slate.msn.com — I was wondering if it was legal..."If you're going to steal?no, let's say borrow?your neighbor's Wi-Fi access, you might as well do it right. Step one: Lose the guilt. The FCC told me that they don't know of any federal or state laws that make it illegal to log on to an open network."
May 24, 2005 View in Crawl 4
ilitoratMay 24, 2005
hahah, otto, back in college someone did that to me. Sent me an email from myself, it said "Change your password." In my defense, I was a poor college student running 166mhz machine and everyone and their mother used it for writing their papers(which is basically all it could do if it tried really hard...) But it is always nice when people don't pwn you when they get that info.
yakk0dotorgMay 24, 2005
I run m0n0wall for my firewall and it has a captive portal feature that lets you require users to click OK to agree to an AUP, then they can go out past the firewall. That's effectively my giving permission to use it as long as they agree to the AUP. The wireless is on a separate NIC in the firewall, and stuff like SMB ports aren't allowed from the wireless side to the wired (where my samba server lives), so I have no problems opening it up.
illeatMay 24, 2005
You all are bragging about how you can own everyone who logs in through your AP, but an intruder can do the same thing to you by running sniffers and packet dumps. Most of us here know to only enter sensitive info over encrypted connections (even though those are surely not infallible), but what about our computer-illiterate parents and siblings who will enter their credit card or password whenever needed? I surely wouldn't want my neighbors or anyone else who happens to park in front of my house to have access to this info...
whitesanjuroMay 25, 2005
dhughes - claiming ignorance of the law is not what i'm saying. the analogy to explain it to the ignorant judges/lawyers is that you have a useful service in your home (water for instance). if a neighbor hooks up his hose and uses it to drown his kids in the pool with your water, it's not your responsibility that he used a free service you provided illegally (similar to the notion that ISPs aren't liable for infringement). also, software2 got it right about satellite signals - the fed doesn't care that you use the signal, but they do care that you violate the DMCA by decrypting it without paying for the license.
nickstangMay 25, 2005
I would like to share my bandwidth with other neighbors, but want to keep myself safe. Does anyone know of a free firewall like t-mobile hotspot, but that I could let people surf the internet? I would like to use encryption, but at the same time, I want to keep my internet access sharable.
riotMay 25, 2005
@ nickstangsomeone ablove mentioned M0n0wall
nickstangMay 25, 2005
M0n0wall looks good, but does anyone know of a win32 solution??
cburkMay 25, 2005
Otto what program are you using to monitor your neighbors access to your router? I am using a microsoft MN-700 router and it doesn't offer much logging capability. I know that a couple of my neighbors are using my router and I would like to find out what they are up to. Thanks, Cburk
vuzmanMay 25, 2005
having an open AP can suck pretty much if some pervert uses it to download illegal kiddie porn. The trace will lead back to you, and you can get prosecuted.