Coffee shops look to oust 'laptop hobos'

Hi folks
All this stuff will probably be a moot point now 4G is being rolled out -- at least here in Europe -- the 4G service beats the cr@p out of the standard public 3G Wifi services -- and most phone contracts over here offer free Wi-Fi service (where available) . For instance in the UK some phone contracts offer BT's Wi-Fi service which has pretty good UK coverage while if you are a subscriber to things like Virgin or SKY you can also get access to their free Wifi services -- I think SKY's is called something like _CLOUD and it seems to be available almost anywhere I travel in the UK.

In France I think ORANGE has a pretty reliable national Wifi service too.

These services really make the reliance on Wifi outlets in stores etc a lot less necessary. (Note that these Wi-Fi services can be used with laptops and tablets as well as your phone and aren't riddled with commercials --that gets really annoying when I'm doing things --I HATE unsolicited commercials if I'm not WARNED that these are there to support the cost of the free service first ).

IMO if you want to "socialize" then I can't understand why one would go into an Internet café in the first place so I don't think that's the reason people go there for hours at a time without purchasing anything.

Anyway when you can get access to 4G --try it -- it's amazing.

Cheers
jimbo

Lady Fitzgerald said:

PeaB4YouGo said:

I had a neighbor who noticed for weeks about a guy who parked in front of her bldg., day after day, to the point where she called the cops. They couldn't do much about someone parking legally on the street, but they promised to keep a look out while on patrol. After a couple days, they spotted him and questioned him. The cops told her that he was tapping the wi-fi of someone who hadn't secured their signal, and there was little they could do other than to warn him that he was spooking the residents.

So, she called me a couple of days later and asked me to come by to help her set up her new router. When the time came to set up the wi-fi section, I asked her what kind of passkey she wanted, she (inevitably) said she'd never had to set that up with her old router. Oddly enough, after setting this all up, and getting her laptop configured to connect to her new router, the guy stopped showing up, and several of her neighbors began to ask if they could use her wi-fi because they'd recently lost their connections.

Your police are either lazy or ignorant. Unauthorized internet access is a Federal violation. Loitering is also illegal in most jurisdictions.

Hi there
While US Federal Law isn't my strong point (why should it be as I'm not a US resident) I think any competent Lawyer would run rings around "Unauthorized Internet Access". The only way this would get anywhere near any sort of Court (in decent civilized democratic countries) would be if a message appeared as soon as you logged on to the service saying something like "This is a private Computer system and only specifically authorized people are entitled to access it. If you are not one of these you are committing a violation so please log off now".

However it's probably a lot easier to just set up a decent passkey on your router than create a logon message. However if you do get Hackers on your system having this type of logon message would make prosecution a lot easier (assuming the hacker was in your jurisdiction).

Anyway glad problem seemed solved. !!!

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Lady Fitzgerald said:

PeaB4YouGo said:

I had a neighbor who noticed for weeks about a guy who parked in front of her bldg., day after day, to the point where she called the cops. They couldn't do much about someone parking legally on the street, but they promised to keep a look out while on patrol. After a couple days, they spotted him and questioned him. The cops told her that he was tapping the wi-fi of someone who hadn't secured their signal, and there was little they could do other than to warn him that he was spooking the residents.

So, she called me a couple of days later and asked me to come by to help her set up her new router. When the time came to set up the wi-fi section, I asked her what kind of passkey she wanted, she (inevitably) said she'd never had to set that up with her old router. Oddly enough, after setting this all up, and getting her laptop configured to connect to her new router, the guy stopped showing up, and several of her neighbors began to ask if they could use her wi-fi because they'd recently lost their connections.

Your police are either lazy or ignorant. Unauthorized internet access is a Federal violation. Loitering is also illegal in most jurisdictions.

Hi there
While US Federal Law isn't my strong point (why should it be as I'm not a US resident) I think any competent Lawyer would run rings around "Unauthorized Internet Access". The only way this would get anywhere near any sort of Court (in decent civilized democratic countries) would be if a message appeared as soon as you logged on to the service saying something like "This is a private Computer system and only specifically authorized people are entitled to access it. If you are not one of these you are committing a violation so please log off now".

However it's probably a lot easier to just set up a decent passkey on your router than create a logon message. However if you do get Hackers on your system having this type of logon message would make prosecution a lot easier (assuming the hacker was in your jurisdiction).

Anyway glad problem seemed solved. !!!

Cheers
jimbo

Any halfway competent DA would have no trouble making the charge stick and get a conviction. Every now and then, I see a news report about it happening. Plus there is the loitering charge; that one is even easier to make stick.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

jimbo45 said:

Lady Fitzgerald said:

Your police are either lazy or ignorant. Unauthorized internet access is a Federal violation. Loitering is also illegal in most jurisdictions.

Hi there
While US Federal Law isn't my strong point (why should it be as I'm not a US resident) I think any competent Lawyer would run rings around "Unauthorized Internet Access". The only way this would get anywhere near any sort of Court (in decent civilized democratic countries) would be if a message appeared as soon as you logged on to the service saying something like "This is a private Computer system and only specifically authorized people are entitled to access it. If you are not one of these you are committing a violation so please log off now".

However it's probably a lot easier to just set up a decent passkey on your router than create a logon message. However if you do get Hackers on your system having this type of logon message would make prosecution a lot easier (assuming the hacker was in your jurisdiction).

Anyway glad problem seemed solved. !!!

Cheers
jimbo

Any halfway competent DA would have no trouble making the charge stick and get a conviction. Every now and then, I see a news report about it happening. Plus there is the loitering charge; that one is even easier to make stick.

Hi there
While not turning this into a "Lawyers Fest" I don't think your DA would have a snowballs chance in hell of winning on this one.

Just imagine if I were to use a laptop say in a coffee shop / restaurant on say St. Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood CA which is also a large residential neighbourhood as well as having loads of Bars etc where large numbers of people congregate and is one of LA's most popular tourist areas situated roughly half way between downtown LA and the great beaches of Santa Monica with Beverly Hills just a stones throw away and the very pleasant UCLA campus just nearby.

I switch on my computer and see a whole slew of Wifi networks available -- some of which say Unsecured. How in the world would I as an "Innocent Tourist" be expected to have ANY IDEA whatsoever of what is a FREE public Wifi service and what is private without a logon warning message on a private service. Some of the names assigned to the networks would also not offer ANY indication that they were private networks either.

Of course people should always secure their networks -- even FREE ones in public areas should have some sort of password / other credentials required before enabling logon access.

Maybe I should take up another career before I finally "hang up my boots" -- as a Lawyer in the US. !!!

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Lady Fitzgerald said:

jimbo45 said:

Hi there
While US Federal Law isn't my strong point (why should it be as I'm not a US resident) I think any competent Lawyer would run rings around "Unauthorized Internet Access". The only way this would get anywhere near any sort of Court (in decent civilized democratic countries) would be if a message appeared as soon as you logged on to the service saying something like "This is a private Computer system and only specifically authorized people are entitled to access it. If you are not one of these you are committing a violation so please log off now".

However it's probably a lot easier to just set up a decent passkey on your router than create a logon message. However if you do get Hackers on your system having this type of logon message would make prosecution a lot easier (assuming the hacker was in your jurisdiction).

Anyway glad problem seemed solved. !!!

Cheers
jimbo

Any halfway competent DA would have no trouble making the charge stick and get a conviction. Every now and then, I see a news report about it happening. Plus there is the loitering charge; that one is even easier to make stick.

Hi there
While not turning this into a "Lawyers Fest" I don't think your DA would have a snowballs chance in hell of winning on this one.

Just imagine if I were to use a laptop say in a coffee shop / restaurant on say St. Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood CA which is also a large residential neighbourhood as well as having loads of Bars etc where large numbers of people congregate and is one of LA's most popular tourist areas situated roughly half way between downtown LA and the great beaches of Santa Monica with Beverly Hills just a stones throw away and the very pleasant UCLA campus just nearby.

I switch on my computer and see a whole slew of Wifi networks available -- some of which say Unsecured. How in the world would I as an "Innocent Tourist" be expected to have ANY IDEA whatsoever of what is a FREE public Wifi service and what is private without a logon warning message on a private service. Some of the names assigned to the networks would also not offer ANY indication that they were private networks either.

Of course people should always secure their networks -- even FREE ones in public areas should have some sort of password / other credentials required before enabling logon access.

Maybe I should take up another career before I finally "hang up my boots" -- as a Lawyer in the US. !!!

Cheers
jimbo

Your scenario is completely different from the one PeaB4YouGo described of a guy parking for long periods over several days in a residential area for the purpose of stealing internet access. He even admitted it to the police. As I said, I've read of instances where people were convicted for stealing internet access. I even saw an episode of Cops where a guy was charged with loitering and stealing internet access from his car in a residential neighborhood. The police later were able to determine he had been doing something illegal on his computer (I don't remember what) and was using unsecured networks to try to hide his tracks.

Keep in mind laws vary from country to country.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

PeaB4YouGo said:

I had a neighbor who noticed for weeks about a guy who parked in front of her bldg., day after day, to the point where she called the cops. They couldn't do much about someone parking legally on the street, but they promised to keep a look out while on patrol. After a couple days, they spotted him and questioned him. The cops told her that he was tapping the wi-fi of someone who hadn't secured their signal, and there was little they could do other than to warn him that he was spooking the residents.

So, she called me a couple of days later and asked me to come by to help her set up her new router. When the time came to set up the wi-fi section, I asked her what kind of passkey she wanted, she (inevitably) said she'd never had to set that up with her old router. Oddly enough, after setting this all up, and getting her laptop configured to connect to her new router, the guy stopped showing up, and several of her neighbors began to ask if they could use her wi-fi because they'd recently lost their connections.

Your police are either lazy or ignorant. Unauthorized internet access is a Federal violation. Loitering is also illegal in most jurisdictions.

First, I'm not the legal expert or anything, but it is implied that if you haven't secured your wi-fi, you've authorized anyone who can receive the signal to use it as they may. The law may not look at it that way, but it should. It's like turning the volume up on your speaker phone and getting pissed when people eavesdrop on your conversation. Secondly, he was parked legally and sitting in his car. That's not loitering. At least, not in most towns/cities. I've sat in the car waiting for the wifey for more than an hour while she "shopped" and that's not "loitering", that's "loving patience". Just my opinion...

PeaB4YouGo said:

Lady Fitzgerald said:

PeaB4YouGo said:

I had a neighbor who noticed for weeks about a guy who parked in front of her bldg., day after day, to the point where she called the cops. They couldn't do much about someone parking legally on the street, but they promised to keep a look out while on patrol. After a couple days, they spotted him and questioned him. The cops told her that he was tapping the wi-fi of someone who hadn't secured their signal, and there was little they could do other than to warn him that he was spooking the residents.

So, she called me a couple of days later and asked me to come by to help her set up her new router. When the time came to set up the wi-fi section, I asked her what kind of passkey she wanted, she (inevitably) said she'd never had to set that up with her old router. Oddly enough, after setting this all up, and getting her laptop configured to connect to her new router, the guy stopped showing up, and several of her neighbors began to ask if they could use her wi-fi because they'd recently lost their connections.

Your police are either lazy or ignorant. Unauthorized internet access is a Federal violation. Loitering is also illegal in most jurisdictions.

First, I'm not the legal expert or anything, but it is implied that if you haven't secured your wi-fi, you've authorized anyone who can receive the signal to use it as they may. The law may not look at it that way, but it should. It's like turning the volume up on your speaker phone and getting pissed when people eavesdrop on your conversation. Secondly, he was parked legally and sitting in his car. That's not loitering. At least, not in most towns/cities. I've sat in the car waiting for the wifey for more than an hour while she "shopped" and that's not "loitering", that's "loving patience". Just my opinion...

You are comparing apples and kumquats. Waiting for your wife is not considered loitering in most cases. Hanging round somewhere to commit a crime is. Read more here.

What should be law and what is law are two different things. Also, with your logic, accidentally leaving your car unlocked with the keys in the ignition gives someone the right to just take the car.

Several references here on stealing internet access. It's a somewhat gray area and enforcement is based on the seriousness of the situation. The fact the guy admitted what he was doing (and it wouldn't have been hard to prove it anyway unless he was smart enough to erase his tracks) should have made prosecution and conviction easy (unless he was doing illegal downloading, etc., he would probably get off with a slap on the wrist and a warning).