WiFi Ethics

I was listening to NPR as I drove out for some Sunday food. A story came on about the ethics of using other people's WiFi networks, whether at home or around town. The ethicist (pardon me, I do not remember his name and do not feel like looking it up right now) concluded that it was perfectly OK, at least from an ethical standpoint, to do this, provided the user is paying for internet access already.

OK, let's look at just that. Let's say I am paying for one of those $9.95 dial-up connections, but that my laptop, outfitted with WiFi, can connect to my neighbor's $39.99 cable access. Is it ethical then? If so, can we go a step beyond and into territory the ethicist on the radio said went into the unethical? What happens if I am not paying for access while I piggyback on my neighbor's connection? Is that unethical?

I disagree with the claim that such use goes beyond ethics. This is not the same thing as leaving your front door unlocked and still being able to claim that someone who robs you broke the law. Your home is your property, protected by B&E laws. You can, however, secure your internet connection with two simple steps: first, use a password, and second, list the MAC addresses of every card you want to allow on your network. Those two things alone will keep out all but the hackers.

It doesn't even take five minutes to secure the network from random users who seek hotspots, and most WiFi management software that comes with routers these days encourages users to include passwords. Given the prevalence of networks and computers able to use them, it seems to me that anyone wanting to make a closed network should opt in. If I were a little more comfortable with network security, I would open my WiFi network for other users. I guess, then, it comes down to my ISP's ToS. Welcome to the IT age, full of acronyms, in which we abbr. too many things.