I have to come up with a "digital culture" topic or some way of identifying posts that relate to the growing pains that society is going through as it comes to grips with a wired world.
My friend Kevin was in town last week and we were at Speeder & Earl's having coffee (cuz that's what you do) and we noticed that Speeder's has begun wep protecting their free wifi signal--offering paying customers the password. I don't know the reason why Speeder's decided to go that route rather than just maintaining a non password-protected open network (like the Radio Bean). Perhaps they were getting heavy bandwidth draw from a leeching neighbor. I hope that there was a good reason like that rather than just doing it out of some vague sense of ownership over the bandwidth, but whatever, it's their shop.
Anyway, today, Kevin sent me this item from Engadget:
- Wardriver arrested for snagging coffee shop signal
In yet another blow to wardrivers nationwide, one of their most active participants was recently arrested and charged with theft of services after leeching off an unsecured network at Vancouver, WA's Brewed Awakenings coffee house for over three months. According to store employees, 20-year-old Internet enthusiast Alexander Eric Smith (actually the second Smith we've seen nailed for this crime) would regularly park his truck in the customer parking lot and tap into their signal, even though he reportedly had never actually been inside to buy anything -- which was apparently okay for three months, but suddenly turned into something one worker described as "borderline creepy." Hey Alex, it's called wardriving for a reason -- it's one thing to be cheap, but this is what you get for being lazy and not switching it up a bit.
Interesting. I wonder if the coffee shop in question would have had the guy arrested for parking under the glow of the cafe's outdoor lighting and reading a book. The article doesn't say the guy hacked his way onto the network, he just took advantage of an open network that was leaking out onto the public street. That shouldn't be a crime. If the cafe doesn't want non-customers using their wifi, they should wep protect it like Speeder's is doing. That's a choice they can make as a business. Then, if the guy breaks into their network, sure, we can call that a crime. Were I a cafe owner, I hope that I would be more civic-minded about keeping my open network and not arrest someone for being "borderline creepy" because they were taking advantage of what I was letting out for free. I'm curious if there was even clear signage stating that the wifi signal was for customers only.
Make sure you read the comments under the Engadget post. It's a great example of how unclear the rules are w/r/t this kind of thing. I say the wifi is analogous to electric light or another utility, others say using it is obviously theft. Either way, the coffee shop had better recourses than calling in the cops.
See this story for another stunning example of digital growing pains.