Originally Posted by H2O_Goalie
AFAIK, only 1 person has been arrested for it. And he got arrested because he was sitting in his car in front of a house in the middle of the night. If you're inside your own house, "borrowing" a Wi-Fi signal from the neighbors...the chances of getting arrested are pretty much slim and zero. Good luck on the neighbors even realizing that you're using their signal.
There are also several legal challenges about to go up for those laws. Can that signal be considered "private" if you're broadcasting it out, etc.
indeed, there have been more than one. Two in FL, and another in DC. Now, DC is probably just on the edge regardless so that is not too surprising.
what IS surprising, is that the same thing is happening internationally.
As for open, closed much of this was covered back in the 80's when cordless phones came on the scene, the airwaves governed by the FCC. Cases were won for people having listened in on phone calls, normally not possible up till then, not so much that it was an open or closed network but that it was MY open or closed network. It was akin in that sense to wire tapping, illegal from a federal level and monitored by the FBI.
I think recent cases of hacking into wireless has been seen as just like hacking into a system.
I for one, run two networks. an ipsec, AES encrypted, MAC filtered, locked down G network and a fully open B network that sits outside the firewall and connects to the internet. I've had many people try to tunnel down, but none sucessfull. I have a seperate server that just sits there and registers there hits though, fun to watch - sort of like paint drying.