acessing a wireless router

I would say "sure, here is the password." Just like other places do (just too far away which is what this owner "depends" on)

Would you ask such a person to

If they were using it for mail and internet, I would say "go nuts all you want."

Have you been reading this thread? Yes I pay, everyday-often twice a day.

They said the same thing about pot smoking (which I have done) that it would lead to cocaine and heroine (neither of which I have done) and hard drugs (never done anything but pot).

I don't even know what some of those (above) are. If they use tonnes of bandwidth, I'd save that for home (I do that even if I paid elsewhere for it, out of consideration for the business owner).

No. I'd simply say if you're just casually using it, no sweat. If it's for mail and browsing, no problem

That's a very common call I get from my business customers.

For full time? How many calls a day?

I'm sure you do.

Oh brother. Your response sounds more like a pet peeve than a real threat or concern. Lots of things "can" go wrong. yes. A bit paranoid, but yes it is within the realm of possibility.

But I share mine in a building with about 50 other units. I KNOW other

use mine from time to time, and really I don't mind. I'm on it all the

time and sometimes it is a little slower, sure. But I guess I'm just more giving and tolerant than others.

If, If, If. If. As I said, I'm just using it for mail and browsing.

Most LAN's are not secured, so the

Well those things are "possible" yes. It is possible regardless of what "protection" you use. I have a firewall, virus software, etc. And I back up almost daily. So yes, those things are possible but I back up for exactly that reason (whether I share or not, my connection)

You misunderstand, I have no desire to get into their computers.

What are you on about? Maybe they live in silicon Valley.

Like me? Sure.

So you've never checked if you have access somewhere with your laptop?

It's ironic you say that. I DID TELL her this morning. She just smiled and said well done. Just please don't pass the password around (which I won't). Then she followed that up with "I really should just give it out. enough people ask. It's just a pet peeve of mine I guess I need to get

over."

It would still be clear.

I don't have the skill set (nor want it) to be a "hacker" as you say.

By the way, I pay for it at home. I also see there are 5 other wireless connections around me (in my apartment building-some secured, some not) If I am as bad as you guys say, I'd drop my account and just use my neighbours exclusively. I don't.

Reply to
nickarama2005
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We have a neighborhood wireless and wired LAN. We've learned the hard way that if you cannot identify the person on your network, you don't want them on the system. Too many problems chasing down well meaning abusers and complete idiots. Sure, here's the password has proven to be an invitation to weekend and evening troubleshooting exercises.

No, I haven't been reading the entire thread. Normally, I'm not interested in such discussions. However, when you tried to justify your theft, I thought it time to get involved.

So, you pay at other places. That doesn't have anything to do with the current theft of service situation. If I contribute to my favorite charity, that does not give me the excuse to do something else that's evil. One right does not negate a wrong.

I appreciate your good intentions. If the coffee shop had some way of enforcing those intentions, I wouldn't have a problem. We have a sorta free WLAN in one of the nearby towns that offers two levels of service. 128Kbits/sec for free, and full speed (about 1Mbit/sec) for those that pay. The slow speed is enough to check your email and do some light browsing, but not enough to do any major downloading or filesharing. If the coffee shop had such an arrangement to restrict abusers, I would have no problem.

How would you know how they're using it? Monitoring? Pretty MRTG graphs? logins and passwords? Those would work, but would you do it?

Trust but verify.

Full time. Some of my customers are in office complexes that are occupied by very small businesses. The occupants are often not in the office long enough to justify a broadband connection. So, they try to arrange for connectivity with the neighbors. Most often it's wireless. My guess is that I've gotten involved in about 40 such arrangments (not counting my own office complex) since about Jan 2000. I would say that about 5 of them were successful. About 5 were nightmares of one sort or other. The remaining 30 just didn't want to take the chance of having some stranger on their LAN. It's not a huge number, but it's fairly common.

I've also instigating sharing where I thought it made sense. For example my office complex has 5 companies with about 25 computers total on one DSL line. The security is maintained by having 5 seperate IP addresses, 5 seperate ethernet routers, and 3 seperate wireless access points. Because the routers are independent, nobody can sniff or see anyone elses traffic. That works well.

I've also thrown together similar arrangements using a single IP address but multiple non-routeable networks for the different companies. Mostly, I use Freesco:

formatting link
can handle up to 10 ethernet cards in the box. Each ethernet card goes to a different office, on a different IP block, and with router rules intended to isolate the traffic. That also works well.

What doesn't work is piling everyone on a single LAN where everyone can see everyone elses computer (or sometimes their traffic).

No, it's quite simple. My job is to keep the phone from ringing. If there are complaints or problems, I'm not doing my job. If that means preventing problems before they happen, I'll do it.

Well, think of all the things that can go wrong with your shared connection and ask yourself:

  1. How would you react if something went wrong?
  2. How will you find the culprit?
  3. What will you do to prevent it from happening again? I do that every day for customers. They pay me to prevent problems. That makes me a bit more conservative than most. The good news is that I sleep nights. Back in the bad old dot com days (1995-2000), the phone would ring at all hours of the night. I eventually figured out that it was better to prevent problems than to constantly fix them.

Sure, that's what one of my neighbors said. It was true for about 6 months until their son dribbles home from college during Christmas break. He brings his trojan infest laptop home, plants it on the neighborhood WLAN, and proceeds to spew spam out to the internet. I get my IP address black listed for about a week. Estimated wasted time was about 8 hours including cleaning out his laptop. Some of my friends and competitors have similar horror stories.

The coffee shop owner and I have no reason to trust your good intentions. As I said, If they had the means to enforce your good intentions, I wouldn't have much of a problem. As it stands, your ability to abuse their bandwidth and affect their customers is a problem.

No, not like you. You seem to have a problem with stealing. The basics are "Thou shalt not steal". There's no exemption for things of little value, or indulgences for doing good deeds. Anything less is rationalizing your actions. At least I have a concience.

That's why I wanted you to check with someone else for a clue about ethics and theft of service. I make no claim to be pure and virtuous. I've done far more than just check for access.

Well, if that's true, and I have my doubts, then I've misjudged the coffee shop owner. I maintain a few coffee shop wireless systems and none of the owners would react in that manner to any form of wireless hacking. Most would throw you out and suggest you never return.

We have a local coffee shop that has intentionally turned down the power on their access point to limit access only to their paying customers. I'm also working on a scheme to measure the range of a client radio from the access point and use that information to allow or deny access. It's too expensive at this time, but if I can get the price down, I'm sure the coffee shops will most likely be the initial customers.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

yeah, my "theft". I'm a real bad egg.

I'm an evil person who has never stolen, raped or murdered in his life.

As I said, sometimes it's a little slower likely due to them using more bandwidth. It's not constant so I really don't mind. So unless it is constant (ie. I never can even browse the interent or get mail) I'm not going to put a password on it. It's not like they have easy access to my computer. Anyone BENT on hacking my computer-will.

The above is whole bunch of gobbily gook that bores me. I don't understand what you're saying.

I was referring to your response to me. It's not your job to lecture me.

I am betting nothing will go wrong with my access. But if it did as you asked above? I have my backup that I do frequently. So no biggie. Again, it's a bunch of "if's if's if's". "If my aunt had testicles, she's be my uncle."

I'm a rather accommodating person. I'm not much into "reacting" just because there are negative (slim) possibilities.

It's also possible I'll get hit by car tomorrow on my way to that coffee shop.

yeah, well that's not my computer-it's clean as of this morning.

How am I affecting their customers? I think you're mi-understanding something.

I have a HUGE conscience. I was the one who paid taxes on his tips. People laugh at me for that. The fact is, using their bandwidth is not stealing. My conscience is clear.

according to you they would call the police. After all it is STEALLING in your mind. I have my doubts about you claiming to maintain coffee shop wireless systems, too.

yawn.

Your reaction is that of a pet peeve and full "If this, and if that". I'm no threat and have no ill intentions. I do not have the skill set to hack a computer and have no desire to (as stated twice before). I'm sure your is far superior and you could easily hack my computer, find out my location, and call the police on me. So why don't you?

My catholic conscience is clear, It's no big deal. The coffee shop owner can easily kick me out, or change her password. We'll find out tomorrow but I suspect I'll be welcome since I spend quite a bit dough there and she could have kicked me out today.

You're over reaction to my post is a sign of hysteria.

Reply to
fornewsgroups

See! Look at all the writing you did. Your response os that of a pet peeve, than really a reasonable conern. I skimmed your reponse but I can't be bothered to read it all and address each point.

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

yeah, my "theft". I'm a real bad egg.

I'm an evil person who has never stolen, raped or murdered in his life.

As I said, sometimes it's a little slower likely due to them using more

bandwidth. It's not constant so I really don't mind. So unless it is constant (ie. I never can even browse the interent or get mail) I'm not

going to put a password on it. It's not like they have easy access to my computer. Anyone BENT on hacking my computer-will.

The above is whole bunch of gobbily gook that bores me. I don't understand what you're saying.

I was referring to your response to me. It's not your job to lecture me.

I am betting nothing will go wrong with my access. But if it did as you asked above? I have my backup that I do frequently. So no biggie.

Again, it's a bunch of "if's if's if's". "If my aunt had testicles, she's be my uncle."

I'm a rather accommodating person. I'm not much into "reacting" just because there are negative (slim) possibilities.

It's also possible I'll get hit by car tomorrow on my way to that coffee shop.

yeah, well that's not my computer-it's clean as of this morning.

How am I affecting their customers? I think you're mi-understanding something.

I have a HUGE conscience. I was the one who paid taxes on his tips. People laugh at me for that. The fact is, using their bandwidth is not stealing. My conscience is clear.

according to you they would call the police. After all it is STEALLING

in your mind. I have my doubts about you claiming to maintain coffee shop wireless systems, too.

yawn.

Your reaction is that of a pet peeve and full "If this, and if that". I'm no threat and have no ill intentions. I do not have the skill set to hack a computer and have no desire to (as stated twice before). I'm

sure your is far superior and you could easily hack my computer, find out my location, and call the police on me. So why don't you?

My catholic conscience is clear, It's no big deal. The coffee shop owner can easily kick me out, or change her password. We'll find out tomorrow but I suspect I'll be welcome since I spend quite a bit dough there and she could have kicked me out today.

You're over reaction to my post is a sign of the hysteria out there.

Reply to
nickarama2005

Define large bandwidth. I saw an advert yesterday for some UK services. The bandwidth limit was 1GB PER MONTH. That's tiny but it was an entry level offering and thus cheap. Each 1GB (or part thereof) over was somewhat expensive.

How would you know what service plan your "host" was on? You don't, thus you can't say it's non-tangible and no-one is losing anything.

There could be a very real sum of money involved.

David.

Reply to
David Taylor

to borrow does imply that you'll return it, how can you do that? See my earlier post on service plans and bandwidth limits.

David.

Reply to
David Taylor

You continually take things out of context. I never said you were a bad person. My point, and it's the only point I'm making, is that you are doing the wrong thing. This reality is something you fail to understand, admit, or accept.

Like I said .. I don't really care that you're doing it. What amuses me is that you continually try and say it's ok ... when it's obviously not. You bend the truth and twist facts to suit your own argument. It's black and white .. you are taking something that's not yours.

BernieM

Reply to
BernieM

Ah well, when somebody starts off a post to the most knowledgeable person on this newsgroup like that, I can't even be bothered to skim

Reply to
Derek Broughton

What about the guy paying for the bandwidth or do you think the ISP is giving him his connection out of the goodness of their hearts?

Except taking food off the table of the store owner's family.

I suspect Dillenger had a clear conscious as well.

Reply to
Rico

You just yesterday were asking us to help you steal. Never stole, it would appear due to lack of knowledge and oportunity rather then morality.

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

Reply to
Rico

IT appears you did not read the part where I just want it for email and browsing and save any downloading (which I generally don't do anyway) for home.

Odd, they look quite satiated to me.

So you equate that to murder? Oh brother.

Reply to
fornewsgroups

IT appears you did not read the part where I just want it for email and

browsing and save any downloading (which I generally don't do anyway) for home.

Odd, they look quite satiated to me.

So you equate that to murder? Oh brother.

Reply to
nickarama2005

If it is a matter of opportunity for me as you claim, then why am I not cancelling my home account and using others in my building?

Ironic. Then why are you fundamentally opposing me in this circumstance.

Reply to
nickarama2005

Browsing and email uses NO bandwidth then? No data transfer whatsoever? Interesting!

So say the guy has run his account to the max of his inclusive bandwidth plan and you connect up and download your emails which might include attachments, then you do a spot of browsing.

Say this takes him over his inclusive limit, who is now paying for this out of package usage, you or him?

David.

Reply to
David Taylor

That IS INTERESTING. I didn't know that. Thanks for the info (still don't grasp why but you guys know much more than me, so I'll take your word for it, David).

Might Might Might. yes, we MIGHT have another Anthrax attack but that is not stopping me from going out just because in this vast universe possibilities are infinite.

You just said above, it takes NO bandwidth whatsoever, so what is the problem? OR maybe you don't know what you're talking about?

Reply to
nickarama2005

I have always be fundamentally opposed to theft. I don't want others stealing from me and I return the favor.

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

Reply to
Rico

The question mark clearly defines it as a question not a statement. The question was posed in your direction. :)

No, look for the punctuation mark, it was a question that I'm pretty sure you know the answer to, what you don't know the answer to is whether your usage, however small, will incur real cost to the owner of the service that you're connecting to.

David.

Reply to
David Taylor

question was posed in your direction. :)

IT uses minute aboumt of bandwidth.

Then why hasn't my cost gone up? I'm know people use my wireless access. I am not adding additional cost to them because the usage is minute.

Reply to
nickarama2005

Sure, which could take the host over their limit, you don't know that.

Attachments, heavily loaded graphics sites?

You haven't stated your service plan, nor have you posted any info on what usage other people make of your service but that's not the point. The point is that you don't know what impact your having on the owner of the service.

Prove it. Prove that in every case you haven't caused *any* cost impact whatsoever.

You can't, you can only offer conjecture hence there's little point continuing with this, i'm done.

David.

Reply to
David Taylor

minute-again it won't happen. If it does, I'll pay for any difference.

It is the point. There is something called cautious, and then there is paranoid.

Since she knows who I am, she knows who to come to if she exceeds her badnwidth. How I can prove this to you is impossible.

I doubt you're done. I bet you come back for a last word.

Reply to
nickarama2005

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