engadget.com — Cops couldn't leave well enough alone when they rolled up on 21 year-old Brian Tanner jammin' on some WoW-type action in a library parking lot. Tanner's lappy was confiscated and he now faces possible criminal charges for illegally accessing WiFi at the Palmer, Alaska library after hours.
Feb 25, 2007 View in Crawl 4
mdigirolFeb 26, 2007
libraries, especially large ones, really do have large computer services department, especially because all of the old people don't know how to use a mouse.you wouldn't expect teaching that to someone would be hard, but believe me, its a chore.
gemadoubleFeb 26, 2007
Stuff like this happens in Singapore all time, it made it to the headline.40 years in prison here!
alphabroncoFeb 26, 2007
Wow, idiot cops in another major victory against crime. It's great to hear stories like these, they put any nagging fears that America has become a police state to rest each time.
seabreezemmFeb 26, 2007
Regardless of how you look at it Internet connections aren't free therefore he was stealing.
seabreezemmFeb 26, 2007
The police did their jobs. They arrested a thief.... No matter how many ways you sugar coat this, he was still stealing.
perplexMar 4, 2007
it only seems rational that he was arrested because of the headline along with the activity he was engaging in (gaming). now consider a similar situation whereby a kid was stealing wifi to do his homework because he couldn't afford internet at home or something and the headline reads 'student faces criminal charges for utilising public library wifi to do homework.' isn't that ridiculous? in both cases, he is guilty for stealing wifi, so it doesn't matter what he was using it for and even though the latter tends to sound more plausible, there is no difference. it's overall absurd. hmm...you don't get arrested if you use your neigbour's insecure wifi do you? i hope not.however, if you read the article, this guy was 'chased out of a number of locations around palmer where he had been latching on to wireless service.' which means he was already issued a warning and therefore deserved to be punished for negligence.