Michigan man arrested for using cafe’s free WiFi from his car:
A man doesn’t know what he’s doing is a crime.
The “victims” don’t know that what he’s doing is a crime.
A cop vaguely suspects that some kind of crime might perhaps be happening, and takes it upon himself to research it just in case someone might be committing a crime.
The result: by the grace of the courts the “perp” escapes a five year, $10,000 felony, and merely got 40 hours of community service and a $400 fine and nothing on his record.
What a country!
Note to self: if you’re using an establishment’s free wifi, and a cop asks what you’re doing, lie.
WTF?
This is taking ownership to the extreme. Why should someone be able to use public airwaves to transmit something that is unencrypted yet private?
The crime was “accessing a computer without permission” or words to that effect. The relevant law was written in 1979, when the concept of legitimate “personal” computer use, much less “public” computer use, was almost nonexistent. Virtually all computer use used government, educational, or corporate computers and therefore ought to be “authorized” by someone. Someone accessing a network without permission could *not* be doing so innocently or harmlessly; they must be evil hackers.
It was updated much more recently to include wifi, though. So the standards of computer use in 1979 were deemed relevant for the 21st century. Great.
I guess that’s what happens when the Powers That Be don’t fully understand all of the wires and tubes of the Internets.