Gamer busted for "borrowing" library WiFi after hours
By Jeannie Choe 
posted February 25th 2007 4:11PM
posted February 25th 2007 4:11PM
We're well aware of WiFi bogarting from unsuspecting neighbors or coffee shops, but who knew there'd be a crackdown at the local house o' books? Cops couldn't leave well enough alone when they rolled up on 21 year-old Brian Tanner jammin' on some WoW-type action in a library parking lot. Tanner's lappy was confiscated and he now faces possible criminal charges for illegally accessing WiFi at the Palmer, Alaska library after hours. While the library could thwart such wardrivers by simply disabling the dang signal at closing, they continue to enforce some usage rules that Mr. Tanner may or may not have been aware of -- the authorities claim this greedy gamer's notorious for WiFi piggybacking and has been "chased out of a number of locations" in the area.
[Via Fark]
There is another aspect of free WiFi, or unsecured wireless networks, which actually poses a problem for some. On this post http://megabluewave.com/blog/archives/92 I wrote about an incident which happened in and around my home. One of my neighbors has unsecured WiFi which provided unfiltered internet access in my home. This is something that I do not want and I felt in a way intruded upon in the privacy of my own home. After I wrote a nice email to the neighbor he installed encryption on his network and "got out of my home."
dunno what to say, heck I'm a piggybacker!!!!!!!!!
I don't see the problem. Its FREE WIFI service. If they don't want people using it, they should shut it down. You can't say its free for one thing but not others.
If they don't want someone gaming on it, put bandwidth limits on it.
I work in the IT department for a large college and we have multiple wifi setups. One is a public free access, but it is limited to how much you can download. Once you reach your limit, you are disconnected. They could do the same at the library. He won't be playing WOW for long until it boots him. He may not be "downloading" files per say, but the game is sending data back and forth and he will hit the limit quickly. Then its game over.
Arresting someone for using the FREE WiFi seems really stupid.
As a librarian I personally don't understand the issue. Some libraries might have policies against World of Warcraft (or some have policies against myspace).
This isn't because they don't agree w/ the content, but because so much bandwidth goes to it that it prohibits "research" use.
After hours, however, unless he's causing some harm I just don't see why they'd care.
In a way- he's actually helping the library. Libraries exist to provide services to the public. He's keeping away from being a bandwidth hog during the day. Sounds like he's being a model citizen to me.
I work in IT for a fairly large library system, we have 17 libaries. We leave our wifi on 24 hours a day and we don't care if anyone uses it after hours.
Okay so if I put my trash out on the curb it's free for everyone to enjoy... including identity thieves.
But if I put my wireless internet out on the curb no everyone can enjoy it?
Law enforcement needs to see the benefit of being able to have it legal to access people's wifi without their knowledge. They could catch bad guys easy without that little road block.
From reading the article I don't think he broke any laws but what he has done was certainly unethical but not illegal. Now for people who say it's free access but it's not free. The citizens of that town or district pays for that access through it's taxes and for the town citizens to use and not only for him to take advantage of. Of course the person who took advantage of the unsecured access isn't the only one at fault for the library should have encrypted their signal in the first place. Now if they do charge him (I don't what would be the charge) and found guilty (I don't know how that will happen) all he probably do is community service and maybe be on probation but nothing serious.
Having worked for the ISP that provides access to the library in Palmer...YES they ARE being charged per bit.
有點....誇張
如果沒有鎖的話~那應該是圖書館自己的問題吧?
This is ridiculous. The airwaves belong to the public. If your wifi signal is out there and you haven't taken any steps to technologically ward off users, then tough.
Imagine if Sirius radio used AM/FM signals, then prosecuted nonsubscribers for tuning in.
Some things are patently obvious. The civil servants of Palmer, AK need to disabuse themselves of the idea that they own the airwaves.
Please don't read your library book after hours. Especially in the parking lot or we will have to arrest you.