Even if you don't lock your house, it's still illigal to break in and take your stuff.

Sailorette: Smith did not "take stuff". AFAIK, his usage of Dinon's network did not deprive Dinon of anything at all. So it's "breaking and entering" without actually breaking anything and without stealing anything. In most places, that's a misdemeanor, not a felony.

Continuing further with markm's comments, some people have tried to make the analogy that Smith's actions were like his stealing cable from your signal, or plugging in to your outside jack or something. But Smith did not trespass, he did not go onto anybody else's property. It's like if you are out walking, and your neighbor is watching the game on his enormo-screen TV. And you stop on the sidewalk to watch it. Weird? Maybe so. But criminal? Come on. Ravnwood's analogy of leaving the curtains up is a good one.

If you are sending a signal out into public it should be your responsibility to protect it in some way. This is the same as throwing your wallet in the street and then getting mad if someone picks it up.

Legally, it goes further than that, to the issue of notice. If you own some land, someone going onto it without your permission isn't trespass. You have to give them some notice that they aren't welcome there. Some of it is obvious -- if you put a fence around your land, that's notice. (There are other ways, in different places. You can paint trees in Texas to give notice.)

But if you have open land, and you haven't fenced it, that isn't notice. Same for a business -- if you appear to be an open business, and the door isn't locked, you have to give someone specific notice.

What an open AP looks like on the internet is the hypothetical open field. Sure, there are some other people squatting out there, but there is no reason to believe that they are the owner, or that the owner cares that you are there. There ARE intentionally open APs out (even from private residences) for this express purpose, so it can be an honest mistake. And if it could be an honest mistake, that is reasonable doubt.

I don't believe the property analogy isn't apt. Not being a lawyer I can only state what I have been told relating to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act which lays down specific restrictions regarding access to computer networks. No notice need be given. They consider the network to be private like a private business, one doesn't need to notify the public that they aren't wanted to prevent them from tresspassing.

Dinon is a fool for leaving his WAP open. He can easily be accessed by his neighbors or anyone on the street. It's not difficult to secure the WAP from 95% of the population.

The fellow took his bandwidth, AND left the guy open to being blamed for anything he did online.

I am almost positive that there is no state that requires you to post notice to keep folks out of your livingroom.
The laws for land are because folks reasonable assume that it's alright to walk across someone's field, so long as they don't do harm-- I am not aware of any tradion like that which applies to your internet connection.

We had a similar problem at the college I went to. One fiend was going out there every night and using the connection. After consulting our head of security and the local PD he was advised not to do it again, he did the offense one more time and was advised next time he'd be charged with theft of services and tresspassing. (Being on college property.) That ended the situation.

They planned on encrypting it, I don't know if they ever did, or why they didn't do it in the first place.

A felony seems pretty high for such a small thing, but they are nailing people who do pyramid schemes for just as much, even if it is the morons who bring the crime to a success.

The idea of the communications act is that the electric and magnetic fields are going through where the receiver is (if the receiver antenna is on property you're allowed to be on) and so you have every right to pick them up and demodulate them as you want.

The restriction is that you're not allowed to tell anybody what you hear.

The cell phone thing was a mistake, a political gift to the cell phone industry so they don't have to do what they should have done right away, namely encrypt the transmissions.

You're allowed to receive encrypted transmissions - indeed listening to morse code code groups from Navy stations was the recommended way to pick up code proficiency back in the day when they sent Morse code groups - but since they're encrypted they're automatically not interpretable unless they're using a stupid encryption.

Anyway the electric and magnetic fields are in the guy's car, and he has that right to them, except for the mistake of the cell phone law that you don't. It's a mistake because it inserts privacy in a way that can't be logically extended without huge patchworks of nonsensical addendums to the law.

Using an unknown network exposes you to all sorts of fraud, in the flip side. A bad guy can set up an open network and intercept and fake everything you see.

I don't buy this unauthorized access to a computer network gig, when the network is left open to the public.

That is such a broad charge, I could seek felony charges against anyone who accesses this website. After all, they are connecting to my computer network (or one that I purchase resources from) without my consent.

In my opinion, the guy with the access point was providing a free internet service to his neighbors, the same way Starbucks does, whether he is smart enough to be aware of it or not. Ignorance does not change the action you are taking.