Busted For Using Library Wi-Fi Outside The Library

sevej writes "Keith Shaw, in his weekly column "Wireless Computing Devices" (Network World Fusion), reported on a recent entry in AKMA's Random Thoughts where AKMA was using a public WiFi network outside of a library. A policeman approached him and asked that he only access the Internet from within the Library and hinted that Federal Laws against "signal theft" were applicable. Oh, and btw, we're not talking about a person that looked like your stereotypical 'hacker'; AKMA is an ordained priest."

How did they know?

I wonder how the police officee knew the priest was using wi-fi? A wi-fi sniffer or something like this?

RTFA.

He didn't. He assumed and even when he knew AKMA wasn't using wifi, he still told him to leave.

Re:RTFA.

I agree - if the cop felt that a law was being broken, and he had no choice on how to enforce it, he could have taken it much farther.

But that gets to another point - instead of whining on the internet about it... Knowing it's the library's signal, why not just go in and see what the AUP or whatever the rules are, and bring the cop in for good measure? More often than not (there are exceptions), the cop will be happy to find out if the library staff really cares or not.

While I'm sure there are a few out there, your average ground-pounding police officer will never read this blog entry or the slashdot article that links to it. He won't be informed of the issues, and certainly isn't going to listen to anyone that he has no reason to believe as an authority on the issue. This is a better practice than you think - I'd rather be getting told that something is wrong because someone with authority told him to tell me that than some "ordained priest" with a WiFi connection told him it was ok.

Re:RTFA.

I don't think this is really whining. The policeman twice bothered this individual without any foreknowledge of what he was doing, and even when told his complaint was no longer valid, continued to harass someone who was causing no trouble, just sitting outside on a peaceful day. What probable cause did the officer have to do this? I can't see any.

Sadly, sometimes police officers just like flaunting their authority a little, and while this is one of the more harmless cases, what about the times photographers have been harassed for taking photographs on public property, of public buildings (or even private ones, but in public places, where there is no expectation of privacy or secrecy) and not violating anyone's personal privacy doing it?

Re:RTFA.

This is so much bogus nonsense to me. The RIAA and the MPAA have cultivated this paranoia about computer use. I say if a public library's wi-fi network extends outside of the building, then citizens of that public (read as: taxpayer-funded) institution have just as much right to the bandwidth as they do inside the building.

It is not ridiculous to assume that those individuals who configured and created the library's wi-fi network knew that it was not secured. Indeed they set up multiple access points, and did secure others. Knowing this, they made a conscious decision not to secure it and thus to service any and all client machines who wished to "climb aboard". It is public bandwidth paid for by the public's tax dollars. To my way of thinking, this cop is infected by the "it's illegal to be a geek" mindset/paranoia that's permeating our culture, resulting in such ridiculous expressions as "stealing music".

"What? He used his brain and found a way to use his computer that wasn't expressly permitted by policy?" Yeah, folks, last I checked it was a free country .. maybe I'm deluding myself.

Re:RTFA.

Whether it's okay for AKMA (whoever he is) to make such use of the facility would seem to be entirely dependent on the library's acceptable-use policy. If it says you can use their wireless only within the building then that's that. If it doesn't say, I'd say your location is irrelevant to whether you are using the facility acceptably.

Of course, the officer *did* have a copy of the library's AUP, right???

Having read the article, I'm now wondering whether AKMA knows if the library's wireless network is in fact provided for the public, or only for staff. That would change the situation markedly. But if it is indeed public, then rousting someone for using it is a bit like rebuking somebody for "stealing" a pamphlet off a pile lying under a "take one" sign.

RTFL

Why should he be held to rules that apply only _inside_ the library?

Remember. He was outside the library.

Why should the AUP only apply inside the library? I agree that this whole story is ridiculous, but I'd say the rules for an access point are the rules for an access point. Unless you want your tax dollars paying for libraries to install EM shielding in all their walls, I'd recommend you think about this one for a second.

Just because I leave my door open doesn't mean you can walk into my house whenever you want. Yes, it may be stupid on my part, and yes, it changes it from break and enter to trespass, but it's still not acceptable. Similarily, just because my WiFi connection is open, doesn't mean you're allowed to do whatever you want with it.

I'd imagine he was probably obeying the terms of the AUP regardless, but if he'd never gone in and read it, that's kind of weak on his part. If someone's offering a free service, at least be respectful of their terms, so you don't ruin it for everyone.

Re:RTFL

It's still a good idea for you to ask the library if they mind if you sit outside as long as you follow their rules ... but it's NOT OK for a policeman to harass with no probable cause. That's the real problem here.

Re:RTFL

If you leave your door open and play music real loud , I can sit on the curb and listen to it. You can't tell me to leave because I'm hearing your music. You can't charge me a fee because your music is spilling out on to the public street.

Re:How did they know?

The key point isn't how they knew. The question is, how are YOU supposed to know if the access point owner does not want you to use the signal where it is technically available? After all there are lots of hotspots where the owner wants to provide internet access to public areas outside of buildings.

Re:How did they know?

You grant the IP on first contact, but firewall it from going anywhere except for the accpetance page. Once the necessary information is filled out and accepted, the webserver signals the firewall to release the port to general traffic.

Many hotels, conference centers, etc do this. You just plug in your laptop and the first page that always comes up is some type of disclaimer then instructions how to setup/configure the connetion.

Re:How did they know?

I can understand the cop's confusion and inability to explain details of such regulations. There are way, way too many laws in place for a normal person to be able to cite chapter and verse of the actual statutes on every possible violation. But it's also easy to believe that a Secret Service agent gave them an extremely mistaken and civil-rights violating explanation of any applicable regulations, especially the Patriot Act. Remember, the Secret Service did the Sun Devil raids some years back and got their wrists slapped by the EFF and by Steve Jackson Games for those civil rights violations. They just don't get it when it comes to civil rights over "national security".

Now, reading the article, this "priest" seems to make a real hobby of using other people's access points without their knowledge. Why can't he politely walk into the library and ask them if they mind if he uses it outside, preferably with the policeman in tow to help settle the issue? What the heck was this guy up to?

Re:How did they know?

Read it again, he said the library was closed. Otherwise, he would have gone in to finish up.

Re:How did they know?

It therefore stands to reason that the wifi network is an internal system not intended for the public, and therefore not a public wifi point.

Nope. The internal terminals are all wired, but even if they had been wireless, surely they would have been hooked up to the encrypted AP that the library operates side-by-side with the open AP? It stands to reason that the encrypted AP is the internal network while the unencrypted AP is a public hotspot.

That brings us back to the argument of whether a open but private wifi point can be used by anyone.

Not really. It brings us to the argument of whether an open wifi point can be considered private. I claim that established protocol says it's public. Reason being is that it's impossible for a casual observer to distinguish between a public hotspot knowingly offered as a service to the public and a "private" AP that just hasn't been secured, especially if distance from the AP becomes a factor (ie "this AP is public up to this point, but private if you cross this line/wall/door/road/imaginary boundary in the air"). If you make it theft of signal to use an unencrypted AP you are making criminals out of regular Joes which is a bad idea for any law, rule or protocol. I applaud efforts to rename public hotspots to name.public, but until that becomes established protocol, we'd better go with the flow. The jails are already full.

What if he'd been using the WiFi inside the building, placed his still running TiBook in his bag and walked out? Would he become a criminal at the door? It just doesn't wash.

Re:How did they know?

you assume that the tables outside a restaraunt are only for the shops patrons

And you assume the public bench and public WiFi in a public place outside your local public library are available to the public, especially if said public happens to have a library card. What's different from being outside the library and inside it in this regard? Your analogies are both faulty and misleading, unless you seriously want to claim that it's illegal to walk into a public library and sit down on one of their chairs.

Not the library ....

Against the rules? Yes. If the library, public library, has a rule against people using the wi-fi access outside the library's building... then sure they have that right to ask anyone who is breaking the rule to leave/stop using the wi-fi.

Ah, but the key thing to remember here is that it was not an agent of the library. It was not even in response to an agent of the library.

A uniformed policeman who had been told by the secret service that "theft of signal" was a new form of crime. Said officer informed this individual that he was committing a crime and needed to move on.

The article doesn't even say if the library thinks their open wi-fi should be accessible to people sitting on that particular park bench.

This is not a case of violating the rules of the access point. This is a case of someone deciding that the entire category of hooking up to a wi-fi point is a crime and informing the person they were in violation. To the point that using a computer in a vicinity of a wi-fi without actually using the wi-fi is cause to be moved along.

Any arguments about the library being able to enforce their own rules are mostly irrelevant since we have no idea what the libraries rules/stance on this actually are. [OK, in some of the follow up posts they posted rules about when they'd have the access point open ].

Cheers

Re:How did they know?

It's not about laws, it's about rules

Is it the police's job to enforce public library rules? Do you expect uniformed policemen to knock on your door, asking for that overdue library book? BTW, there's nothing in the Nantucket Atheneum Internet Access Policy [nantucketatheneum.org] about restricting public WiFi AP use to the interior of the library.

Enter the library.

So why did they place a convenient bench just outside the library? Would it be OK to read a library book while sitting on that bench? Does the placement of the bench constitute entrapment?

Point is: it isn't a public access point. It belongs to the library.

Yes it is. And it's still safely sitting there, on its little shelf inside the library, happily blinking its little lights and routing its little packets. He didn't take it, you know. He simply used it. Just like one might use the bench outside, sit on a chair inside the library or - God forbid! - read a magazine inside the library without checking it out first. We really need to stomp out these heinous crimes against humanity!

The library has the right to restrict access if that means they can keep the program going.

Yes, they do. That's probably why their other AP was encrypted. I don't have a problem with that. But this AP wasn't encrypted. It was an open, public hotspot. Besides, even after he stopped using it, the cop still rousted him from the bench where he was sitting. In a public area. By your analogies, he could be accused of stealing the bench unless he carried it inside the library before sitting on it.

Well, I don't see the owner of these apples so I might as well eat one.

And here's another flawed analogy: What if the store puts out a box of apples and the sign "Unsellable old apples, minor cosmetic flaws, please help yourself". Might as well steal one. You really can't compare apples and bandwidth.

Oh, and for your precious rules, check out http://www.ala.org/ . They should know, they wrote the book on the subject.

Re:Why did I get into this?

Sure, you can read a book inside the library without checking it out and that goes beyond the discussion (because you are still following protocol).

And accessing an open AP is also following protocol. You may wish it wasn't so, but it is.

How can you say that being in close proximity of the library is being a patron?

Because it's protocol. Anyone using the library's services is, by definition, a patron. He had a library card, he sat on their bench, leaned against the library wall and accessed their open public AP (not their closed, encrypted one, mind you). He's a patron. Read their web, they specify how to use the library's resources, request books and search their databases from your home, hundreds or thousands of miles away. Being a patron of a library is demonstrably not a geographic function.

Library staff may limit use of computer equipment which has been purchased from grant funds, according to the terms or intent of the grant agreement.
Users will not make any attempt to gain unauthorized access to restricted files or networks, or to damage or modify computer equipment or software.

The library staff did not limit use of the computer equipment, it was an open AP, hence by definition unlimited. A cop came along and cited a non-existant federal law and rousted him from a public area.
The priest did not make any attempts to gain unauthorized access to any restricted file or network. It was unrestricted. None of these rules apply and I suspect you just added them to look like you read their website. Maybe you did read it, but you obviously didn't understand a word.

How can you even say that has anything to do with it?

It doesn't. And neither did your analogy. "You can not compare apples and bandwidth." I'm quite sure I wrote that in the post you replied to. Mine was just another example of the futility to try and construct analogies between tangibles and intangibles.

I'm sure that the library doesn't have a sign saying: "please connect to the Internet, other people inside aren't doing the same"

7. What does it cost me to use Atheneum services?

Your Atheneum card provides access to virtually all of our services and is issued to residents at no cost. The card is available to out of state residents for fifteen dollars.

BTW, the library was closed so it's not as if he was consuming anyone else's bandwidth - he had the pipe to himself.

At least he should have went inside and asked a librarian

At least you should have read the article. THE LIBRARY WAS CLOSED.

We need to stop the idea that any "hotspot" without a WEP key or WPA is free for anyone to use.

No we don't. We need to make sure all AP operators know to secure them if they don't want them used. Otherwise there will be tons of laws and people will go to jail and their lives will be ruined, because they followed the prevailing protocol - an open AP is a free AP. We can't reverse that protocol more than we can reverse the protocol that says that you can sit on a public bench outside the library or the protocol that says that you shouldn't take apples from outside the grocery story.

But we can educate the owners of access points on the protocol.

Re:How did they know?

You are not a patron for simply sitting in front of the building with your card in your pocket.

Um... why not?

Re:How did they know?

Well, the GP's premise was "there are lots of hotspots where the owner wants to provide internet access to public areas outside of buildings". And your response was basically "you assume the owner doesn't want to provide access" and added a few irrelevant analogies. I claim they are irrelevant to both the specific example as outlined in TFA and also to the more general example "where the owner wants to provide internet access".

Now, in the case where the owner DOES NOT want to provide internet access, it is fairly easy for him/her/it to refrain from doing so. If I don't want to slip and lie face down in a pool of mud, I simply walk around them. If I don't want to provide a public WiFi hotspot, I turn encryption on.

If I want the public to sit on my bench, I put it in the park. If I don't want the public to sit on my bench, I put it in my back yard. It's not up to the public to magically read my mind or to stay off all benches everywhere; it's up to me to place the bench and any relevant signs so the public can deduce my intentions.

Re:How did they know?

RTFA, fool. The policeman had a wireless laptop which was logged into CIA spy satellites through the library.

Of what

Of what... the church of Emacs?

Sorry... had to :-)

signal theft ?

The signal itself was not stolen, it was the receiver's bandwidth.
Now, had they secured their Airport, they would not had it vampirized.
And I am not sure the inside/outside concept applies to a radio signal...

Re:signal theft ?

I'm sure Apple marketing would rather have it differently, but 'Airport' is not a generic name for Wireless Access Points.

Re:signal theft ?

You mean similar to the whole "Walkman" thing?
Did you ever notice that only Sony is allowed to call their walkman's a walkman?

As long as Apple stops other companies from using the name, they lose no rights to the trademark if the rest of the world uses it as a generic name.

Hmm FCC?

I would have asked the officer for his FCC badge.

Public Rights

He should have replied that since it was a public access point that he was in his rights to use it in a public area (namely outside the library)

"A policeman approached him and asked that he only access the Internet from within the Library"
What if the guy wasn't using the Internet but was editing his site and was looking at the preview? (this was not the case but what if)

Re:Public Rights

...Because this is unlicensed spectrum. If the library has a desire that access be from inside the library only, they should actions provide this. Access/security protocols or radio blocking walls/wallpaper/partitions.

I feel no sorrow for the library. I hope the lawyers get involved and that the library and police face penalties for this.

eric

Re:Public Rights

Had he shown the cop he was not using the library's system, no thing.

I'm not sure how to parse that sentence, but he did show the cop he was not using the library's system.

I see no problem with having "patrons" use the wifi inside where the librarians can oversee as is their job.

So how do you "oversee" a WiFi connection? Watch the logs roll by? Detail one surveillance librarian-bot to every patron to look over their shoulder? Walk around and listen for the tell-tale moans of someone surfing www.kinkyceline.com? BTW, I believe it's illegal in most states for the library (or anyone else except the FBI) to monitor your library activity and loaning habits. One example of those laws are statutes 41-8-9 and 41-9-0 of the Alabama Code which protect the confidentiality of library users.

Furthermore, here's some reading for y'all:

Libraries are a traditional forum for the open exchange of information. Attempts to restrict access to library materials violate the basic tenets of the Library Bill of Rights.

Restricted Access to Library Materials [ala.org]

Privacy is essential to the exercise of free speech, free thought, and free association. The courts have established a First Amendment right to receive information in a publicly funded library. Further, the courts have upheld the right to privacy based on the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. Many states provide guarantees of privacy in their constitutions and statute law. Numerous decisions in case law have defined and extended rights to privacy.

Privacy [ala.org]

Users should not be restricted or denied access for expressing or receiving constitutionally protected speech. Users' access should not be changed without due process, including, but not limited to, formal notice and a means of appeal.

Although electronic systems may include distinct property rights and security concerns, such elements may not be employed as a subterfuge to deny users' access to information. Users have the right to be free of unreasonable limitations or conditions set by libraries, librarians, system administrators, vendors, network service providers, or others. Contracts, agreements, and licenses entered into by libraries on behalf of their users should not violate this right. Users also have a right to information, training and assistance necessary to operate the hardware and software provided by the library.

Users have both the right of confidentiality and the right of privacy. The library should uphold these rights by policy, procedure, and practice.
Access to Electronic Information, Services, and Networks [ala.org]

Alse check out LibraryLaw.com [librarylaw.com] for some Patriot Act perspective.

Re:Public Rights

You are right that it is foolish to argue with an officer if your primary goal is to save time and hassle. However, if you leave without any form of fight at all, there is nothing to protest and the offier is free to do the exact same thing to others in similar situations. If a cop simply asks you to stop doing whatever it is you are doing and you comply, any complaint you have will fall on deaf ears because the officer did not commit an offensive act. Only if the officer detains, searches, arressts, or otherwise violates your civil rights without reasonable cause can you mount a successful complaint. Civil disobedience is often the only effective way to get laws or behaviors changed.

Personally, I'd take the safe route and pack up and leave, however I respect anyone who stands up for my rights by being a little defiant.

Re:Public Rights

when a foot soldier (cop) confront's you. the ONLY thing you was is whatever it takes for him to become happy and go away. You DO NOT FIGHT with a cop, peace officer, soldier, whatever. You will not win anything.

I sort of agree, but think I'd put it in less extreme terms.

It's probably unwise to engage in outright physical contact with an officer. Not that they're supermen - they aren't - but they are in better shape than average, they're often armed, they can call for backup, and in the short term (before due process gets fully ironed out) their judgement is generally deferred to.

In this case of a priest using wireless outside a library, physical contact does not sound like an issue. The question then becomes: is it worth the effort to explain whatever your position is to the approaching officer? I'd say the answer is yes IF the concepts involved are simple and familiar (not only are officers not supermen, they're even further from being Einsteins). A good thing to try to explain: "officer, I was making a perfectly legal left turn and that guy ran a red light." A bad thing to try to explain: "officer, as weirdly as spectrum has been treated in the history of our legal framework, its similarity to property is a false one for the following three reasons...."

you reply with, "Thank you officer! I did not know! I will comply right away!"

Personally, I think that's a little too much boot-licking. Officers are there ostensibly to serve the public. Citizens who conduct themselves politely are entitled to the respect of an officer. Yes, I know that some officers are buttheads, but if you don't actually become belligerent with them they will still have a very difficult time parlaying their unresolved childhood issues into a trip to jail for you. Presume your entitlement to respect when you likewise give respect. Don't pretend officers have a higher moral ground; that leads to a big brother state. If you've really done nothing wrong, don't give attitude... but don't send the message that an officer puffing his chest is a welcome thing.

Re:Public Rights

Presume your entitlement to respect when you likewise give respect.

Those are words to live by in any context.

well...

The big thing here is that he wasn't "busted" he was simply "asked" not to. If he were actually busted we'd get a chance for this to come across a judge and have a ruling.

light and bandwidth !

From the article: I responded, "But this is a radio signal thing -- it's not like a cable connection, it's like someone has a porch light on and I'm sitting on the bench, reading a book by their light. I'm not stealing their light."
These are nowhere analogous,you are stealing bandwidth when u use WiFi this way,but its not the same with light which anyway is gonna illuminate the bench without an added effort to the wattage.

Re:light and bandwidth !

I know that over here in Holland there's indeed a law for this. If something is published in the ether, everyone able to receive it is allowed to do so.
--

Ehr, 'Holland, the country' ? Coz I live there and I'm quite certain that's not the case. If you have a TV antenna here and you're receiving TV signals, you will be asked to pay 'kijk en luistergeld'.

Look??

Oh, and btw, we're not talking about a person that looked like your stereotypical 'hacker'; AKMA is an ordained priest.

What are you advocating here exactly? That police officers are more justified to harrass some because of their look? Or that the law is less applicable to some people because of their job? With ignorant, prejudicial comments like this who needs rights eh? Let's just roundup all those who look like they may cause trouble and be done with it...

Looks, job, race, gender, etc should have nothing to do with the law and law enforcement. Laws and rights apply to everyone equally.

Re:Look??

While this sort of feel good about our country not profiling people stuff is all well and good, the submitter was making a pragmatic rather than ideal point.

The truth is, if you are scruffy looking, not white, dressed in drag, or in some other way deviant from the norm, police are more likely to harrass you. Often, they do so simply because you look deviant, rather than because there is any enforcable law being broken.

While I appreciate your point, try to appreciate the submitter's: what he's saying is, because AKMA is supposedly very wholesome looking, the cop's motivation in telling him to use the library's wifi inside the library only could not possibly have been because he was a "hacker type". In other words, this wasn't simple harrassment. It was "for real".

We all hate the fact that people get harrassed unfairly, but they do. The submitter is recognizing this, not advocating it. If he had said, "I got asked to move on, and I was Arab and wearing a turban", we would naturally be outraged by the cop's mistreatment of an arab man, rather than by him being told to move on, because we would assume, understanding our rights, that the only motivation the cop could possibly have had for asking the turbaned man to move on was the fact that he was wearing a turban.

The point here is that this isn't simple harassment: it's an erosion of our rights. I think I've beaten this point to death already, I hope you understand it now.

Re:Look??

From the summary:
AKMA is an ordained priest.

From the article:
"It's a law, sir; if someone comes along and downloads child photography (that wasn't the exact word the officer used) and it goes through their [sc., the access point owner's] connection, that's a violation and we've had cases of that. That's a felony."

No profiling, my ass.

Re:Look??

Laws and rights apply to everyone equally.

Except politicians...
and other policemen...
and celebrities...
and foreign nationals.

I'm probably missing a few groups. Then again I've been awake for about 5 minutes.

Worrying

I held up my TiBook, pointing to the zero lines in the Airport icon, and showed the officer that my card was off.
"Why don't you just close that up, sir, or use your computer elsewhere?'

Quite apart from the signal stealing part, isn't the fact that the cop asks him to move on a bit worrying? He's demonstrably not breaking the law and is sitting on public land. Are they just going to ban using laptops with wifi cards near any wireless point?

Re:Worrying

That said, why didn't the guy simply walk into the library, sit down at one of their nice tables and use his laptop on the Internet in the Library using the wifi? The cop may not have been right, but there is nothing more dangerous than a cop who is willing to be wrong.

One of the followup articles explained that the library was closed at the time.

Another one said

The Atheneum has just now posted a policy stating that the wifi connection is available only between a half-hour after they open to a half-hour before they close, on days that they're open. The stated reasonn is "for better maintenance and operation." Case closed.

Not Signal Theft

IIRC there have been many lawsuits upheld on the basis of if the signal enters your property it's public domain. Otherwise people could say that company was liable to pay them to access their airspace and such. That's why decoders were technically legal for so long.

Now the DMCA makes it illegal to decode those signals.

Now I dont understand why some landowner who owns huge tracts have not sued the satilite broadcasters for using their airspace as a transmission medium again and ask for royalties and why cities have not charged tarriffs since they're essentially getting a free ride over the airwaves. If it was fiber optics buried in the ground they'd pay.

So some cops are stupid and/or overzealous

Film at 11.

Oh great...

Now that's just great, now we're slashdotting a priest....

He still looks like a hacker

Oh, and btw, we're not talking about a person that looked like your stereotypical 'hacker'; AKMA is an ordained priest."

He's still got glasses and wears all black. Sounds like probable cause to me.

I'm joking, in case you can't tell.

Tell the cop to get bent!

Seriously...where was this at? I read his site and didn't see where he's from.

I smell something very fishy here BTW. He showed the cop the second time that he wasn't connecting to anywhere and yet the cop told him to move along. Move along? He was on a bench on public land just looking at his computer! The cop had no right to tell him to move along!

Two sides to every story I suppose, but would be interesting to call the police station and get their take on it...if only I knew where this was all taking place.

Also, where is this story reported from? The submitter of the story said "Keith Shaw, in his weekly column" yet the link just goes to an index where I can't find anything on AKMA...nor does it even show up on a search of the site!

Re:Tell the cop to get bent!

Nantucket, which is an island off the coast of Cape Cod. It's mentionned once or twice.

Best regards,
Alex Ionescu
Kernel Developer, ReactOS
http://www.relsoft.net/ [relsoft.net]

my own wi-fi story

I was at a party last week and a guy is talking to my friend

guy : "... we noticed someone was sucking our bandwidth via the wifi, cut him off, looked outside and saw a red BWM with a laptop on the passenger seat drive away"

friend : "hehe that's him," points at me.

busted !

ah, the perils of wardriving.

I thought wardriving was going to be an interesting hobby, got all the kit - wifi-card, laptop, inverter, usb gps.

I drove 2 miles from my house to my friends and on the way discovered 30 access points along the main road !

Turns out urban wardriving is just too easy here in the UK.

US CODE COLLECTION

Here is the law [cornell.edu].Refer (a)(2)(C)

Re:US CODE COLLECTION

The most I can see that he might conceivably have done is intentionally access[ed] a computer without authorization or exceed[ed] authorized access, and thereby obtain[ed]... information from any department or agency of the United States; or information from any protected computer if the conduct involved an interstate or foreign communication.

If he wasn't actually hacking a bank, though, it doesn't seem like he could violate a "protected computer". It seems doubtful that he "exceeded his authorized access" (a librarian would presumably be the authority on that, not a police officer). Perhaps he could have asked the librarians at that point.

And even so, unless he visited the DMV website or something he didn't "obtain information from a government agency" anyway.

There's no way sitting outside the library while in possession of an operational laptop could violate this law.

IANAL, of course, etc. etc.

Theft analogies

I'm really getting tired of these "it's like stealing..." analogies. Between the MPAA and The Airwave NAZIs, I'm beginning to wonder if people REALLY understand technology at all...

The Airwave Nazis will say something similar to the cop in blog posting listed in the article above. Something along the lines of "It's like stealing somebodies cable or walking up and plugging in your hairdryer to the electrical outlet on the outside of their home"

NO, it's NOT.

The priest in the article likened it to reading off their porchlight,which is a pretty good analogy. I prefer to say that it is more along the lines of tossing your empty bottle into someones trashcan they have set to the curb without a lid (it may not be "polite" and *some* people might not appreciate it too much....but you're not "stealing" their trash service by doing so). If someone gets so upset at the idea that someone passing by might throw their empty coke bottle into their beloved garbage can, they can simply put a lid on it (which would discourage most would be bottle-throwers) or, in the analogy, the WiFi AP owner could simply turn on WEP (which would discourage most would be bandwidth users).

Regardless of the analogy, it simply is not "stealing", no matter what some judge decided.

Theft of service, my ass.

Re:Minister

It's not that strange that he was *asked* not to use the service outside the library, they probably wan't to keep better track of who's using it (even just for statistics).

Since when is it in the job description of the Police Department to help carry out statistical surveys for the local library? If the librarians want more statistics, they can simply log more traffic.

BTW, how do you propose keeping all users indoors may help with their statistics? Is it so the librarians can look them over and make notes like "suspicious-looking priest in black with glasses and TiBook" in their little statistical notebooks?

Encrypting wouldn't help much as they would have to give out the key anyway it being a public access point

Yeees. Go on. Keep thinking, you're on to something here. What if it ceases to be a public access point when you turn encryption on? Since the library already had an encrypted AP too, it seems to me this one was intentionally left public and open. Hell, he even had a library card so if they had encrypted the signal and made the AP available for known users only, he would most likely have had access to the key. It would be interesting to see the incident report.

BTW, he's not [go.com] alone [nwsource.com] being questioned by police about his horrible crimes and terrorist activities.

Re:Don't take it!

The bit where he was told to "move along", I'd have asked the officer for his badge number, name and the law that I was infringing.

Then you might have "fallen" up a flight of stairs while "resisting arrest." Don't tip off a cop that you're going to report something--figure out what you can and report it when you're safely aware, so long as it's worth harassment from his colleagues whenever you happen to again cross that jurisdiction, or continually if, heaven forbid, you live in it.

Remember, we now live in a country where failure to produce "your papers" for the police is an arrestable offense, affirmed by our corrupt Supreme Court. It doesn't pay to be excessively vocal about invoking rights that, when it comes down to it, we no longer have for all practical purposes, unless you have a martyr complex. And as we see demonstrated every day here, holding one's breath waiting for the outraged public to agitate for your release would be fatal save for the autonomous nervous system.

but it was closed

"The library was closed at the time, or else I'd have gone ahead in to finish my surfing."

Just a thought: if the library puts up a sign (inside ofcourse) that you can use the internet. Does it mean you can keep on using it, outside the building, after that library closes?

Bad Cops

Please remember the percentage of bad cops is proportionate to the percentage of bad citizens- perhaps a little higher. With little pay and very little respect from the general public, the only incentive beyond pure altruism I can see for becoming a cop is the power trip.

Re:Bad Cops

the only incentive beyond pure altruism I can see for becoming a cop is the power trip.

My brother is a deputy in a small town, because he likes to drive fast and carry guns. Scary.

Simple Defense

You can't steal what's being given away for free.

Re:The real story here is that..

Obviously there is no law pertaining to laptop use in public,

not yet... just wait.

the more people that sit passively and are privately disgusted at stories like this the more draconian laws we will get.

If YOU dont get publically outraged, inform others and express your concern and outrage to all your government officials then you are the cause of laws like DMCA, PATRIOT, and The Public Laptop Decency Act of 2006.

A local city councilwoman here in my town wanted to make it illegal to criticize the city council or the city it's self. except for a few people that had enough balls to go to meetings and call her "Herr Hitler" and spend their money and time informing the rest of the public that this woman wanted a law that would limit their free speech severly, it would have passed because 90% of the people that live in your town are sheep. Be the 10% that actually care and do something.

The real point

The policeman's conduct was perfect, he followed orders. The real point here is a federal law that stops you from using WiFi outside, or the fact that it's interpreted that way.

revenge

Later the same day the policeman was excommunicated for praying outside his local church.

How does one advertise a public WiFi hotspot?

Other than physical notice like signs or TOS agreements, is there a current way to advertise "this is a public WiFi network" over the network itself? Obviously if the library wanted they could post a sign outside that said the network was public access. But what if you want to run a public spot from your house? or apartment? A sign isn't going to be seen by everyone.

If there is no current convention, maybe it could be done by, say, sending a periodic broadcast packet on a specific port with a text message. "This network is public access" or something. Maybe there needs to be an RFC?

Re:How does one advertise a public WiFi hotspot?

Redirect all traffic from unknown users to a local webserver, which contains a usage agreement. After the user clicks "Accept" add their MAC address to the list of known users, and maybe remove it after 24 hours or so.

Exactly where "outside the library"?

My question is, was this person still on library property? I don't know about this particular library, but many of the ones I visit have an outside area to sit and read the books you just checked out. So, if he was still on the library's property, isn't he still "in the library"?

And another thought (random as it may be) doesn't he, as a taxpaying citizen (yes church folk still have taxes) have a right to use a public access wiFi connection? After all, it's offered as a free service to the public, not just some of the public.

Now if he was doing something malicious (hacking their server, sending spam), perhaps the police have a point, but for general use, I don't see how simply accessing a public connection is a problem.

Well, unnecessary laws produce confusion

My brother in law is a civil engineer. His pet peeve is that somebody will get hurt when a porch railing collapse, and the local authorities will amend the building code to require that porch railings be built stronger. Except that the problem was that the railing didn't meet code to begin with. Then carpenters will scratch their heads and ask him whether a railing they just built is strong enough.

His solution is the "butt test". Take the biggest guy you have on site. Stand next to him a couple feet away from the rail, and fall backwards so your butts land on the rail at the same time. If this doesn't make you nervous, then the railing is strong enough.

This situation is pretty much analagous to a lot of cyberlaws. They're supposed to "clarify" things but all they do is create a bunch of new restrictions everyone has to learn to steer their way around. It all gets muddled up in the average person (or cop's head) to the point where they are n't sure what is legal or not. It probably never makes sense to propose a law to "clarify" anything, at least until the courts have had a crack at the situation. Prosecutors are pretty creative at finding ways to do this, and if the courts get it wrong, then it's time for a new law. Programs can be created to educate police and prosecutors on strategies for using existing laws. But that would (a) take longer, (b) appear to be more expensive and (c) doesn't sound as good. It sounds better to say "I wrote a law to stop kiddie porn over the Internet", than "I sponsored a program to teach law enforcement how to use the law against people trafficking in kiddie porn on the Internet." Create an educational program points out the (true) fact that you can't do anything directly about kiddie porn, you're one step removed from the actual action.

I should point out reason (d), though: new laws are a chance to change the way the law works to favor one party or another.

The intent was correct...

Cellphones work on the assumption that the radio frequencies used are to have the same operative security from snooping as wireline communications. This is one of the reasons that radio scanners have the cellphone frequencies blocked out. Computer networking relies on wireline transport. Wi-Fi transport is relatively new. Even though the signal passes through the walls and outside, if the operational policy of the library (run by the city or county), who runs and maintains the AP, states that you have to be within the physical building to use the services, they are within their right to ask the local gendarme to ask the errant user to quit. Since they would have the ability to control who plugs in a ethernet cable into a public router, the same idea here should apply here to the wireless side. AFAIK, the FCC has not transported the cellular telephone privacy idea to Wi-Fi. It would be interesting to see if some deep-pockets spread some dead-president lubricant on the FCC to enact the philosophy or worse yet, having Wi-Fi ports be licensed with the usual outrageous wallet tapping. If those thieves do that, then I drop my Part 15 operation and switch over to Part 97 operation using VPN.

IANAL, IAAUSC with the inherent responsibilities

I am not a Lawyer, but I am a US Citizen with the inherent responsibilities that entails. (I posted a comment to the following effect in reply to Akma's thread)

Akma passed up a slow ball thrown by God in the game of Good vs. Evil on this one. As my good friend Henry Davis Thereau would have been quick to point out, a bit of Civil Disobedience was called for and quite appropriate here. This is exactly the kind of situation that could have resulted in a nationally publicised arrest that resuts in exposure of the Law's absurdity and education of the masses that might ... just might ... force the out of hand legislators to clean up their act somewhat. His reaction, IMNSHO, was selfish and self-serving.

I have noticed a large number of people arguing about Akma's analogy regarding the porch light and claiming that a person standing in the light doesn't take up any bandwidth. Really? Perhaps these people have never noticed a shadow? Even in the case of a light directly overhead, if one looks within themselves for the answer so to speak, they will realize that they are eating up light bandwidth in the geophysical location they occupy. Bits and people move at different rates to be sure, but wherever the [person as bit] goes, there they are, eating up light bandwidth!

If noone else needs to stand where I am when I'm there, does it effect anyone that I am eating up that bandwidth. Things get complicated and philisophical from here, but it should be reasonaby clear that his analogy holds quite well to those who couldn't see it before at this point.

Of course, being a preist accused of possibly downloading child porn, perhaps he had good reason to throw his civil rights out the window and bow and pray to the powers that be (just a rhetorical comment to make my point Akma, and I realize that you are not Catholic.) The point is this ... maybe he doesn't look like a hacker, but if he does look like a Christian religious figure-head, perhaps the copper was doing a bit of profiling. Nantucket is part of Massachussetts ... home state of Cardinal Law and the Catholic child molesting scandal.

This would have made such a great case on so many levels, I can only hope he has what it takes to go back there, throw open his laptop, and wait for a cop to try it again so that he can tell the him or her to go fsck himself ... as politely as possible, of course!

actually thanks to HBO in 1981..

if this was in the USA, actually thanks to HBO in 1981 it is NOT illegal the officer was completely wrong. the law is very clear on this. It is not illegal to take any signal out of the air. it is however illegal to decrypt a signal. That is why HBO ended up having to scramble their signals. They were sueing provate satellite dish owners and manufacturers for copyright infringement. The US supreme court held that if it was not encrypted, it was indeed public domain.
Secondly, the FCC has detemined certain channels to be public use. the 2.4 gig range used by WI/Fi is among those.

Library Wifi laws

So from the article I assertain that:
a) our friend the priest was accessing a PUBLIC WIFI AP
b) it was from a Library offering PUBLIC NET access
c) it is illegal (according to Boss Hog) to access a PUBLIC ACCESS spot (even though the range allows you to) from outside that building.
You know it makes me wonder, how many of these laws are real. The articles author could have hopped into the library to look it up. It would not at all surprise me to see that no law exists concerning Public WIFI AP's.
Ok true people have dl'd kiddie pr0n on other peoples bandwidth but still. The ones doing that aren't going to stop because now it's a Federal Law.
I would have searched for that law. Printed it out and had I found nothing even remotely close. I would have told Boss Hog he was harrasing me and to shuffle his way down to Dunkin Donuts.
I am not one who hates Police and thinks they are all "The Man".
They are there for our protection, and I applaud them for the job they do.Yet I also wonder how many of them, create these imaginary laws and tell people well it's a such and such law you cant do this. People may argue, but like the blog stated "you can explain it to the Cheif if ya like", so he has threatened to arrest this Priest on possibly an imaginary charge. My bet would be that if the Priest did not cease and he went before the Magistrate it would have been something completely different than accessing a public wifi spot outside a library.

My policy @ the library

As the I.T. director for a public library, let me give my $.02

We use a timed based ACL to restrict connections while we're closed, but I couldn't care less what you do while we're open. We force a page on the first HTTP request, which gives you the ACU and notes that you're agreeing to it by proceeding. Included in that ACU is adhearing to the law (fed. , state, and local). That ACU doesn't mention where you can use the signal, but if it's a nice day...

People surf for porn all the time inside the building. Heck, I'd prefer if they'd take it outside. Granted, we've never had to deal with illegal child porn, but if we did, we'd at least have a MAC address and hostname to watch for if they returned.

We did it on purpose

I'm recently retired as an IT director for a public library. Two years ago I put WiFi in place at nine branches and INTENTIONALLY placed hubs near windows facing parking lots to allow WiFi access outside the buildings and outside normal open hours. We don't guarantee outide (or inside) 100% coverage. (Dooesn't work? Move to another chair!), but the idea is to provide free public access.

Re:no protection ?

It's a public, wireless network. It's nothing to do with being protected - what's to stop you connecting inside, then walking outside to enjoy the sunshine? The point was that you're only allowed to use the public, wireless network within a defined area - like suggesting you can't listen to an AM radio signal from another country because they haven't paid licencing fees in your area.

Re:no protection ?

Or watching the Olympic coverage on the internet because NBC paid millions and don't want people to watch it without ads?