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>Both the above examples would require the prosecutor to prove "guilty knowledge", knowledge that the behavior was wrong. It's the same with open WiFi hubs. No

by batista 14y ago

>Both the above examples would require the prosecutor to prove "guilty knowledge", knowledge that the behavior was wrong. It's the same with open WiFi hubs. No, it's not. You are not supposed to use a wi-fi, even if it's open (that is, unlocked), unless you have specifically see it advertised as freely available to the public (i.e in an airport, a cafe, etc). >Not necessarily. An open WiFi hub can represent a free service offered by, for example, a restaurant or lodging establishment, both of which expect and accept public logons in order to attract business. It's not obvious how an individual might distinguish between these hubs and a private hub that happens not to have a password. You're not supposed to distinguish between them. You are only supposed to use the restaurant or lodging hub when you are AT the restaurant or the hotel, as a customer. And you're supposed to know which is their wifi name. Being in a cafe that offers free public wifi doesn't give you an excuse to bypass the law and connect to any open nearby Wifi signal you can get ("But, Judge, I couldn't tell which was which").

lutusp 14y ago
> You are not supposed to use a wi-fi, even if it's open (that is, unlocked), unless you have specifically see it advertised as freely available to the public (i.e in an airport, a cafe, etc). Many service providers that depend on open WiFi hubs would vigorously disagree. There are a great number of places where open, unsecured WiFi hubs are intended to be accessed by the public, and there are an equal number of client programs that connect up to an open hub and alert the user that a service has been located -- all automatically. Reference: http://www.ehow.com/how_2193989_connect-wifi-wireless.html http://www.ehow.com/how_2193989_connect-wifi-wireless.html Also, those WiFi hubs that serve as a portal to a paid service often use an open, unsecured hub as a gateway. In this case, the user is meant to log on automatically and then open a browser to complete the authentication process. If people believed they weren't allowed to log onto an open hub, this system would collapse. > Being in a cafe that offers free public wifi doesn't give you an excuse to bypass the law and connect to any open nearby Wifi signal you can get ... As shown above, this is simply wrong. Some hubs require a password, some do not. Of the latter, some hope you will log on to begin an authentication process, some hope you will log on just to drum up business. I visited a town in Alaska this summer that had a McDonald's with an open hub -- no password. I asked about it, and the proprietor said it was open to attract people to his business, and he didn't care that some people used it without buying anything, especially because the lurkers needed to gather around his place of business (to get adequate signal strength), making it look popular and attracting paying customers.

by batista 14y ago

lutusp 14y ago

> You are not supposed to use a wi-fi, even if it's open (that is, unlocked), unless you have specifically see it advertised as freely available to the public (i.e in an airport, a cafe, etc). Many service providers that depend on open WiFi hubs would vigorously disagree. There are a great number of places where open, unsecured WiFi hubs are intended to be accessed by the public, and there are an equal number of client programs that connect up to an open hub and alert the user that a service has been located -- all automatically. Reference: http://www.ehow.com/how_2193989_connect-wifi-wireless.html http://www.ehow.com/how_2193989_connect-wifi-wireless.html Also, those WiFi hubs that serve as a portal to a paid service often use an open, unsecured hub as a gateway. In this case, the user is meant to log on automatically and then open a browser to complete the authentication process. If people believed they weren't allowed to log onto an open hub, this system would collapse. > Being in a cafe that offers free public wifi doesn't give you an excuse to bypass the law and connect to any open nearby Wifi signal you can get ... As shown above, this is simply wrong. Some hubs require a password, some do not. Of the latter, some hope you will log on to begin an authentication process, some hope you will log on just to drum up business. I visited a town in Alaska this summer that had a McDonald's with an open hub -- no password. I asked about it, and the proprietor said it was open to attract people to his business, and he didn't care that some people used it without buying anything, especially because the lurkers needed to gather around his place of business (to get adequate signal strength), making it look popular and attracting paying customers.