Can I get punished for stealing WiFi?

Question

My ***hole dad blocked all of the sites I visit including FaceBook, YouTube, Myspace and turns off the router at 8 pm and connects to it by using wires to continue surfing the net. In total, I only have 3 hours to use the internet since I arrive home at 5pm.

Anyway, I can receive a "Fair" signal from our neighbour's wifi and it's quite good since it's unsecured and is open 24/7. Nothing is blocked and I can connect easily.

Can I get caught while using their wifi (I visit YouTube a lot of times and I think I download a lot from the streaming videos)? Can I go to jail and what kind of punishment can they file against me? Also, I read somewhere that 'stealing' from an unsecured network isn't punishable. Is this true? If so, can you show me a site where they show information about it?

thanks in advance!

Answer 1

what you are talking about is illegal and asking for a site to hack your neighbors network is a violation of the TOS.

reported.

now, you have three choices. get your own ISP and pay for it yourself, move out and pay your own way through life, or accept that your parents pay the bills and can do as they please with their internet connection.

Answer 2

Yes, you can get caught, and yes, in you can get punished.. There are instances of people going to jail for this in the States, but the maximum penalty in the UK is £1000, most likely, if you are a minor, you will get fined, and your Dad will be ordered to remove your computer from your posession.

However, perhaps you ought to consider your neighbour.. They may not even know they are unprotected, and using their bandwidth to do your own thing may really cause them inconvenience.. Or, on the other hand, if you are using their connection, they have a perfectly legitimate right to listen in on your communications and do what they want with any information they get.. It wouldn't be too difficult to steal your password for Yahoo! for example, and start sending lots of Spam as you, or email all your mates telling them that they're jerks, because you have uset them by stealing WiFi from them. You could of course tell them that their WiFi is wide open and help them to secure it in exchange for allowing you to use their bandwidth when you "dodgy router that keeps breaking" is out of action! That wouldn't be theft, and it might not upset your neighbour quite as much.

Think about what you're doing, it has wider consequences.. But yes, you could get caught and lose your computer for stealing WiFi.

Answer 3

It's theft, plain and simple. If your neighbor buys a bunch of flowers to beautify their house and you take some without permission, that's the same thing.

You didn't pay for the wifi, and you don't have permission to take it, so you're stealing.

Answer 4

yes, you can be punished, its a $500 fine if you get caught.