I hope they make things obvious for those with wifi networks by having a network name like, "Free for those in the area," or whatever. But it would really stink for them if someone malicious comes by, uses their connection to commit a crime, and then gets traced back to the owner of the connection. The owner can be convicted of a crime they didn't commit, and the law won't be able to help them—it would in fact be against them.

This is why most routers now put at least some sort of protection on the connection, and keep reminding you to change the password to get into the admin panel. The few people I know who run free WiFi connections route everything through proxy servers and are often quite limiting on what sites you can actually access. For some sites this is good (banks, for example, are blocked to protect your security), but there are many occasions where it gets annoying.

You could always tell them you have spotted their network is unsecured, and help them secure it to prevent others using it. It would certainly get you in your neighbour's good books, and they'd be quite likely to let you use the connection after helping them out.

I can only suggest that you be careful. It's not the entire neighbourly social stigma if you get caught, but it's more like they'd wise up and enstate some sort of key or password to the connection for their wireless router.

That's when the magic of GPS comes in. But when it comes to wireless smooching, I used to be as guilty as you . Right now I'm thinking of setting up a network to allow people to log in, however, I'll restrict their bandwidth and make them register before they will be able to use it. Everything will be logged and I'll use Ethereal to check out exactly who is using my network.

I've done this before a long time ago in my temporary apartment I was in. I had a laptop that had a built in Linksis card that found signals from routers and allowed me to connect to them. I had 24mb connection (thats what it said) and I had fast internet downloads, and online gaming was smooth. Now I changed and live in a house, I buy my internet and only have 1mb internet.

Even though I live way out in the middle of nowhere - as in: out of range for anybody but the neighbors across the road to even get a signal off my router - I secure my home network.

Why?

Because I'M paying for it. It's mine. If somebody else is too cheap, too dishonest, too whatever to pay for what he or she wants to use, then that's his or her own problem. Not mine. I'm not a good Samaritan when it comes to Internet access. It's not a necessity in this day and age, when you can get free wifi just by taking your notebook to Mcdonald's. (Or go to the public library. Even our podunk branch has Internet-ready computers.)

I'd give somebody food, or water, or some other necessity if I had it and s/he needed it...but people who can't be bothered to get their own Internet access...or at least ASK BEFORE they use somebody else's...bug me to no end.

One can argue that "It's the owner's fault for not securing the router/network." But that's not really a good argument. Is it the car owner's fault if she's carjacked because, hey, she was driving in the city with her doors unlocked? No. She doesn't deserve to be ripped off just for having something that a thief wants.

one of my friends would drive around town with his other friend's laptop on and when they hit an unencrypted wireless network they stop and use it