Free Wi-Fi?
I have been spending the last few months in a place where high-speed internet access is not a given, as it has been in the university communities where I had been living for the last nine years. Needless to say, I had gotten used to such a service, and tend to take it for granted. So, I have been on the hunt for free Wi-Fi. The city of Pittsburgh, where I currently reside, is a bit behind the curve in terms of wireless access, especially for free. There is a short list of places downtown where I can get online, but most places that have wi-fi are businesses such as Starbucks and Barnes & Noble, which do not provide the service for free. I remember being in New York City, and almost anywhere in lower Manhattan one could open a laptop and find half a dozen open wireless networks.
However, this brings up an interesting question: Is it ethical to use someone else’s free and open wireless access point if they have not explicitly stated that it is available for public use? I am referring in general here to private networks, usually in people’s homes that they either do not know how to secure or can not be bothered to secure. Many people, I am sure, would say that they have no problem using these networks (and I should say up front that I am, for the moment at least, one of them), but there are some questions here.
One image that I heard recently was the scenario of someone leaving their front door open. Would it be ethical for you to go into their house and watch a DVD on their television? I would say, probably not, as the open door is not necessarily an invitation to use their personal property, especially since this situation carelessness rather than consent is probably at fault. In the case of wi-fi, on the other hand, it is more likely to be indifference at work.
This is especially true because it is unlikely that the person with the open network will ever know that you have connected, especially if you do not use a significant amount of bandwidth that might slow their service down. If they do care, it is fairly easy to secure any wireless connection with a password, and as far as I can see, the burden is on the provider to secure their connection. After all, once the radio waves leave their property, you are just accessing a public resource.
So I would conclude that although it is probably ethical to use a wi-fi network that is unsecured, one should probably not use it excessively, and, if you are feeling guilty about it, see if you can find out whose network it is (probably a neighbor that you might even be friends with!), and let them know and ask their permission.
