The author's first example is good, but trying the apply the same thing to WiFi is incorrect. The neighboring reader is using surplus light that spills out the

The author's first example is good, but trying the apply the same thing to WiFi is incorrect. The neighboring reader is using surplus light that spills out the neighbor's window. The neighbor might have instead kept and used more of his light by pulling down a light-colored shade, reflecting it back into his room. The light out the window was truly abandoned, as if it were left in the street, and will not cause any additional costs to the neighbor. However, with WiFi, the signal is not abandoned, and is in fact limited in many circumstances. One is not simply picking up abandoned broadcast packets like receiving an over-the-air TV or Radio broadcast, which would be like the light spilling out the window. Instead you are establishing a session on the router and sending, requesting, and receiving packets specifically for your own browsing. This consumes router capacity, and potentially limited bandwidth of the owner, potentially even incurring the neighbor with the WiFi higher costs. So, I'd say the reader is not stealing, but the WiFi user is, unless of course the WiFi neighbor is specifically making it available for free use. (Whether this stealing is of any consequence depends on the circumstance - at the extremes, are they just using it for a few seconds to check an essential text email, or downloading torrents that'll bog down the router and get the neighbor overcharged and cutoff?)