UK man arrested for wifi theft
A man was recently arrested in London England for stealing wifi signals. He was sitting on a wall outside a house using his laptop. Police arrested him after he said he was using an unsecured wifi connection from a nearby house.
Apparently that may be a crime in England. To my knowledge, it is at best unclear if this would breach any Canadian laws. While I have not looked at this issue in a while, my recollection is that it would be a stretch to interpret Canadian criminal laws to cover such an action. Arrests have been made here for stealing wifi – but they tend to be in instances where the person is using it for some illegal purpose.
So the question is – should it be illegal to simply use someone else’s wifi signal?
I don’t think it should be. While there is good reason to use security measures so others can’t use your wifi signal (helps keep others out of your network, avoids the risk that someone else will use it for something innapropriate that gets traced back to your IP address, and prevents that use from slowing down your connection) – I don’t see that it should be illegal per se to use someone else’s unsecured wifi signal.
Techdirt says this is no different than reading by light coming from a house. While that sounds good, its a bit specious, as using another’s light can’t decrease the light available to the owner, and can’t lead to any negative consequences depending on what the individual is reading.
