RE: WIRELESS THEFT

[Greg Medina <GMedina () Yacobian com>]

Both Clint and Didier give some good advice but fall short of "ethical".
Inform your neighbors and refrain from using their bandwidth.
Honest is honest.....everything else is NOT!
Clint makes a great case for honesty then contradicts himself.
Didier is just using his neighbor's bandwidth.


-----Original Message-----
From: Didier Brems [mailto:didier.brems () creditlyonnais lu] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 4:27 AM
To: Clint Harris; security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: Re: WIRELESS THEFT

I thing Clint give the best answer here.
For my personal point of view I agree with him, I don't thing your neighbors
knows that their connection is so widely open, so tell them.

As a example, I got the same problem here in Luxembourg.
I few mounts ago I install a wireless connection home. The server is in the
basement and my girl computer is on the second floor, she got my signal but
a little weak.
After a while, I notice that my girl as install a brand new game, more than
one gig of data, but couldn't find the install on my server. She can not
install it on her computer, not enough disk space.
Checking on my network I see that she was not on line on my network.
Checking on her computer I find that she was connected to another net and
she has install the game on another computer not part of our network.
She has catch the signal on another wireless net and she has made her
computer part of it.
She simply told me that she had problem with our network and because I was
not there change some settings and got a connection.

My neighbor has install is own wireless network just in the adjacent room of
my girls bedroom. And the signal she caught was better than mine.

I simply told it to the neighbor and we reconfigure both connections.

Have I to tell that he never notice it, even if one gig of its hard disk was
eaten.

I could also choose to reconfigure our network so my girl's computer use our
connection, say nothing to the neighbor, so when I want I could connect to
his network.
But I thing that's not very 'ethical'.
I haven't thing about ethics at the moment, just that I can be not the only
one to catch it's connection and other people can be more evil that I am.

I thing that computer gig must be more like bickers than common drivers,
that stop to help another bicker when he got a problem with his bike.

Cheers
Didier


----- Original Message -----
From: "Clint Harris" <clinton.harris () peace com>
To: <security-basics () securityfocus com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2002 2:48 AM
Subject: RE: WIRELESS THEFT


> Since you are subscribing to this list I would expect that you are a
> "security type" person yourself.
>
> I don't want to sound weak or anything and I am far from a bible basher
> or the like, but professionally I beleive security involves alot of
> ethics, No one can tell you want to do but at the end of the day we are
> all working towards the same goal.
>
> There are plenty of websites that can influence your judgement (just ask
> google)
> Here is a good site
> https://www.isc2.org/cgi-bin/content.cgi?category=12
>
> Here are some points that I beleive are valid for this scenario which
> you could take away from this and make your own call.
>
> 1.Contribute to society and human well-being.
> The society in this case is our security one.
>
> 2.Avoid harm to others.
> If you found it, this means your neighbours can too. Are they as nice as
> you ? What other "holes" do they have?
>
> 3.Be honest and trustworthy.
> Self explanitory
>
> 4.Respect the privacy of others.
> Self explanitory
>
> 5.Improve public understanding of computing and its consequences.
> We should share our technical knowledge (which is why this list exists)
> to benefit the greater good.
>
> If I were you I would notify them of their in-securities and resist
> using it.
> You will be contributing to improving internet security (not just your
> own but everyones) and you never know, they may reward you with some
> free bandwidth that you can use lawfully (I wouldn't do it for this
> reason alone).
>
> If they give you the cold shoulder and tell you to **** off, then go for
> gold ( I may have just discredited myself here ... ), use as much
> bandwidth as you can. Just don't do anything harmful or illegal to other
> systems while using it.
>
> Cheers
> Clint
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Amit P. Gandre [mailto:agandre () cise ufl edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2002 10:27 AM
> To: security-basics () securityfocus com
> Subject: WIRELESS THEFT
>
>
> Hi
> Can someone tell me if there are any laws regarding wireless
> theft?
>
> One of the apartment complexes near mine has free wireless
> connections offered to their residents. Now, my computer happens to
> catch that signal.
>
> Now, is that illegal. If so, how should I go about dealing with
> this issue.
>
> Amit



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