Man Charged With Felony For Accessing Public WiFi

[Atrocities]

This one falls squarely under the WTF catagory.
Man Charged With Felony

For Peterson, who's never had a criminal record, the experience has been an eye-opening one.

"All over the TV, all the commercials and whatnot you see, they're all trying to get you to buy all these laptops and things that are wireless," he said. "They're trying to get you to buy this wireless stuff because you can go anywhere and still be connected.

"Well, they don't happen to tell you that it's illegal," he continued. "And I guess obviously you're just supposed to know that."

It's up to the consumer to figure that out, said Hopkins, the prosecuting attorney.

What a chickens**t response.... "It's up to the consumer to figure that out." WTF! So in other words, if we pass an obscure law that not even the lawyers know about, then its your fault that you broke the law.... PAY US or do jail time! What the hell kind of broken system is this that we live under?

But don't look for a flurry of prosecutions anytime soon.

"We're not going to be running stings to go out looking for people who do this," Hopkins said. "But people should be aware that if we come across them, and it is a violation of the statute, then we will enforce the statute."

Oh ya right. They say this hoping to get people off guard. If they can snag this dude for just sitting in his car and get $400.00 then you had better believe they are going to go after others. They just don't want people thinking that they are.

[Edi]

Frankly, he got off with reasonably lenient consequences. It also happens that when you use technical equipment, YOU ARE REQUIRED TO KNOW THE RELEVANT LAWS. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. In this case, it is even less of an excuse given how hacking networks has been in the news for the past TEN YEARS and all of those news reports and whatnot stress terms like "intrusion", "unauthorized access" etc. Sure, he could have been let off with a warning, but apparently the prosecutor was not feeling generous. In cases like this, the decision to prosecute or not rests with the prosecutor, IF he has been given such leeway, which he may not have had. He'd not have been prosecuted here in Finland, in all likelihood, just warned, but the relevant state or federal laws in this case may not grant that option.

It's no different than basically finding somebody's house unlocked, going inside and using their microwave to cook food you brought with you and then using their toilet afterward, all without permission.

This guy really has nobody but himself to blame for his straits and the little tidbit that the lawyers and no idea of it is no excuse either. This is such a basic issue that it is nothing but a demonstration of their own incompetence if they have had anything to do with computer related legislation at all.

The only surprising thing about this case is that the relevant legislation is as old as it was, from 1979. Unless the impression I've gotten is totally wrong, there are more recent US federal laws that criminalize unauthorized access to computer networks. I don't know about the US in general, but here at least stuff like this has been in the news enough that most people should know and it has been enshrined in our laws about telecommunications confidentiality that unauthorized access to wireless networks is a crime. Most people understand that without even being told.

So what we have here is a clueless moron who got into trouble for not using his brains. My sympathy meter is firmly lodged very, very near zero. If he'd just got a warning from the prosecutor, it WOULD be at zero. He acted in a suspicious manner that gave people with legitimate concerns reason to suspect he was up to something that might cause danger to them, so no use trying to use that as an excuse either.

The problem with police departments being entitled to the proceedings from fines is another issue entirely that deserves its own separate thread. Having that kind of conflict of interest encourages corruption and all kinds of other unpleasant stuff.

[Atrocities]

It's no different than basically finding somebody's house unlocked, going inside and using their microwave to cook food you brought with you and then using their toilet afterward, all without permission.

I have to disagree with you completely regarding the above comment. I believe that there is a significant difference between using an open air network and entering someones home. First if someone has a scanner they can listen to your "private" wireless phone calls and or cell phone calls and there is no law against that. Secondly shouldn't it be the owner of the wireless networks responsible for the security their network? It's like this, if you're in your home and your broadcasting a signal without any security, then I outside your home happen to pick up that signal with my car radio, am I breaking the law for listening to it?

The same principle applies to broad band wireless. I had leeches on my network and all I had to do was secure it and presto problem solved. The reason there is a law in that state is not because of hacking, its because some big business decided that they wanted to have a huge wireless network that they could then charge people to use. They wanted to "protect" that subscriber service and that is perfectly fine. Its a protected service not a public open service.

Now had this guy "hacked" into the network then yes, he should be charged. Instead all he did was access a system that was open to the public. If the owner of the system didn't want any one to access the system accept paying customers then she should have taken steps to make sure that that was the case. She did not, and I don't see where what this guy did was a violation of that states hacking law.

Again had the system been secured and he accessed it, or had it come with a statement saying this system is for store customers only, then yes, he should have been charged. But that wasn't the case. Hell even the lawyers he talked to didn't even know about his law. Ignorance of the law is no excuse is a statement that only a police state would make.

I ask you, do all the police know all the laws? No they don't. The police break more civil liberty laws each day than most of us break speed limit laws in our lives. Yet when you say to a cop "ignorance of the law is no exception" they laugh at you. That standard only applies to US, not to them. And that makes such totalitarian comments like "ignorance of the law is no excuse" so counter to common sense that is it is just plain silly to accept it. However more and more prosecutors and judges are falling back on that line as an excuse to ignore reality and impose immoral edic onto victims of the system. If they want everyone to know all the laws then they should start teaching law at the pre-school level and continue teaching it through graduation from high school.

The guy who accessed that open air network had no reason to believe that what he was doing was wrong. The responsible thing for retailers to do would be to give each customer who buys a wireless enabled system the laws governing its use in their state. I mean if the police have to go back and "look" for it, then how in the hell do they expect an ordinary working person to know about it?

[Edi]

It should generally be obvious to people that if they are leeching off someone else, be it a wireless network service or not, it is not okay. If there is a law prohibiting it that the leech doesn't know about and he gets whacked with charges, boo-hoo, screw him. He was already engaged in unethical behavior, so he does not have much of a leg to stand on. The fact that the world is full of arseholes does not change the ethics of the situation at all. That said, anyone who does not protect their own WLAN is a moron for more than one reason.

As far as it being legal to listen in on wireless and cell phone communications without permission, all I can say that US laws seem to be ridiculous. Just attempting that will result in felony charges here and the authorities WILL pursue that all the way to the end. WLANs are different, because a lot of people don't know how to protect them or even what network they connect to (I see this every day at work, that being customer tech support at an ISP), but if you report somebody using your WLAN, they get whacked.

It really does boil down to a user of technical equipment having a duty of care to know the relevant regulations and act according to them. It doesn't matter if the person is the CEO of a telecom company, a police officer or an ordinary citizen, the duty of care exists, though it is arguably more demanding in the first two cases and thus any dereliction should be judged more harshly in such cases. Personal irresponsibility is no excuse.

And, as I said previously, police corruption and things related to that, such as breaking civil liberties laws, are a completely different topic. The way the police department setup, their funding and the "justice" system work in the US is frankly worthless. To describe my own opinion of it, the term "utter contempt" is being charitable.

But in this case, there isn't much gray area surrounding the issue.

• a) Cafe owner sets up WLAN intended for paying customers only
• b) There is a law against unauthorized network access
• c) Man uses the WLAN without paying the cafe owner
• d) a+b+c = illegal action on the man's part
• e) The neighboring barber shop has had a problem with one of their employees being stalked
• f) The man's actions from c) appear to be the activities of possible stalker
• g) e+f = reasonable cause of suspicion, which leads them to report the man to the police
• h) Cops investigate the situation, with reasonable cause and determine that there is no stalking but suspect some law is being broken nonetheless (not actually an unreasonable assumption)
• i) Cops check laws, refer to prosecutor for advice
• j) Man gets charged with the felony

That's the way this case happened, and I really cannot find any fault in the actions of the police. Some perhaps on the part of the prosecutor, but hat depends on how much leeway if any he had, which is not apparent from the article. If police, during the investigation of a possible crime, find evidence of an unrelated crime having been committed, they are not free to ignore that. If they do, they could end up being charged with crimes themselves.

The facts of this particular case are fairly crystal clear if the article is correct and reliable. Other cases where police corruption and lawbreaking play a part are not relevant to this thread. They deserve their own separate topics.

[Atrocities]

So the operative point of view should be, if your getting it for free, your stealing it. In that case they take the risk and if caught, pay the fine and do the time.

[Edi]

More or less.

If they're getting ot for free without asking for permission or checking that it really is meant to be used by all and sundry without conditions, then yes. If they check that it's okay or fulfill the conditions (e.g. buying that cup of coffee anbd thus becoming a paying customer), then no foul.

WLANs are a fairly new phenomenon, which is why there is so much ignorance about them and the laws governing them, but existing laws pretty much have it covered in most places if you just apply the same principles. Due to this fact, I'd have been inclined to let this guy off with a warning, had I been that prosecutor and had leeway. He was obviously harmless, and it isn't exactly the most ethical thing to make an example of him this way when the consequences of having a felony conviction can be as severe as they are in the US (somewhat depending on location, of course).

On the other hand, it is becoming more and more common for e.g. pedophiles leaving their WLANs unsecured, so if their activities are uncovered, they can try to weasel out of trouble by claiming that they had no idea someone else was using their WLAN to surf for child porn, for example. There have actually been at least two court cases like this in the US that I know of and fortunately in both of them the perverts got themselves a judge's gavel square on the forehead. Of course, in both cases there was other physical evidence besides the ISP access logs that indicated the WLANs in question being the source of suspicious activity. I could probably come up with more creative excuses to get off the hook for various other sorts of things regarding WLANs if I were of a mind to put effort into it, so being too lenient is not a realistic option.

Telecommunications security and confidentiality are thorny topics, as is their relation to civil rights and how far in what directions you can go. It's a fine line to walk and sometimes the outcomes are less than optimal, like in this case. But given the maximum possible penalty, the man can count himself lucky to have been let off lightly. Had he actually been guilty of more than a stupid, thoughtless mistake, the outcome would have been VERY different, if my grasp of the practical side of the American system is anywhere near accurate.

I hope that helps you understand why I took the tack I took. Having studied the field as a major subject, having a vocational degree in IT and telecom stuff and working at an ISP, I've had occasion to keep an interest in the subject and to actually know about it, because if I screw up and step on the wrong side of that divide at work, I'll get a bootprint on my backside. That's a fairly strong motivation.

[Serenity]

Yeah its really hard to draw the line, I agree with Edi on that.

However if you play music on street, and people listen to the music, they are not obligated to pay you; it is knowingly made available to others through lack of any restrictive measures such as having the music contained in private apartment or a festival area, and thus can be considered your own neglicence.

Only thing separating these 2 examples is the fact that a internet access is limited and everything others download/upload is in theory taken off of your current capacity to dl/upload, but which I imagine is practically unnoticeable considering the place is full of people using internet which is shared.

[Edi]

If you play music in the street as you're walking along, or in your front yard while doing something else, you're not doing it for money and you are not doing it to advance any kind of business venture (such as playing music in stores to put customers in a better mood to buy something), so there is no conceivable valid argument for charging you for anything. Rather impossible when no violation or even potential violation has occurred with those parameters.

If you're talking about street performers, that's covered by other sorts of rules. So it's a bad analogy all around.

[CUnknown]

Wow, this is some serious BS. I think a polite, "Please do not do this anymore" would be sufficient. Charging him with a felony is ludicrous. He was checking his f'ing e-mail. Is he not going to be able to vote anymore? If he applies for a job, will he have to check "yes" when he's asked if he was ever charged with a felony?

Let the punishment fit the crime, my god. Is there a law making this a felony? I suppose there is. But -should- doing this be a felony? Hell no, that's insane.

[Edi]

CUnknown, yes, it's harsh, and the reason it ended in such a clusterfornication is basically outlined in the a-j in my post above. The followup of it is either the prosecutor being an arsehole or the laws not giving him any leeway.

In recent years there has been a very disturbing tendency in American legislation to eliminate any and all power of consideration and leeway from various laws, regulations and statutes, which can then lead to cases like this, so it is a very real possibility.