| Techdirt Corporate Intelligence: Techdirt Wireless How Dare You Want To Use That Internet Connection! UK Police charge and get a conviction for using somebody's wifi without permission "dishonestly obtaining an electronic communications service and possessing equipment for fraudulent use of a communications service." 500 quids and 12 months' conditional discharge. Oh good grief... I guess we're all criminals now. I mean I've ripped CDs that say no copying. I've downloaded music I couldn't find anywhere else. I've bought (shock horror) music from Russian music sites. I've used BitTorrent to get the full series 4 of Alias because I kept missing it on TV. And yes, I've sat in the Marriott Park Lane and used a Wifi connection from across the street rather than pay the ridiculous prices for the Hotel's hotspot. I've even been reduced to wandering around Smithfields with the laptop open trying to find an open AP so I could find out the mobile phone number of the person I was supposed to be meeting. My own AP at home is deliberately wide open with an SSID of "1trinityrd.public" which contravenes NTL's internet access T&Cs. And now the UK Police have nothing better to do but to hassle somebody with an open laptop on the streets. I guess I'll just have to hide in a cafe from now on. This modern life, eh? |
[ << A Discordian Coloring Book - Frame ] [ The Clicker: Microsoft's OPM for the masses - Engadget - www.engadget.com >> ]
[ 22-Jul-05 6:40pm ] [ WiFi
] 