Wi-Fi Freeloader Arrested in Washington
Glenn has the details (Update: more here). Certainly freeloading is frustrating for small merchants wanting to offer free wifi, but at the end of the day I don’t know what this story is about, if not simply the criminalization of wifi freeloading to spare merchants the inconvenience of protecting access. What an odd purpose for criminal law, and what an odd use of a police force.
To my mind, if one wants to offer wifi, one should have to do it responsibly. Here’s to decriminalizing wifi freeloading, so that the burden falls on those offering access to use basic prudence to protect themselves if they wish their wifi to be private (remember personal responsibility?). Oh, and immunize mere providers (under U.S. law, does an operator of an open access point have this protection already?) from the unlawful use by others of their wifi (you should be responsible for the commercial consequences of allowing unrestricted access, but I don’t see why that should extend to responsibility for the unlawful acts of others, whether access is open or not).
Or, as an alternative, the media could simply hyperventilate excessively about wifi freeloading, particularly when there are prurient details, so that middle America will come to see it as a safe haven for sex offenders, drug dealers and terrorists, and live forever after in constant fear of it.
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The main problem seems to be that, unlike “stealing” someone’s wide-open home network, this case involves a publicly open network. The merchant suggests that “good behaviour” means the users should buy something once in a while. But, analagous to a “public place”, unless they explicitly banned him (like the Petty Trespass act?) where’s the grounds for their complaint? The police may have warned him to move on, earlier, but if the merchant explicitly said “you are not welcome here”, then why would they have grounds to complain?
I also suppose there was no “I agree to these conditions” clause in using the wireless. The merchant, if they were the least bit computer savvy, could have used the MAC-exclusion ability of most home routers to prevent his network card from access. I would think that if he had to buy a new network card each time he used their network, eventually the freeloader would have gone elsewhere.
Actually, the merchant may have more grounds for complaint if the parking lot was “for the use of patrons only”. He could have the car towed. (I recall a case where someone refused to get out of a car so it could be towed, and was charged with obstruction of justice).
Finally, the guy could have avoided all this hassle by buying a cup of coffee first, then sitting in his car sipping it for a few hours – thus complying with the letter and spirit of the service.
This is an example of treading carefully when dealing with Internet laws. If someone using an unsecured WAP can be arrested, what is to stop us from being arrested when we use the Internet for personal use at our place of business? (you know we all do it…)
I am not saying its the businesses fault for not securing the network, but the owners of the WAP should take care of their network. There are other dangers besides freeloaders.