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Poll

Is "stealing" wifi bad?

Yes
- 14 (20.3%)
Maybe
- 4 (5.8%)
No
- 20 (29%)
Unsure
- 4 (5.8%)
Depends
- 27 (39.1%)

Total Members Voted: 29


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Author Topic: I'm in your wifi stealing your bandwidth  (Read 39124 times)

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Wayne

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Re: I'm in your wifi stealing your bandwidth
« Reply #15 on: December 18, 2006, 02:06:36 PM »

I donate tons of storage and bandwidth to services like Freenet anyway, so why not go a step further?  Why not treat the people in my own neighborhood as innocent until proven guilty?

Do you do anything with Tor? The more I read about it, the more I like it, and it sounds like something right up your alley.

Quote
I'm not saying I'm obligated to share my network resources, though, and, needless to say, I'll take measures if I don't like what someone is doing.  But it's so much fun to monitor a stranger using the Internet, I wish more people would connect through me!  If I'm near a computer, I'll know the instant you connect, and usually I don't mind waking up in the middle of the night to peek in.  All connecting clients are automatically scanned, and all wifi activity going through the network logged in depth.  So far, I have no regrets.  You get to meet some very interesting people by counter-hacking them!   :wink:

There's nothing seriously harmful you can do to the nodes on my network.  (That wasn't the case a few years ago, when I was working on sensitive client data, and back then I kept security extremely tight.  That made me feel petty...)  Now, I have no secrets, all my data is backed up, and only a tiny amount of my money can be accessed electronically.  You can use my bandwidth to access naughty sites or hack third parties, I don't care.  If you do harm to third party computers through me, then it's their own damn fault for not protecting their systems!

Wow. This is... cool and yet at the same time... disturbing....

-Wayne
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Johnny_

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Re: I'm in your wifi stealing your bandwidth
« Reply #16 on: December 18, 2006, 02:23:59 PM »

I'm pretty sure your ISP will cut you off if they find you're using an unusually large amount of bandwith.  Even if it's not you who is doing it.  They'll probably report you to the RIAA and MPAA because they figure you're downloading illegally.  Which you probably are.  And 43908543 other people using your connection. 

I use quite a bit of bandwidth, but I get charged a flat fee.  They have not said anything to me so far, and I have been with them about 2  years.

I don't download constantly or anything, and like I said I doubt anyone takes advantage of my open connection.
Perhaps I will follow  theCelestrian's example and put a booster antenna on it. That would be something useful to know how to do anyway, and if I do start using my wireless for anything other than playing my Nintendo DS, I am sure I will appreciate the extra range.

No worries.  Believe it or not, the ISPs don't want to piss off customers by cutting them off, even if they use a lot of bandwidth.   Between my roommates and I we probably use 100 to 500 GB per month.  In the last 5 days of not really downloading much I've used 15GB.  On days where I'm downloading a lot of TV/Movies/Porn it's probably 8 or 9 gigs per day (assuming 100KB/s for 24 hours, which is actually pretty slow compared to the 400+ KB/s connection speed)

One time our wireless router crashed and reset itself to default settings without us noticing for a couple days, and we had like 15 foreign computers leeching our bandwidth and the increase in usage wasn't that much.

BTW there are SO many evil things you can do to leechers on top of just sniffing their connection and stealing personal data (something that I don't do, just on principle).  The fun things are having all the images replaced with the goatse.cx guy, or just changing the router's hosts file to make it so when they type "google.com" it goes to some porn site or something.  You have to set up a linux box between the cable modem and wireless router to do this though, so it's kind of a PITA and you don't get the joy of seeing their faces, but it can be a reminder not to steal bandwidth.

*thanks http://imageshack.us
« Last Edit: December 18, 2006, 02:27:56 PM by Johnny_ »
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soliscjw

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Re: I'm in your wifi stealing your bandwidth
« Reply #17 on: December 19, 2006, 06:05:40 PM »

If you are stealing my bandwidth  then yes, if not then no.
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Brian Wolf

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Re: I'm in your wifi stealing your bandwidth
« Reply #18 on: December 19, 2006, 06:13:12 PM »

If you are stealing my bandwidth  then yes, if not then no.

If you don't want people stealing your Wifi then turn on encryption. That will keep most people out.
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Taors

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Re: I'm in your wifi stealing your bandwidth
« Reply #19 on: December 19, 2006, 06:14:10 PM »

If you are stealing my bandwidth  then yes, if not then no.

He is. He's stealing it right now. I'm watching him do it.

Your bandwith. Yours specifically.
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soliscjw

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Re: I'm in your wifi stealing your bandwidth
« Reply #20 on: December 19, 2006, 06:22:24 PM »

If you are stealing my bandwidth  then yes, if not then no.

He is. He's stealing it right now. I'm watching him do it.

Your bandwith. Yours specifically.
:lol:
I am using encryption.
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Taors

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Re: I'm in your wifi stealing your bandwidth
« Reply #21 on: December 19, 2006, 06:24:50 PM »

If you are stealing my bandwidth  then yes, if not then no.

He is. He's stealing it right now. I'm watching him do it.

Your bandwith. Yours specifically.
:lol:
I am using encryption.

No...don't even deny it. He stole it. And he stole it good.
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Brian Wolf

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Re: I'm in your wifi stealing your bandwidth
« Reply #22 on: December 19, 2006, 07:52:40 PM »

If you are stealing my bandwidth  then yes, if not then no.

He is. He's stealing it right now. I'm watching him do it.

Your bandwith. Yours specifically.
:lol:
I am using encryption.

If you are using encryption, then someone would have to hack into your system to be able to 'steal your bandwith'. That is a whole different issue.
That's not the same thing as someone using your connection to the net because you left it wide open.
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RottingNation

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Re: I'm in your wifi stealing your bandwidth
« Reply #23 on: December 19, 2006, 08:59:01 PM »

No.  If you dont want it stolen, PROTECT IT.
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Zhwazi

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Re: I'm in your wifi stealing your bandwidth
« Reply #24 on: December 19, 2006, 09:00:55 PM »

That's not the same thing as someone using your connection to the net because you left it wide open.
Your wifi signal is invading my private property. What comes on my property, I have the right to do whatever I want with. Etc.
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Earthwormzim

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Re: I'm in your wifi stealing your bandwidth
« Reply #25 on: December 19, 2006, 09:12:48 PM »

I find it hard to believe that anyone here would answer anything but "yes" to this question.  Stealing is absolutely bad.  Shit, if I pay X amount of dollars per month for access to the net, with a certain amount of upstream and downstream capability, I better have access to 100% of both the upstream and downstream at any time!

Yes...it is true that if someone came on my wifi and only visited a few websites, I'd probably not notice the difference...but equally...if I was able to steal a few pennies from you, where it is true that you'd probably not notice, does it mean it's "ok"?  Or, what if you are an orange farmer, and you own hundreds of acres of orange groves?  Would it be ok if I just sneak in under the barbed wire, every so often and swipe a few oranges? 

And if someone is using some type of downloading program that saturates the bandwidth, like a bittorrent client, then not only is it bad, there'd be hell to pay!

No matter how much someone "does not notice" something...it is property theft.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2006, 09:18:47 PM by Earthwormzim »
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aquabanianskakid

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Re: I'm in your wifi stealing your bandwidth
« Reply #26 on: December 19, 2006, 09:18:22 PM »

Come on now... we are talking about unencrypted radiowaves that are passing through my damn body. If you don't want someone to use it, don't use wireless.
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Earthwormzim

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Re: I'm in your wifi stealing your bandwidth
« Reply #27 on: December 19, 2006, 09:22:45 PM »

Well, better idea...use encryption. 

Just because I think that the bandwidth theft is bad does not mean I think you should stand idly by, and do nothing to prevent it from happening...like, for instance...the orange farmer not putting up barbed wire, or some type of fencing to keep orange thieves out...not a safe business practice.
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aquabanianskakid

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Re: I'm in your wifi stealing your bandwidth
« Reply #28 on: December 19, 2006, 09:26:28 PM »

It may be rude... but I still don't see it as being wrong. Seriously, how can anyone possibly own radio waves? In your orange farmer analogy, someone would be tresspasing illegally and stealing something physical as well.
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Earthwormzim

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Re: I'm in your wifi stealing your bandwidth
« Reply #29 on: December 19, 2006, 09:39:24 PM »

I can't believe 13 people answered "depends"!

Look, I agree with you that no one "owns" the radio waves.  But if I'm paying $50.00 per month for X Kbps downstream and Y Kbps upstream, I better fucking get all X Kbps downstream and all Y Kbps upstream at all times! 

Yes, you are right...the radio waves from my wifi antenna to my computer is not able to be owned, but the portion of the pipe that connects me to the internet is certainly able to be owned. 

Now, if you found someway to "steal" an internet connection such that NO ONE ELSE's connection would be interfered with AT ALL (which would be basically impossible, unless you build your own pipes...which would give you ownership of those pipes)...then, perhapse I'd have no qualms.  But until then, you are stealing property.

I see how this debate is getting confused with the "radio waves" debate...but the two are not the same.  Radio waves depend on a medium that cannot be owned...i.e., air.  But the internet depends on a medium that certainly can be and is owned...i.e., pipes. 

In radio...if you can afford to buy a machine that broadcasts and recieves radio signals, then you should have all the right to do so.  But, if you poke a little hole in my internet pipe and leech off it...you are stealing my bandwidth, and you just simply do not have a right to do that.  It's freaking theft! 
« Last Edit: December 19, 2006, 09:45:37 PM by Earthwormzim »
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