Taking a bite out of crime (or gumming the heck out of it, anyway)

Where's the ACLU when you

Where's the ACLU when you need them...

Let's get ALL those ridiculous laws outlawing access to OPEN UNSECURED sites broadcasting their SSID's overturned at the Federal level, making them applicable only to sites that take some measure to restrict access.

As MFHeadcase said, It's a simple thing to secure a wireless access point if you want to do so.

How sick is that? In most

How sick is that? In most states, if a woman is beaten and raped, but fails to press charges due to fear, the perp walks... "No victim, no crime."

But at least in Michigan, the perpetrator of a non-violent pseudo crime faced 10 years for connecting to a non secured wi-fi access point, without the non-victim pressing charges.

Given that i have leeched off more than a few unsecured access points, and also leave my own open, securing the individual machines... I should maybe look into Indiana law on the matter...

Precisely. The cafe owner

Precisely. The cafe owner was clearly leaving it open deliberately (and also clearly did NOT want this "case" pursued; the tone in which she said "bad publicity" makes me think she's gotten a nonzero amount of grief out of this). This reminds me a lot of the Alaska case in which a guy sitting outside the library using the Wi-Fi got busted. Both appear to be, essentially, "we-don't-like-your-kind" busts -- cops finding reasons to roust someone who's making them itchy. Or, in a town that small, it may well be that the cop in question had an issue with this guy specifically; heaven knows THAT happens...

Wait... the charge was using

Wait... the charge was using the wi-fi network without permission? Seems to me that if someone leaves their access point unsecured, they are implicitly GRANTING permission to leech off their network... Hell, that is what the MPAA and RIAA would claim and get away with if the guy was busted sharing files.

Hell, the victim didn't know it was a crime, the perp didn't know it was a crime... and the cop who busted him didn't know it was a crime until he did research because he thought it SHOULD be.

Too bad he could not afford to fight it, as with most wireless routers i have played with, it is easier to loosely secure them than to leave them completely open... Thus an open connection isn't just implied permission to my mind... but implied invitation to share they bandwidth.