maybe this person intentionally set this router up to be publicly available? That's what many people around here do to make internet access available from all over the city (and in some places the network of wifi routers is dense enough to allow you to access your computer at home while being on the other side of the city)...

...anyways, if you don't have an own method of getting into the internet, I'd consider using "their" router perfectly ok - under the terms of fair use: Don't do anything stupid, don't hog up the bandwidth and definitely don't get them into trouble for <illegal thing> done using their connection.

i know people who do it but i never would. using other people's downloads is just wrong. it means that they have less which means they don't get what they paid for. but htats just my opinion....

I imagine that it's probably pretty hard to get caught at it, if you know what you're doing - but it is parasitic.

I'm a novice with networks, but if you join a network arent you at risk to it's vulnerabilities in some way? Couldnt you catch a worm or virus from it? I mean, if whoever is running a network can't secure it from you (as the intruder), then isnt it likely that other nasties may have accomplished access to it as well, in turn infecting your machine?

Use it when you can if it's free. The person who's wifi it is could always put a password on it if they didn't want others using it. I get it free from neighbors on both sides of my house.

I would agree that it shouldn't be done, but if you're going to use someone else's connection, at least don't use it excessively (ie. don't download movies - especially pirated ones - or other large amounts of data). But I was a little bit surprised when I read this:

seems counter-intuitive, doesn't it?

The title of this topic is a bit misleading: If I was stealing someone else's Wifi connection, that wouldn't necessarily mean using their Web connection. Just a thought.

IT-savvy people will definitely use security for their networks. But for those who did not, they risk getting their internet stolen by others, it is not legally wrong but it is personally wrong as you are using something what others paid for free.

At the moment, it's not legally wrong to grab internet from others via wi-fi in virtually all countries, but you'd probably have to agree that it is morally wrong considering those that paid for a particular speed/download limit wont be getting what they may have paid for.

Recently, I just put protection on the connection due to the increase of broadband/wi-fi connections in the neighbourhood lately.. I started without a pass for the wi-fi at first, now protected.

This post has been edited by arnz: Dec 5 2006, 09:00 AM

Well they're just asking for it if they didn't even both to put any secrity measures on the connection. I'm almost positive it's illigal, but I would try and find out who the signal belongs to based on it's name or by what you know about your neighbors. If they're cool, or not network savvy (which seems obvious) then it's no problem.

i don't think it would be legal. But the person wouldn't know who is was or if anyone was stealing there internet signal. And if it was that bad i don't think they would make it so easy for someone to search for a wifi conection anywhere just like that.