Steal Wi-Fi In Maryland? Face 3 Year Prison Stretch

[{BK}Merlin]

Slashdot directs our attention to a bill being proposed in Maryland that would make intentional unauthorized access of another person's computer, network, database, or software a misdemeanor. The bill's creator says his goal is to clarify intentional theft of Wi-Fi versus accidental use. The penalty for freeloading off of another's Wi-Fi signal would be up to three years imprisonment and a fine of up to $1,000. The Public Defender's office opposes the bill and repeats a common refrain: "A more effective way to prevent unauthorized access would be for owners' (sic) to secure their wireless networks with assistance where necessary from Internet service providers or Vendors."

http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/0 ... 0204.shtml

[Junglestud]

You have got to be shitting me.

God damn we live in a shithole of a over managed state.

F MD.

[-7-Slappy]

How are they going to prove un-authorized WiFi use any way? More than likely, if you're piggybacking on some poor fool's open network, they didn't bother to make more secure, they're too stupid to know it in the first place! Fuck's sake, quite wasting time on this kind of bullshit legislation & do something about things like the skyrocketing energy costs! Assholes.

Now I gotta go shoot some people in the face to let off some rage. CoD, here I come!

[{BK}Merlin]

Good Playing with you last night Slappy!!

What I hate is the fact people in charge know nothing about technoliges like WiFi and the fact that it is configured to automaticly search out a stronger signal.
What happens when you are in front of a Starbucks using what you paid for and your Wifi catches the signal from a nearby store do you get arrested if that store reports you even if THEY are the ones that should secure there WIFI.

This and other things make me want to move to Europe.

[Junglestud]

Fuck's sake, quite wasting time on this kind of bullshit legislation & do something about things like the skyrocketing energy costs! Assholes.

AMEN!

[{BK}Merlin]

IT's been shot down

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... ly-so.html

[NoOther]

Actually this is prosecuted in many other countries such as Great Britain. Quite a number of people in Britain have been arrested for this very thing. You are technically stealing an individuals or companies bandwidth and potentially stealing or helping to cause theft of their information.

Obviously people should be locking up their routers, but that doesn't excuse people from stealing. If it isn't your network, and you have not been given express permission to use it, it is stealing. Just because someone left their car parked on the street, left it unlocked, and happened to have the keys in it, does not make it legal for you to take it, even 'if' all you are going to do is drive around the block and maybe get an ice cream cone and then return it.

[Junglestud]

Not a fair comparison.

I can't think of anything that you can equate it with, shy of water or turning around in a neighbor's driveway. Whoppie.

The fleabag who sponsored this bill is just another moron who owns something he does not have a clue about and wants to nerf/rubberpad the world.

[NoOther]

Stealing is Stealing. You are taking something from someone. Stealing water is also illegal. It is the same whether its water, a car, a shirt, a lawnmower. It isn't yours, why do you think you have a right to it?

And like I said, only in America where we think everything should be handed to us on a silver platter all the time such as welfare and government assistance, would we get so agitated about someone wanting to prosecute people for stealing. You should really listen to yourselves here. Of all the other crap that is going on with our current state government, this is hardly the fight we should be caring about. After all, they still would have to prove you will willfully connecting and stealing bandwidth, and no judge is going to give you 3 years for incidental use of someone else's wireless lan.

What people should be up in arms about is taxing our IT services. Only with this state administration and senate would we decide that we should tax our number 1 resource and money/job generating industry forcing them to leave the state. Only with this state administration and senate can we hold secret private meetings to increase the salaries of the administration while destroying the state economy and budget. Only in this administration and senate can we continually remove top police officials because they are investigating the crimes the administration is committing. These are the fights we should care about. Not whether we have a law to prevent people for actually stealing.

[Junglestud]

Exactly my point. Who gives a shit about someone using an open wifi connection when our state is totally fucked?

Who voted for this douchebag anyway!?!

[NoOther]

I would like to take this time to say I did my best to keep O'Malley out of office. I preached everywhere the greatness of Ehrlick and the facts surrounding both of their careers. It leaves me completely baffled that people could see how much O'Malley screwed up Baltimore and think he was going to do anything good for the state. Now this thread has officially turned into a rant.

[{BK}Merlin]

What I figure is if the signal is traveling into MY home on MY propertiy then it is like handing me your keys to Your car and saying take it for a spin. I also figure we will have lawsuits soon stating that I am going to sue my neighbor because there wireless signal that beams through my house has caused cancer.

If you are too dumb to lock YOUR SHIT you should not use wireless!

Merlin

[NoOther]

More likely they will have to update the construction of their house to prevent the wireless signal from leaving their home. Just because someone parks in your driveway, does not give you the right to take their car. You certainly have the right to have their car towed however. Just like if someone leaves their wallet in your house, it does not give you the right to spend their money or take their identity. Besides there are many things you can do to keep the wireless signal from invading your home. If people are really worried about getting cancer from wireless signals, than instead of blaming others, their paranoid dumb arses should get technology to block those wireless signals. There are construction methods to block out the signals, there are ways to dampen the signal, there's quite a few ways to stop it.