> the internet is as free as language and should be
> treated as such.

<!-- begin rant

The internet itself is free, however access to it comes at a price. You, your company or someother company or individual is paying the cost of that WiFi node or LAN access point. Those costs in turn allow other companies to maintain and improve the infrastructure. To compare it to language, which requires no physical maintenance, is a leap - at best.

To me, a good analogy is the Vanagons we all drive. If I leave it running while getting milk (i.e. leaving my WiFi access point open for all the world) it's still not right for someone to hop in and take it around the block (checking their email). Its theft.

Now, did checking your mail on an unsecured node cost anyone anything? Probably not, but that's not the issue. Theft is theft no matter how small it is. For some (myself included) it's a fun game to see what nodes are open and maybe check my mail, but I'm not under the delusion that what I'm doing is legal or right. It's wrong, even though I do it anyway.

BTW, many ISPs restrict customers from giving away access onto the customers node through WiFi or other means. Cox for awhile even tried to prevent people from setting up a router so that mulitple computers could access from home. Stupid, but true. The provider where I work doesn't care since we pay a flat rate until we hit a bandwidth ceiling. I could have an open node (sorry, I don't) and it might annoy them but would be fine as long as I stayed under my ceiling.

Sorry about the rant, but comments like "the internet is free" or "spectrum is free" simply ignore the cost that _someone_ has to pay to create/maintain the required infrastructure. Ham, if I understand it, is a different beast since there is no required infrastructure besides what the end-used requires.

end rant -- >