go away. I certainly wouldn't mind anyone using my own network that way. And wi-fi devices can be set up to automatically connect to open networks, the user won't even know what the essid is (e.g. if it's 'default', 'linksys', 'homenet', 'private-but-open-stay-off', 'myfreenet-for-light-use' or whatever).

What I never do though is abusing someone else's network (I don't download huge amounts of data or surf for long periods etc.). I sync email mostly. What is legal or not legal in my country I'm not sure about, but I used to walk to the busstop, go online for 30 secs and synch avantgo on my Palm, then walk on the bus. Because there was a reachable network there. Legal? I think so, but I'm not sure. Feels legal? Yes. Would I mind if I were the network owner? No.

In any case, whatever else, I think the age-old medical oath should be followed: "First, do no harm."

Here we go again...

Walking onto their lawn uninvited is trespassing. What someone might "think" about trespassing and taking water without permission is irrelevent-- what matters is how the property owner sees it.

What if the fountain spilled out into the street.. would it still be trespassing to drink of it? And the other way - if you have to enter someones garden to get close enough to a wi-fi signal, then what.. trespassing? I would think so. Anyway, I'm not really arguing strongly one way or the other, seems like a quagmire to me.

I just think it's wryly amusing to see some people reach so far and work so hard to rationalize using someone else's paid service without asking permission. A real testament to ethics decline IMO.

If you read the other thread that has just finished on this subject you will see that in the UK, someone was arrested for doing just that.
So really, it doesn't matter if you see anything moral, ethical or criminal in it, in the UK you can get arrested for it. Thats the thing, it doesn't have to seem criminal to you, but if it is against the law, you can get done for it.
I am sure it is also probably illegal in the states too, and you have much more draconian penalties for the non-celebrity class.

I work for the U.S. Government. I'm already in your nets, looking at your pr0n.