wardriving a crime in Florida?

[Jack]

Well this is a bit disturbing.
These Florida folks just don't seem to get it.

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/07/04/State/Wi_Fi_cloaks_a_new_br.shtml

Now it seems to me that this guy who was wardriving,
might have been up to no good, but it would seem to me
that he might have a good defense against this
"alleged crime". The owner saw him several times and
didn't tell him to leave. The owner knew that his
wi-fi was open. The
owner knew how to lock down his wi-fi and didn't. Now
it seems to me that just like it's not a crime to
trespass (like wlaking across someone's yard), if
there 
are no signs to the contrary, that the owner by his 
lack of action to secure his network gave implicit
permission for use. Of course, IANAL, so I'll be
trying to watch this case to see what happens. I think
it's more than due time to consider writting some
legislation to protect innocent wardrivers. Case in
point, back in May, while visisting my mother at the
hospital, my brothers and I did some wardriving so we
could keep up with our email and work activities. The
hospital's wifi wasn't due to be up and accessible for
another month, so we found some access points locally
and connected at the picnic area on the grounds of the
hospital. We could see and connect to the hospital's
wi-fi but it wasn't yet configured completely so no
'net access. There were acouple of other access
points, that were open and running under the default
configuration. We suspect they were:  one of the
offices in the adjacent doctors' building and a
private cable/dsl connection in the neighborhood.

Any discussion?

Brian J.D.


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