Comments on Speaking of T-Shirt Slogans...

i had a guy with the same shirt come into the ihop that i work at a few months ago. he ordered the chicken fried steak with extra country gravy.

I've crouched by cafe's and laudramats and other free wifi places after hours when I'm in a pinch, but never wearing a shirt like that.

T-shirts like this serve as useful behavior training for young, clueless males.

The thing is, the dude believes his shirt's message is "I like to look at pussy" but what it really says is "I like to look at pussy that needs medical attention", which is rather different.

The airwaves are public. If the cafe chooses to broadcast unencrypted over the public spectra, public use of that broadcast is not stealing.

I agree about the shirt though.

Bullshit on the issue of stealing WiFi: if the cafe doesn't want people to use their access after hours they can pull the plug.

Seems like people who wear that sort of shirts belong in alleys. Better there than the sidewalk where I have to deal with them.

Hasn't the cafe ever heard of the Off button?

Why are they wasting power once they close?

@7: Maybe they're being good neighbors and providing a convenient public service? I leave my wifi unencrypted for exactly that reason.

Fnarf made me laugh.

Will @7: Maybe they leave it on because other network operations are happening over their broadband connection after hours, such as off site backups or software update downloads and need to leave the connection up. I don't turn my internet connection off when I leave work, and I don't turn my home connection off while I'm at work.

You, sir, are a giant prude.

Um, dude, there's a difference between leaving the bandwidth to the machines, and leaving your Wifi on.

If you run an unsecured network after hours, you deserve to be warganged.

Will @12: As far as I've seen most cafes or bars or where ever usually have a pretty simple set up of modem to wireless router. So unless they want the closing barista to log into the router and turn off WLAN support every night or move to a Modem to proxy server/NAT device with a access point plugged into their switch I'm guessing they'll continue to waste the power.

I'm totally mystified as to how you can steal something that's a) free, b) freely given away, and c) accessible for you to take.

I'm all for ethics, but I'm also all for common sense.

14 wins. end of thread.

judge not, lest ye be judged. wifi should be open and free. unlock it and share it, cuz some day you might need it.

#16, f that. Lamers on bit torrent ruin a perfectly good network.

@8, Thanks!! I use a mystery neighbor's free wi-fi whenever I need to take my work laptop home and am forever grateful.

I'm pretty sure nobody has ever been warganged or airhacked or wi-bombed or whatever. I read an article a while ago about a computer security expert who leaves his condo wi-fi open to be nice and has never had a problem.

If my neighbors are going to beam radiation into my body without my permission I'm going to use it for my own nefarious purposes, like ordering one of those t-shirts online.

Perhaps it's a certain neighborhood favorite cafe that just closed and their power hasn't been shut off yet and it's their last little 'thank you' to the community.

I agree with @15.

I got a cell phone blocker that shuts off wifi as well. Great for clearing out coffee joints with students hogging all the seats.

Mr. Constant? Even before the many enlightening comments on this thread, what on earth made you think what he did was stealing? Were you kidding?

fnarf made me laugh, too.

The shirt is stupid, but not outside the norm for stupid "attitude" shirts. They do serve a useful purpose, though -- people who wear them might as well have "I'm not worth talking to" tattooed on their foreheads.

Is there any update on whether the stolen wifi was returned? The cafe is going to be bummed when they come in tomorrow and it's not there.

yay for fnarf @4! He got right to the heart of the matter!