I have before, and still would if I didn't need a better connection for Xbox Live. If you care, you should secure it.
It's stealing, plain and simple. There's no way to justify it. I've done it before, but I don't use torrents or download big files out of 'courtesy' if you can call it that.
No harm, no foul -- as in, as long as you're not being a jerk about how you use it, there's nothing wrong with it. There are plenty of ways you can be a jerk, slowing down their performance with downloads, engaging in illegal activity, etc. So don't do those things. It'd be extra nice if you ask your neighbor for permission first. When providers charge by the amount of data you transfer, that's different. When you're not a jerk about how you do it, you aren't hurting your neighbor. You may be hurting the provider, who otherwise might get your business. But, it is up to them to provide a business model to extract that value. Saying that I'm stealing from them is like saying I'm stealing radio broadcasting from NPR when I don't donate money in the pledge drive.
Bad analogy. NPR is a public radio station just like ANY OTHER radio station, so no one is stealing any radio. When they ask for money, you can still listen to it. When you steal from someone's bandwidth, you're connecting to so a service that someone else pays for. With radio, advertisers are already paying for it. So... can I just come into your house's backyard and take some fruit from your trees if you leave your gate open?
Not hard for most that have some computer skills, but many don't. As someone else had stated, most seniors just don't know better and they should not be "punished" for it. Using someone's stuff without permission is just not nice. You wouldn't like it if someone just walks up to your house and use your basketball goal without asking, even if you are not home. If you are on the road or in a neighborhood and needed that google map to look up an address, I think that would be fine. If you use it for more than an occasional use, you really should pay for your own access. Better yet, ask your neighbor to split the bill. I partially agree, basic low bandwidth wireless internet access would be nice if it's free like radio, but I am hesitant to say "it ought to be free".
No, NPR isn't like other stations. Most radio stations rely on advertising. NPR (or KUHF, I should say) relies mostly on local businesses and individuals to pay for programming with donations. And, 90% of their listeners don't pay. That means, when I throw in $100, $10 pays for my listening, and $90 of my money pays for leechers. I think it's pretty ****ty that only a few pay to support programming that so many people use. But, the problem is not that 90% of Houstonians are selfish bastards. The problem is that public radio has a business model that cannot enforce payment from its listenership. Likewise, though to a much shorter extent, ISPs do not enforce payment from leechers. It's their fault for relying on some super-human expectation of honesty that these leechers do not pay. I'll leave the Mexican fruit-picker jokes for someone else. But, yes you can. Still, fruit is a very bad analogy. When you take my fruit, you gain in fruit and I lose in fruit (except, like this season, I didn't harvest the fruit and it rotted on the ground, which is why I don't mind if you come to pick it). So, I am harmed in theory. When you steal my bandwidth, or borrow my book, or copy my CD, or watch a movie at my house, you gain while I remain unaffected. There is little to no marginal cost for me to share. The only way in which I would be harmed would be by increasing the cost my provider charges because he has piracy losses. But, it is incumbent upon him to solve the piracy loss problem without unduly burdening me, because I might take my business to another company that can give me comparable value for less money. The company that figures out a way to charge all their customers appropriately will win.
But the difference is NPR openly invite people to listen to their broadcast regardless if they are a donater. People with unsecured wireless does not openly invite others to leech on to their service.
When we set up our wireless there was an immediate prompt to secure it. There was some discussion about this between us since at the time it didn't look like anyone around us might have wireless capabilities (we're surrounded by people who don't use computers). But the process is so simple and we didn't like the idea of people having direct access to our files as well as to the internet so we secured it. And lately I've found there are a few other secured lines nearby. My point is, if it bothers you, secure your line. But as to borrowing other peoples lines I certainly do that when I check my email through my palm. And I paid for the ability to do so when I bought the wi-fi card. So many businesses are offering free wi-fi (not where I am usually parked waiting in the carpool lines) that it is reasonable to be in a public place and look for unblocked connectivity. If you are in a residential neighborhood and want to quickly check email or look something up you might not realize that you are picking up a home connection. Or you might be doing it so inobtrusively it shouldn't matter. Afterall, you pay by the month, not by the bit. I pay for the right to broadcast my signal as far as it will go from my house if I want to. I pay for the right to let whoever happens to be at my house use their laptops, iphones and blackberries. If I want to make the process easier and not block my line I may. And if I do that I should expect that a neighbor might be checking their email. If that causes slowdowns I can easily install a password.
If you are sitting in a cafe and are using your laptop, do you feel you need to see a sign somewhere offering free internet access to surf the web? Or do you go up and bother the busy employees to ask them if the unsecured line you found is theirs and if you can use it? Obviously, if you are doing something illegal or using a ton of bandwidth you should be doing that on your own dime.
For those of you supporting the open invitation theory, why don't you just go ask your neighbor if they mind you using their internet service for free? My guess is, most don't have the balls to do it, have never done it, and/or would no longer leech if permission was denied. Be an adult, and ask for permission, don't just assume and use that as your justification for stealing.
Would you just walk into someone's house, uninvited and sit down? Of course not! But you would at a cafe right? See the difference there? Certain things are implied depending on where you are.
When you install a wireless network you are prompted, and generally recommended to use a secure network. It isn't like there is any trick to it. If you can setup a wireless network, you can make it secure.
If its secure, no big deal, but if it isn't, why not? If you're not afraid of the data others can see, just use it...
