I'm not stealing your Wi-Fi

To repeat my post from earlier in the thread....

I'll try to clarify this from a legal point of view for those that are interested.
The Theft Act 1968 states that it is an offence:- "To dishonestly Appropriate Property belong to another with the intent to permanently deprive them of it"
The police have what are called 'points to prove' before they can charge any person. They must prove all of the following:-
That the actions were DISHONEST
that APPROPRIATION took place (i.e. the alleged offender took on the rights of the rightful owner)
That the item constitutes PROPERTY
That the item BELONGED TO ANOTHER (not the alleged offender)
That there was INTENT TO PERMANENTLY DEPRIVE the rightful owner of the item.

If any one of those criteria is not met then in law there is no offence. There are numerous defences and that the police secure any convictions for theft is frankly a miracle.
Section 13 of the act covers 'non tangible goods' and covers the misuse, waste, unlawful use and divertion of electricity. Under that act anybody that uses a wireless network without permission of the owner does the following. They 'DISHONESTLY APPROPRIATE PROPERTY BELONGING TO ANOTHER WITH THE INTENT TO PERMANENTLY DEPRIVE THEM OF IT'. This is theft, pure and simple. They have not borrowed anything as they cannot return anything.
Anybody doing so are thieves. They are criminals!
The problem is that we all attach our own morality to things and if we don't think it is theft then it isn't! The problem is that we are wrong and it is theft.
I hope that has clarified things for you all.

If I had a penny for each of the useless advices I got from others on this website I would be a trillionaire.

Bah to MikeP.

Depending on what wireless management system you use, you should be able to set it not to connect to certain networks, and to default to your preferred.

Failing that, it wouldn't exactly be a Herculean task to go to those of your neighbours who might be within range, and suggest that they secure their network. You'd be doing them a favour.

Far from stealing my neighbour's WIFI service my damnable neighbour has a BTFON wifi service which swamps my own. My PCs all connect automatically. They all try to connect first to this loud intrusive network and not my own I don't know which neighbour it is. I will straengle them with their network cable when I find out. This BTFON actually is a BT PAYG service. damnably expensive too. So I reckon really it's BT I should blame who has forced their network onto all of us in the street. Damn BT

One reason that people should secure their wifi connections is to prevent unauthorised access to sensitive data.

Many ISPs cap downloads, which means that if my neighbour decides to download large files using my connection, I end up paying for that if it goes above the cap.

It could also lead to a situation where, for example, my neighbour downloads or sends abusive or illegal material over the internet using my connection, and I end up under investigation or suspicion for this.

Seucring wifi is nothing to do with greed and unwillingness to share, it's common sense.

Have you noticed how social systems evolve? They all begin wonderfully open, and beautifully anarchistically free. So it was with Wifi. A few years ago most households would not have bothered to close their systems off from use by others. They were sharing, open and free.

Over time systems become less free. There is a tendency towars the acceptance of controls. Controls lead to some having powers over others. The direction and arrow of time is towards fascism, towards corruption and loss of freedom.

Most households now completely close their wifi systems off from use by others. There is less willingness to share in this world. There is more selfish greed. The attitude is that this system is "mine" and stay out of "my" garden. The attitude is "no trespassing" and "no poaching", I do not want others using it.

I see in the future households putting up the equivalent of digitial man-traps to protect their systems from external invasion.

In March, 1825, a boy,aged nineteen, entered a garden owned by the squire near Bristol in pursuit of a straying peacock, and was badly injured in the leg by the discharge of a spring-gun.

Some years later, in May, 1827, an Act of the British Parliament rendered it illegal to set man-traps, spring-guns, and “other engines calculated to destroy human life or inflict grievous bodily harm,” except within a dwelling, and for the protection there of,between sunset and sunrise.

Will new laws protect us from others selfish greed?

Blah, Blah, Blah, "I disagree". You left your wireless open for the neighborhood to use it, that's your own fault!

Fberry,

The piracy advert irritates me as well but mostly because I resent being made to sit through it every time I rent a DVD.

I am no apologist for big business but there is such as thing as intellectual property rights and if you copy a movie and sell it then you have deprived that company of its profit.

As others here have said you can also lose bandwidth and reach your download cap so the victim has had something stolen from them.

More to the point, is there a good reason why you think that some people should pay for their broadband and others should just get a free ride?

Oh and to asnwer MikeP, the IP address of the system accessing the network is used not the network itself.

I disagree Kit, this word thief is thrown about far too much... the one thing that gets me relly wound up is the movie piracy adverts....

You wouldn't steal a Purse
You wouldn't steal a Car
You wouldn't steal a Phone
You wouldn't steal a Movie

Then they bang on about piracy!!!

It's not the same, in these other examples the rightfu owner looses thier item...
When things are copied the original owner still owns their item, nothing was stolen!!!

As for Wi-Fi, it's the same thing. The owner looses nothing, there is no loss, there is nothing stolen.

BT Retail Business Broadband Technical Support Advisor,

I use good security for my pc and have never had problems but I disagree with your position that I would have no right to complain if someone used my connection. If a person takes what is not theirs then they are a thief.

There is too much of the attitude these days that law breakers are in some way "tempted" into their crimes and are not responsible for their actions.

Personally I don't agree with using anothers WiFi, but if people don't secure their wireless network (ALL wireless routers have the option to put a password on the wireless), I don't think they have the right to complain if someone else uses their connection.