Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

But of course he should lose the argument. Someone's paying for that connection, and he's using it for free. It's a fine distinction, to be sure, especially when he's using a library's connection, which I'd assume he would be free to use if he were only inside the building, but nevertheless, the distinction is clear and quite correct.

The interesting question is how long does this state of affairs last? I give it another 5-10 years at least before we reasonably accept that access to the internet should be a free part of the infrastructure (much like that guy who's always saying "IT is dead").

yup, it doesn't make much philosophical sense that you cannot capture the waves that run right through your own brain, but an aquaintance of mine had a similar altercation about satellite, and was very heavily fined.

In China, many children know well about the story of Afanti, who was a legend hero that helps poors. He ever hoaxed one richman who wantd to charge a poor sitting outside his restaurant to smell. Afanti shaked his money bag to the richman, "Did you hear the sound of coins?", "Yes", "Then paid", haha.

This is nothing to do with Wifi. It's to do with a policeman hassling somebody who has a laptop open while sitting on a park bench.

Much longer rant in the comments on AKMA's site. The gist is "You're living in a police state. Why are you surprised?".

Isaac and Julian are both right--dialectically! That's exactly why I love this blog. It's quite nifty.

Couple of points. First, if an establishment is charging for it's wireless service then such a guy might be considered "freeloading" and in legitimate trouble. Second, and on the other hand, if the service is spilling out into public areas then isn't it really their fault and not his? Third, it's all moot because this is a public library and presumably not charging anyone for wireless. I mean the guy could use the service "legitimately" if he only walked in the door? Then what's the freakin' huge deal? The library should be like "wow, cool, I didn't know our signal went that far! We're providing even better public service than we thought!"

Am I missing something?

And then there's de Waag in Amsterdam ... the large building in Nieuwmarkt that houses a restaurant/cafe, and publicly-funded study centre, which proudly announces and offers free wireless access, emanating from its building to as far as it can reach throughout the market square.

Here is a link to the library in Helsingborg (south of Sweden). It has a map to show you how far the signal reaches in the park outside. It also tells you that if you show your library card at the local computer store, you get a discount on the wi-fi card.
http://biblioteket.helsingborg.se/stadsbiblioteket/index.asp?sida=hotspot.htm

It doesn't matter whether the person is paying for the Internet connection. They could easily secure their signal and chose not to. If they did secure it and you broke in anyway then that would be theft.

i am an idiot and i am lead by richard simmons