Naive question, perhaps

A few hours ago I went to the local "CompUSA" store and tried out a few
Wi-Fi equipped laptops. 3 out of 4 units that I tried proved to be very
erratic and/or slow to load. (The attending sales people knew even less
about wireless than I myself .

I live with 140 hotspots within 1 mile from my home. The nearest one is
about 1/10 of a mile away. My question: If I bought one of those Wi-Fi
equipped laptops could I just walk home, click on a browser, and presto
be connected at high speed to the internet? What do I have to look out
for? Thank you for any information, Bruno

The wifi signal propagation in urban area is unpredictable. If you have
clear line of sight to the hotspot antenna trough your window it might work.
You need to try it first. You would be probably better of with (Orinoco) USB
adapter (on a cable) which you can position for best signal e.g. window
sill.
Regards,
Martin

In article <oAzVb.200448$(E-Mail Removed)>,
Bruno R <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
:I live with 140 hotspots within 1 mile from my home.

Must be Manhattan ;-)

:The nearest one is
:about 1/10 of a mile away. My question: If I bought one of those Wi-Fi
:equipped laptops could I just walk home, click on a browser, and presto
:be connected at high speed to the internet? What do I have to look out
:for?

Your email address suggests you are in the USA. We're still wrangling
about US law, so I can't give you an answer that is "well agreed upon",
but to the best of my understanding, US Federal law would permit you
to listen to any unencrypted wireless packets that come your way,
but do not permit you to transmit without permission through any
wireless equipment that is ever used to communicate out-of-state
[pure in-state equipment wouldn't be covered by Federal law.]

From there we get into the question of what constitutes "permission";
that's also not well-settled, but it could certainly be argued that
hotspots that are (e.g.) in coffee shops are for customer use only
unless they invite other use.

So, what you can do is walk home with the laptop, monitor to find the
3 or 4 strongest signals, figure out where they are coming from,
and go ask the owners for permission to use their equipment.
Repeat until you can come to terms with one of them. Transmitting
through someone else's wireless connection without their permission
is probably illegal in the USA [but we're not completely sure about
that.]
--
csh is bad drugs.

In article <c06nor$p0t$(E-Mail Removed)>, Walter Roberson
wrote:
> Transmitting
> through someone else's wireless connection without their permission
> is probably illegal in the USA [but we're not completely sure about
> that.]

Using *anything* belonging to someone else without their permission is
certainly inconsiderate at least, and possibly illegal as well, but
neither of these concepts seem to trouble many people nowadays.

Rod.

Roderick Stewart wrote:
> In article <c06nor$p0t$(E-Mail Removed)>, Walter Roberson
> wrote:
>
>>Transmitting
>>through someone else's wireless connection without their permission
>>is probably illegal in the USA [but we're not completely sure about
>>that.]
>
> Using *anything* belonging to someone else without their permission is
> certainly inconsiderate at least, and possibly illegal as well, but
> neither of these concepts seem to trouble many people nowadays.
>
> Rod.

Now, why does this degenerate into a morality question? If I crossed
the Avenue and entered the park to log on to public Wi-Fi I would steal
from the taxpayer (according to Rod)? Methinks you're barking up the
wrong tree--when I only asked a very simple question, IMHO ;-).

Hope this helps, Bruno

Bruno,

Perhaps there's been a misunderstanding-- there seemed to be a suggestion in
your original posting that you're trying to get home internet access without
paying for it. If this isn't the case, I beg your pardon. :-) If it is,
then that's your decision, but don't suggest that anybody in this forum is
out of line by suggesting that it's unethical.

I don't think anyone would suggest that you'd be stealing from the taxpayer
by walking to the park and using the public Wi-Fi (that's why it's there),
but by sitting at home picking up the same signal, you're free-riding. Like
the coffee shop to which Walter referred earlier, the public Wi-Fi in the
park is designed to attract people to the park. By using that bandwidth
from home, you're diminishing the experience for the park/coffee shop users.
If it's just you, no biggie, but if it's the whole neighborhood, there's a
problem. First, the public connections are slow from too much traffic (and
they may be cancelled). Second, people who pay for access probably have
their rates increase because so many people are piggybacking. As I said
earlier, if you can live with that, fine-- but don't pretend that it's not
stealing. Rod didn't turn this into a 'morality question', it just is.

Best regards,
Kurt


"Bruno R" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:%oNVb.4824$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Roderick Stewart wrote:
> > In article <c06nor$p0t$(E-Mail Removed)>, Walter Roberson
> > wrote:
> >
> >>Transmitting
> >>through someone else's wireless connection without their permission
> >>is probably illegal in the USA [but we're not completely sure about
> >>that.]
> >
> > Using *anything* belonging to someone else without their permission is
> > certainly inconsiderate at least, and possibly illegal as well, but
> > neither of these concepts seem to trouble many people nowadays.
> >
> > Rod.
>
> Now, why does this degenerate into a morality question? If I crossed
> the Avenue and entered the park to log on to public Wi-Fi I would steal
> from the taxpayer (according to Rod)? Methinks you're barking up the
> wrong tree--when I only asked a very simple question, IMHO ;-).
>
> Hope this helps, Bruno
>
>

In article <c08a43$8sd$(E-Mail Removed)>,
Kurt Zobenica <(E-Mail Removed)> top-posted:
:"Bruno R" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
:news:%oNVb.4824$(E-Mail Removed)...
:> Now, why does this degenerate into a morality question? If I crossed
:> the Avenue and entered the park to log on to public Wi-Fi I would steal
:> from the taxpayer (according to Rod)? Methinks you're barking up the
:> wrong tree--when I only asked a very simple question, IMHO ;-).

:Perhaps there's been a misunderstanding-- there seemed to be a suggestion in
:your original posting that you're trying to get home internet access without
aying for it.

Bruno's message hasn't made it to my news server as yet.

Bruno's original posting mentioned 140 hotspots within a mile, including
one 1/10 mile away, and asked about taking a wifi-equiped laptop home
and connecting to one of them, asking what problems to look out for.

My response was, to summarize, that one needed to watch out for the
legalities of the situation. There are quite a number of people
(including people who follow this newsgroup) who do not realize that
there -are- laws about using other people's wireless equipment. When
someone presents themselves as naive (in the Subject) and as not
knowing much about WiFi, then pointing them to a limitation they may
not have thought about is a positive contribution.

Suppose, Bruno, you had asked in an automotive newsgroup about snow
chains for your tires, and I had replied telling you what kinds of
chains worked best and common installation pitfalls, but I said to
myself that it's not my business what you do with the chains and that
you might be wanting to use them to drive up and down your own
driveway, and so I refrained from informing you that using tire chains
on public streets anywhere in New York City is prohibitted
[hypothetically]. If you'd then gotten a ticket because it turned
out you didn't know, then how impressed would you have been with
us if we'd then said "Oh yes, we could easily have told you that, but
you didn't ask specifically about the law!" ?


Anyhow, Rod (and I) didn't say that using the Park hotspot would be
stealing: we talked in terms of permission and invitation. If the Park
hotspot invites the public to use it free, then fine, that's 1 out of 140
you can use... if you can happen to pick up the signal.
--
Disobey all self-referential sentences!

Perhaps, I should not have answered before. Newsgroups are notorious
for misunderstandings. If I seem out of place with it I apologize.
However, someone else might be reading this thread in the future, and I
don't need, just by posting here, any insinuation to be associated with
"them thar many people nowadays" that have no ethics. ;-( Whatever my
case may be!

Thanks for pointing out again, Kurt, what I think should be understood
by all 'reasonable' people; For those that don't, that is an entirely
different issue. I want it understood, though, that if I want to learn
about ethics I'd post in a philosophy newsgroup, for technical advice I
tried this technical newsgroup.

Regards, Bruno (who doesn't need further technical nor ethical advice).

Kurt Zobenica wrote:

> Bruno,
>
> Perhaps there's been a misunderstanding-- there seemed to be a suggestion in
> your original posting that you're trying to get home internet access without
> paying for it. If this isn't the case, I beg your pardon. :-) If it is,
> then that's your decision, but don't suggest that anybody in this forum is
> out of line by suggesting that it's unethical.
>
> I don't think anyone would suggest that you'd be stealing from the taxpayer
> by walking to the park and using the public Wi-Fi (that's why it's there),
> but by sitting at home picking up the same signal, you're free-riding. Like
> the coffee shop to which Walter referred earlier, the public Wi-Fi in the
> park is designed to attract people to the park. By using that bandwidth
> from home, you're diminishing the experience for the park/coffee shop users.
> If it's just you, no biggie, but if it's the whole neighborhood, there's a
> problem. First, the public connections are slow from too much traffic (and
> they may be cancelled). Second, people who pay for access probably have
> their rates increase because so many people are piggybacking. As I said
> earlier, if you can live with that, fine-- but don't pretend that it's not
> stealing. Rod didn't turn this into a 'morality question', it just is.
>
> Best regards,
> Kurt
>
>
> "Bruno R" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:%oNVb.4824$(E-Mail Removed)...
>
>>Roderick Stewart wrote:
>>
>>>In article <c06nor$p0t$(E-Mail Removed)>, Walter Roberson
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>Transmitting
>>>>through someone else's wireless connection without their permission
>>>>is probably illegal in the USA [but we're not completely sure about
>>>>that.]
>>>
>>>Using *anything* belonging to someone else without their permission is
>>>certainly inconsiderate at least, and possibly illegal as well, but
>>>neither of these concepts seem to trouble many people nowadays.
>>>
>>>Rod.
>>
>>Now, why does this degenerate into a morality question? If I crossed
>>the Avenue and entered the park to log on to public Wi-Fi I would steal
>>from the taxpayer (according to Rod)? Methinks you're barking up the
>>wrong tree--when I only asked a very simple question, IMHO ;-).
>>
>>Hope this helps, Bruno

In article <eQSVb.22$(E-Mail Removed)>,
Bruno R <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
:I want it understood, though, that if I want to learn
:about ethics I'd post in a philosophy newsgroup, for technical advice I
:tried this technical newsgroup.

And for some reason you think that details of the laws respecting WiFi use
are to be found in a philosophy newsgroup but should be unspoken in
a newsgroup that is able to explain what the laws actually -mean- ?
Perhaps I've been looking in the wrong place -- is there a newsgroup
I haven't found yet, sci.philosophy.eirp ?

Details of legal restraints on technology use *are*, IMHO,
essentially technical advice.
--
I predict that you will not trust this prediction.