Re: TV Judge Issues Restraining Order; Threatens Arrest Warrant

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

Tue, 9 Apr 2024 02:12:56 -0000 (UTC) Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

Tue, 9 Apr 2024 00:17:25 -0000 (UTC) Adam H. Kerman
<ahk@chinet.com>: 

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote: 

Mon, 08 Apr 2024 22:14:45 +0000 BTR1701
<no_email@invalid.invalid>:   

This case is amazing at all levels.   

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0LMEL6_b15o   

First, we have a guy suing his neighbor because she
password-protected her wi-fi signal, which he had been leeching
off for free, claiming he's entitled to it because the wi-fi
waves are in the air which belongs to everyone.   

When I was doing DSL support, I once took a call from a guy who
needed help configuring his new router. That was a very routine
call but when we got to the part of setting a password, he said he
didn't want to encrypt his signal. I warned him that he was
opening himself up to neighbours stealing his WiFi and that
stealing WiFi was a felony in some jurisdictions. He said he
already knew that because he was a police officer and that it was
a class D felony (I think that's the specific class he cited) in
his state, which I believe was California. I finished helping him
configure his router without encrypting the signal. I think he was
the ONLY customer I ever had that wanted his signal unencrypted in
nearly 4 years!   

A Class D felony for use of an unencrypted radio signal? I don't
think so. 

. . .   

Assuming he actually was a police officer and not just a poser, I
figured he'd know better than me. 

There's no crime! There are laws against breaking into computer
networks, but if there are no accounts and no passwords, there's no
crime! It's a radio signal. It's in your home.

Are you being ironic/sarcastic right now or do you actually believe
that to be true?

It is the nature of using the electromagnetic spectrum for communication
and signalling. It goes everywhere. The radio signal is literally being
broadcast. Furthermore, this is a method of two-way communication, which
means one is allowed to signal back.

It cannot work as intended if these things were disallowed.

The restriction in law is using someone else's username and password
or other credentials to access a network one does not have permission to use.

Your subscriber, purporting to be a police officer, was wrong. He
offered an unencrypted signal. There is no violation of law if others
use it. There might be a scenario in which is signal is stronger than
other signals, which means equipment making use of the signal would be
likely to grab that one as the preferred signal anyway.

It sounds like you're saying that the defense offered by the fake
defendant in the fake trial that BTR posted at the start of the thread
is legit.

Defendant? He was the plaintiff. He's entitled to use the radio signal
if unencrypted but he is NOT entitled to use it once she encrypted it. I
won't agree that he had been "leeching" off her unencrypted signal
earlier, because that is simply the nature of radio communication.

Comcast wants me to make their xfinitywifi network available for others
to use, which is unencrypted (and that's how their mobile phone service
works). It's their equipment (which I lease) but my electricity. I keep
it turned off. If I turned it on, then there's nothing illegal about
other people within signalling distance using it. It wouldn't count
against my bandwidth restriction and it doesn't give others access to my
LAN, supposedly.

Having said that, I can't see any actual flaw in the legal reasoning of
what you're saying. No one can charge you for radio or TV signals
received over-the-air - at least in Canada and the US - although they
certainly charge a pretty penny for cable, satellite or SiriusXM.

Exactly.

. . .