Wow, accessing WiFI is now a crime? Riiiiight. Are we really, as a society, going to go down this road? I mean if you can't legislate people into becoming good parents to their children (The Hill tries, but just do the math on what it would take to really make that work in terms of having enough enforcers around to ensure the law doesn't get broken), re-defining drive-by WiFi usage as a criminal act isn't going to get anywhere either.
Wouldn't it just be easier to help people get what they need (providing it's not harming others, of course)?
That's one of the things I love about the Silver Lining concept actually: everybody wins. Users who, at the end of their probably long day, just want to get some time alone with the 'net, can get a connection for free. (Well, almost. The only thing they have to put up with is a small bar at the top showing a line of text/small graphic ads one at a time.) Meanwhile, advertisers get their needs met with a little more targeted, user face-time.
It's another example of how the free-market could help heal societal woes (if the below really is one) provided lawmakers allow it to do so. I'm sure there's some real criminality out there somewhere they could be focusing on.
Link: The Silver Lining Blog How Silver Lining Works.
Network security firm Sophos recently published a study on what it terms WiFi "piggybacking," or logging on to someone's open 802.11b/g/n network without their knowledge or permission. According to the company's study, which was carried out on behalf of The Times, 54 percent of the respondents have gone WiFi freeloading, or as Sophos put it, "admitted breaking the law [in the UK]."
Amazingly, accessing an unsecured, wide-open WiFi network without permission is illegal in some places, and not just in the UK.
