WiFi Theft Leads to Prison Time
State: Wi-Fi cloaks a new breed of intruder
I thought this article was interesting in terms of the various things that young people do that are highly illegal and yet we do them all the time. I personally know friends of mine that shirk the responsibility of paying Time Warner for their admittedly terrible service and just leech internet bandwidth from an unsuspecting neighbor. Especially here in New York City, it's especially easy. There are usually at least 10 open wireless networks for the taking. You also have to look at the general populace. When they came up with Wi-Fi the general population doesn't know shit about it. So you are expecting Joe Schmoe to enable security on his wireless network? Hell, he's glad if he can just get the damn thing up and running, let alone stopping anyone else from getting in.
It makes you think about the other things that people, especially younger people do without thinking about it. Just this weekend when all the drunks were on my roof, yelling and screaming, I'm sure that there's gotta be some code that we were violating. I actually think that would could have been arrested for trespassing had the little Italian man called the Police. But we got away with it.
Look at all the people in this city that smoke weed. Any park that you walk into you can find one of those little baggies that you KNOW had weed in it. Many times you'll walk down the street and there someone is...smoking away. I'm amazing. Especially with the way the law is structured. We aren't even talking about hood-rat thugs, we're talking about educated people... people that would wet their pants if they were put into Prison and shared a cell with "Bubba the Lover".
Hell...how about music? Obviously it's become a lot more dangerous to download music or movies on the internet, but I still talk to people that use Limewire, or whatever other programs there are out there. Just one of the herd...they'll never be caught. Nope. I don't agree with that one at all. I don't think that I have downloaded a single song in the past 2-3 years. The risk (average settlements of around $3000) http://www.dailytexanonline.com/media/paper410/news/2004/03/25/Focus/Transcript.Of.Qa.With.Riaa.President.Cary.Sherman-641217.shtml . I just don't understand how anyone in their right mind could think that the risk was worth it.
Okay..software downloads... In the same breath I may be guilty of doing the same thing, I just take my risk elsewhere. I've not paid for a game for the PC... in quite awhile. (Although I do buy them if I like them).But the point remains...There are so many things out there to get you in trouble and cause you serious problems legally and financially. It's a scary world out there, especially with all the technological changes that are going on.