May 23, 2007 - 1:59 PM

What’s wrong with freeloading?

A lot, apparently, if you live in Sparta!

So, if you were too lazy to read the link, here’s the story in a nutshell: A man in Sparta has been parking out in front of a coffee shop to piggyback off the wireless Internet that is provided to customers. Doesn’t seem like a big deal, eh? Yeah, until you find out that Michigan could fine you $10,000, and throw you in prison for five years. Yikes.

CNN actually has a video up on its web site right now about this story (see it while you can). It’s provides a pretty balanced look at whether those people who don’t bother to secure their Wi-Fi connections are either morons or victims. I’m going with the former, personally.

Posted by: Rob

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Responses

I think it all comes down to whether-or-not these organizations want to police their parking lots or not. You talk about secure connections, but wouldn’t you get a “password” when you purchased something? Then be able to access it again later using the same password. If these companies are so worried about people using and not paying, then they should set up somekind of anternating security code that changes every 2 hours or something. Who needs to sit in a coffee house and surf the internet for more than two hours at a time anyways. I’m not really up-to-date with the whole Wi-Fi thing (Mine still doesn’t work) but it seems like it just comes down to what establishments want to offer to their customers and at what price their willing to pay to provide that service.

By: Scott C on May 23, 2007
at 2:20 pm

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