Man Arrested for “Illegal Log In” to Home Wi-Fi

The Times reports, “Two officers saw the 39-year-old man sitting on a garden wall outside a home in Chiswick, West London. When questioned he admitted using the homeowner’s unsecured broadband connection from his position on the wall. He was arrested and the case was passed to the Metropolitan Police Computer Crime Unit. He was bailed to return in October and faces a fine or a jail term of six months, or both.” It appears that what he did was illegal, but was it immoral?

The question is not as clear cut as some people make it out to be. On the one side are those who think that one must pay for a connection to the internet no matter what, that using someone else's internet connection is like using their toothbrush -- one just doesn't do it. On the other are those who believe that wireless access to the internet is more like common property, something anyone can use. Neither side’s case is entirely convincing, but both have some truth on their side.

A rigid construction of property rights, wherein the owner may do as he wishes to the exclusion of all others, isn’t particularly apt here. Although, someone had to pay for the wireless network by which the arrested man gained access to the internet, the signal was carried over the publicly owned airwaves. The signal was open and freely available just like a radio station’s signal. And unless the connection was a dial-up, it is unlikely that a laptop accessing the internet would prevent the homeowner from doing the same.

Where the facts get tricky is in whether the owner of the home protected his wireless access with a password or encryption. If he did, and if the suspect bypassed these, then clearly there was an intent to prevent access and a willful effort to subvert that. However, numerous wireless networks all over the world are not password protected or encrypted. An appropriate analogy might be using a neighbor’s rake when it’s sitting in the front yard and returning it in a matter of minutes. This is much different than breaking into a garage to get the rake to sell on eBay.

Of course, there is a perfectly reasonable solution to the entire mess, and that is free wireless access funded by taxpayers in a community. Just as a community benefits from streetlights and sidewalks, which anyone can use because they belong to everyone, a community also would benefit from having 21st century communications technology available to everyone. San Francisco is already headed that way, Chicago is working on it, and Philadelphia is in the running to be first. Then, the ethical question becomes moot.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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