[Emu]

I just thought of this and was wondering about it:

when I went home for break, I went into a Starbucks with my laptop, thinking I could use their internet and get some work done. But when I went to use the internet, it redirected me to this page that said something like, "You can use our internet for $n per hour!"

So I was all like, "no way!" because why would I *pay* for internet when I can use it at school for free? What I actually wound up doing was moving to a seat near a window, and using someone else's free wireless, presumably from a store across the street or something.

But what I was thinking about today was, the other source of free wireless was undermining Starbucks' paid wireless business. I wonder what they think about that.

Say I lived next door to a Starbucks and I had wireless in my house and I didn't have it secured because I didn't mind other people using it. What could Starbucks do about it? They can't really make me secure my wireless because it's mine and I can do whatever I want with it.

They could use a wireless jammer that jams everything but their own wireless. but (1) those are illegal, and, (2) if they used one with too large a radius, it would infringe upon my wireless use in my own house and that would be obnoxious.

I'm not really sure where I was going with this, I was just curious about what other people thought.

[Gobbler]

Wardriving's pretty fun.

Wait.

I didn't say that.

And if any of my employers are reading this: This is not an official statement. Though all of us, of that I'm certain, will agree, that wardriving is, indeed, pretty fun.

[Deepsycher]

That happened to me too. I'd say don't give into them. I once went to a place near a motel. I didnt turn off the power to the wireless module so I thought at the time I could experiment until it was only a redirect to a router of a motel to where you sign up and insert your debt card details so they can charge directly.

It is 11 mbps shared between the entire motel which is quite an insult and it is one where you pay per minute I think.


What I think they could do:

Is to do some insulating in the shop.

Hire out some lawyers to find and carefully read the contract between you and your service provider to see if that is permitted. Then they could launch a complaint about people "stealing" free bandwidth and all that rubbish about security problems.

On a heavy handed approach the greedy lawyers could claim that you are putting them out of business. "Like opening a small burger hut right outside Mcdonalds or Burger king."

Some of this might not probably happen but I am paranoid to think of these possibilities.

This post has been edited by Deepsycher: 04 May 2007 - 01:00 PM