What are your thoughts on home networks that are left unsecured? My thoughts? Sharing is caring, bwahaha. No, not really. But dude, if you’re dumb enough to leave your network unsecured, don’t be surprised if people are going to hop on it. Now before the righteous brigade shows up with their panties thoroughly twisted, let me say that I do NOT liken stealing a few megabytes of bandwidth to stealing a car. I will go so far as to say that if you leave your car unlocked you deserve everything that happens if it’s stolen. But I do not condone the theft of it. The car thief is still in the wrong. But with a home network, it’s not as if you’re using those few megabytes that were siphoned off by a nearby laptop or other wifi-capable device. And dude, my internet connection is down for the moment, and I’m an addict. I need to get my fix somewhere! 
Clarification: yes, I have been guilty of borrowing a neighbor’s unsecured network. But I have never downloaded any large files or done anything illegal, so I don’t feel quite so bad about it. He uses Comcast, so it’s not as if he’s limited on how much bandwidth he has. *shrug*
P.S. You really shouldn’t just hop on unsecured networks that don’t belong to you. Check out Panera Bread, Starbucks and the local coffee shops that yuppies in Free People apparel frequent. All those places offer free wifi, and in many cases you’ll be able to pick it up in the parking lot, so you won’t even have to venture inside and pay for an overpriced coffee, tea or scone!
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I will say this – if you do hop on someone else’s network, be very careful that they don’t figure it out – you can get into a lot of legal trouble for it. I used to work for an ISP and they drilled it into us that it is illegal to borrow a wireless connection even if it is unsecured.
Personally I think it’s the person who owns the network’s fault because when you set up your network for wireless, the instructions with the router suggest that you secure it. (At least my ex-roommates wireless router’s instructions strongly recommended it.)
.-= Charity´s last blog ..Plugins: Great to Use, But Be Careful =-.