Man Arrested in Florida for “stealing” Wi-Fi

The St. Petersburg Times reports that a man has been arrested for parking outside of someone’s house and using their Wi-Fi network connection to access the internet. The article states:

“It’s so new statistics are not kept,” said Special Agent Bob Breeden, head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s computer crime division.
But experts believe there are scores of incidents occurring undetected, sometimes to frightening effect. People have used the cloak of wireless to traffic in child pornography, steal credit card information and send death threats, according to authorities.

This is blatant fear-mongering. While it is possible to do all of those things mentioned in this paragraph, there have been no documented cases of this taking place. To maintain that unsecured wireless networks are trafficking mechanisms for credit card theft and child pornography is pure speculation.

Furthermore, the use of someone else’s internet connection is by no means illegal. Most ISPs do have contract requirements that prevent a subscriber from sharing their internet connection. There are plenty that do not, such as Speakeasy and Bway.net. Sharing internet in this way, with such an ISP, is not only perfectly legal, it is condoned by the service provider as well.