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Isn't the difference in capacity? A lamp has much more excess capacity of light than a wifi, I wouldn't notice my neighbour using it with me. But a wifi has m

by k__ 5y ago

Isn't the difference in capacity? A lamp has much more excess capacity of light than a wifi, I wouldn't notice my neighbour using it with me. But a wifi has much less capacity than a lamp, and using it for work might remove noticable capacity from my wifi.

willvarfar 5y ago
Using a neighbor’s WiFi deprives the neighbor of using it at the same time, as using it diminishes capacity. This is not true of light. As the article says, using a neighbor’s light is “free loading”. The article doesn’t really say whether the author thinks that is stealing or not.
krisoft 5y ago
> A lamp has much more excess capacity of light than a wifi, I wouldn't notice my neighbour using it with me. Interesting. I think I would notice the lamp case sooner. Not because I would have less light mind you, but because my neighbour would be creeping for a prolonged time close to my un-curtained window. That would totally freak me out, but i wouldn’t call it stealing. :) On the other hand I have so much bandwidth that I wouldn’t notice an occasional interlooper who is not being jackass about it. If they connect and saturate my link with torrent or something so much that I start investigating then maybe, but other than that I will only find them with a network scan which I perform only very rarely.
aflag 5y ago
Not sure if capacity is the thing here. Using someone else's wifi does harm to that person. They will be deprived of bandwidth and, if they have a data limit, you may be using that up too. With light, what you're getting is just their waste, it's similar to go through your neighbor's trash. With wifi, if you could use the leaking signal to heat your dinner or something like that, then it wouldn't be stealing, that's just their waste. However, if you actively connect to their router and use their bandwidth, it's a completely different story.

by k__ 5y ago

willvarfar 5y ago

Using a neighbor’s WiFi deprives the neighbor of using it at the same time, as using it diminishes capacity. This is not true of light. As the article says, using a neighbor’s light is “free loading”. The article doesn’t really say whether the author thinks that is stealing or not.

krisoft 5y ago

> A lamp has much more excess capacity of light than a wifi, I wouldn't notice my neighbour using it with me. Interesting. I think I would notice the lamp case sooner. Not because I would have less light mind you, but because my neighbour would be creeping for a prolonged time close to my un-curtained window. That would totally freak me out, but i wouldn’t call it stealing. :) On the other hand I have so much bandwidth that I wouldn’t notice an occasional interlooper who is not being jackass about it. If they connect and saturate my link with torrent or something so much that I start investigating then maybe, but other than that I will only find them with a network scan which I perform only very rarely.

aflag 5y ago

Not sure if capacity is the thing here. Using someone else's wifi does harm to that person. They will be deprived of bandwidth and, if they have a data limit, you may be using that up too. With light, what you're getting is just their waste, it's similar to go through your neighbor's trash. With wifi, if you could use the leaking signal to heat your dinner or something like that, then it wouldn't be stealing, that's just their waste. However, if you actively connect to their router and use their bandwidth, it's a completely different story.