A Vancouver, Wash. coffee shop tired of seeing a 20-year-old man mooch off their free wireless Internet access called the police, who charged him with "theft of services."
Brewed Awakenings employees dialed 911 after Alexander Eric Smith of Battle Ground, Wash. piggybacked off the shop's wireless Internet service for more than three months.
"He doesn't buy anything," Emily Pranger, the shop's manager, told KATU, a Portland, Ore. television station. "It's not right for him to come and use it."
Smith allegedly parked his truck in the parking lot to use Brewed Awakenings' wireless access.
County deputies charged Smith with theft of services after returning to the parking lot after they told him to stop. The crime, which covers such crimes as bypassing a utility meter, stealing cable, and leaving a restaurant without paying, has been used in the past to prosecute hackers who have accessed a computer or network without paying for it. "It's something that is borderline creepy," Pranger said to KATU.
I'll be honest with you guys...this is something I do all the time. I'm on the road working a lot, and I've been known to pull into hotel parking lots or pull up in front of homes with open wireless access points and mooch off their internet for a while to look information or get my email. This is the first time I've ever heard of this being called "stealing."
Is this really theft, though? Certainly a coffee shop to lock their wireless signal and to kick whoever they want to off their property, but what if this guy was parked legally on a public street? Can you say he "stole" something by using an open wireless signal that is being broadcast into public space? Certainly he's using something he didn't pay for, but what value is he taking? Unless he's doing some heavy-duty downloading and disrupting the service, I just don't see how this can be called theft.
As wireless technology proliferates, it will be interesting to see how cases like this one are handled. I will certainly be paying attention lest I get charged with theft by some hotel I'm not staying at.