corpgator

You're stealing bandwidth from those that actually paid for it.

der_saeufer

The gun suggestion in the article sounds like it was made by someone who's never actually done it.

Yes, a bag with a firearm in it may get special handling, especially if it looks like it has a firearm in it. More importantly, it's required to be locked up with real locks--TSA can't open it except in your presence, and it's much more effort for a baggage handler to pilfer something from it.

...but any time you might save on arrival is more than spent at check-in where you have to accompany your bag and a TSA employee to the X-ray and then hang out while they open it if they can't tell from the X-ray that your firearm is unloaded. Even if it's painfully obvious (say, a break-action shotgun that's disassembled, or a pistol frame where you've mailed the slide ahead), you're still looking at 15-20 minutes of extra hanging out.

After all that, it's not at all uncommon that "special handling" bags are hand-carried to the airline's baggage office after everything else is unloaded to the carousel.

Bakpapier

I am not actually stealing anything from those other people. I am using a service that is elementary in 2016 through a very easy loophole that any decent IT department would have thought of long before setting up a WiFi service in the first place.

In fact I didnt know you could change the MAC adress to use the wifi for a longer time, I will certainly use that in the future (tip provided elsewhere in this thread) in case I have a long layover in some third world country that doesn't provide basic services such as wifi to airport passengers (US included).


Luckily I have no business to go to the US any time soon. I would certainly not appreciate a place like that.

Bakpapier

If you bring an empty bottle through TSA and fill it with tap water rather than buy a 3 euro water bottle in the airside shop, is that stealing to you?

backprop

Only if the water tap takes its water from other passengers' purchased bottles.

gfunkdave

It's terrible advice because it won't work. Timed wifi access is controlled by the clock on the access controller, not on your laptop.

That article is 90% bs.

corpgator

Yes, you are stealing. Wifi doesn't have infinite bandwidth. If you're using it, you're taking a piece that someone else could use and may be paying for it.

And wifi is not a basic service. Basic services are things you cannot live without - food, water, clean restrooms.

Bakpapier

And WiFi.

As for clean rest rooms, believe me you can live without them, but it's not pleasant (spent lots of time in the amazon bush bush, had to squat on a wooden box which served as the 'toilet', if I would sit on it the critters might bite). You can also live without WiFi. But it's not pleasant.

And nobody should have to live without WiFi in an international airport terminal in 2016.

Interpol

So, you're saying that you're entitled to steal a service because you think it should be free.

Bakpapier

It's not stealing if you are not taking anything away from someone.

And it's not just me who thinks it should be free. Many, many civilized countries across the world offer free WiFi at airports, and also at major train stations, in coach busses, in trains etc. In fact even a country such as Serbia offers this (which many would classify as 'less civilized' than the USA but I would beg to disagree in fact).

The idea that one has to pay even for the most basic of services is typically American. I am glad that we are not at this mindset in Europe. I have never experienced paid wifi only in europe, however I have sometimes experienced 'free wifi' simply not working on my device (MADRID, looking at you !)

Interpol

But you are stealing. You're using a service for free that others are paying for to be on. Your opinion on whether the service should be free or not is irrelevant, as is the fact that other airports/countries offer it for free. You can rationalize this all you want but it doesn't change the fact that this is theft of service.

Mych

It doesn't matter what word you use to try to justify it, it is still stealing.
In this case the word "stealing" is being used the same as the word "theft".

If something is offered for sale and you take it without paying for it, it is theft. It does not matter if it is a physical object or a service, it is still theft.

And as for paying for 'the most basic of services'... What about pay toilets in European train stations. I have never seen a pay toilet in an American train station.

_Mych.

LarryJ

These sound like the same arguments made by the (original) Napster supporters some years ago. They said it wasn't stealing because the copies you took didn't cost the musicians anything. Same could be said for photocopying copyrighted books.

When someone pays for internet access and sets up the wifi infrastructure to distribute it they get to choose who can access it and under what terms. If they can't, there won't be any hotspots. Enforceable property rights are one of the basic building blocks of a free society and the lack of them is one factor which keeps the third world in poverty.

Bakpapier

The internet is not something that you can own, buy or sell.

Bakpapier

Except that the people who are offering the internet for sale do not 'own' the internet. You can't sell something that you don't own (that you in fact cannot own).

Maybe because we have many, many more passenger train stations than there are in America, and far superior train service for passengers, and often for lower fares than in America (partly state-subsidized).