On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 06:52:19PM -0700, MattyJ wrote:
Why does everyone like to characterize it as stealing?
Because it is. You are taking something you have not paid for where it is
not explicitly understood that it is yours for the taking. Not least of
which because you haven't asked your neighbor if it's okay.
It's a bad analogy. Taking my neighbor's car is clearly theft, because
when I take it, my neighbor no longer has it. It is tangible property.
It is very possible for me to make use of my neighbor's wifi network
without affecting them. If I were to only use it when they were not, they
might not ever even know. It's kind of hard to come up with an appropriate
tangible analogy, because tangible objects don't behave that way. Similar
problems occur with other issues, such as copying music. There certainly
may be reasons that society would want to limit copying of music, or limit
people using other's wifi. BUT, making false analogies just confuses the
issue, especially when people extrapolate from the analogies.
Personally, I would be more concerned about someone using my net connection
than using someone else's. I'd hate to get my service cancelled because my
neighbor's computer "decided" my connection was a good way to send spam, or
post the exploit he just found to BluRay.
Now, certain senators might wish is to be use analogies involving tubes.
David
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