wardriving a crime in Florida?

[D. Joe]

On Tue, Jul 12, 2005 at 10:36:09AM -0500, Welsh, Ed wrote:
> A good point was previously made about intent.  I don't think
> any of us are above knocking on a door and asking permission
> to use someone's WiFi for emergency connectivity needs.

Hmm.  In a rural area, which door to knock on might be obvious. 

But in any typical urban or suburban area, this is not true. 
This is a problem even for the well-intentioned wardriver who
may wish to offer clues to people in a neighborhood who are
running factory-default open WAPs.  I think you'd have to do a
lot of passes with your GPS, possibly with a directional
antenna for the wifi device, to get it narrowed down reasonably
well as to which house the WAP is in.  Even harder if there are
several.

Then there's the question of what time of day or night it is
(you want to wake someone and expect them to let you use their
WAP), or whether the geek of the house happens to be home, or
whether the person who really even knows what the heck you are
talking about actually lives there, or whether the WAP was
installed by some geek-for-hire, and the inhabitants just give
you a funny look.  All they know is they have the intarweb for
their laptop, and isn't it great?

But, at least you give an answer, indirectly, to the question
"what form do you think that permission should take?"--you want
it to be verbal, face-to-face permission.  I'll take it you
don't accept Open House and Garage Sale signs at face value,
either, and always ask permission of the home owner before
setting foot in the house or garage? Or maybe you just don't go
to these kinds of things?

-- 
Joe