have arrested a man for using someone else"s wireless Internet network in one of the first criminal cases involving this fairly common practice.

Benjamin Smith III, 41, faces a pretrial hearing this month following his April arrest on charges of unauthorized access to a computer network, a third-degree felony. Police say Mr. Smith admitted using the Wi-Fi signal from the home of Richard Dinon, who had noticed Mr. Smith sitting in an SUV outside Mr. Dinon"s house using a laptop computer.

Well, I think a lot of people are not aware of how to configure their networks to avoid unauthorized access.

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Thats one of the most stupidest things i've ever heard.

He never forced his way in or used deceptive means to gain entry.

Besides i've never been arrested for WarDriving.

This is the one of the stupidest things i've ever heard.

If your stupid enough to not secure your Wi-Fi, well, tough luck.

Pffft... what's next, being arrested from making coffee at 10:00 AM?

Whats the point of even arresting this guy i mean its just ur waist of time hese not taking money its not like him using ur service is doing any kind of harm.

Sounds like asshats all around. Don't buy a tool if you don't already know (or aren't willing to learn) how to use it properly. Don't mooch without considering repercussions. Most importantly, don't bring asinine felony charges against someone for an act far less dangerous than many misdemeanors. Last I checked, 56 in a 55 wasn't a felony offense.

Consider this situation. Someone inadvertantly connects to a neighbor's wireless network. This person doesn't do anything untoward and is considering letting his immediate neighbors know that he'd encountered an unprotected interface.

What should the person do?

I'm not sure what I'd do. I'd probably worry that the neighbors might try to press charges and ... while anonymous ... well, lets not go there.

Mishmashing Emerson: Go, indeed, where there is a path and leave no trail.

Any wireless network can be cracked with the right monitoring programs, especially the wireless most commonly found in homes and small businesses.

So to all the leeches who think it is perfectly okay to steal access, I have to ask this. If you actually have a network connection of your own be it dial-up, cable, DSL or wireless and a hacker uses your connection to gain illegal access which is traced back to you, how many of you would be screaming for the law to protect you? Our should everyone just say that it is your “tough luck”?
People like this like to complain about spammers, viruses and security problems that make the Internet less than what it should be yet have no problem supporting the very actions an attitudes that leads to the problems to begins with.

Simple reason. The leech didn’t pay for the access and was not offered the access by the owner therefore he is illegally accessing a network he does not own. This is no different than if he physically connected up to the owner’s cable, DSL or dial-up line.

Intent determines guilt. There is no way you can make the argument that the guy arrested didn’t know what he was doing was legal.

If someone uses your knife to kill a person, are you going to be charged?

that's a totally different situation than this. the internet the guy was using was completely open. if you don't want people to use your internet, you should at least put some kind of security on it just so people can't just connect. the guy didn't force his way in or anything of the like.

it's like if you leave your door unlocked and somebody walks into your house. you can't charge them with breaking and entering, because they didn't force their way in...