utterly OT

An unsecured router working on a phone line's like a car / bike sat on
the side of the road with a full tank and the keys in it..

You wouldn't let 'just anyone' use your car - you lock it, same thing
with the router is just assigning a password .. so you got a bit of
'joyriding' in .. Good Stuff (anything free is possibly good)

 

If it's 802.11b/g then you'll be very lucky to get much more than 50m in
most instances, unless you're operating outside (including the network
gear), in which case you might possibly double that. Depending on
conditions, a chance you might get lucky and get better range than that,
but certainly not with sufficient reliability to be able to count on it.
In some buildings, you could even find yourself getting considerably
less than 50m range, depending on the layout of the floorplan and where
you are located.

802.11n might be different, but I've never used it so I wouldn't know.
You certainly wont get 200m inside from a b/g network with only the one
access point - you'd definitely need to add more gear to extend the range.

 

I reliably get 100m from our b/g network at home (we use the laptops
during summer at the back of the yard). Get the same sort of distance
out the front of the house as well and down the street.

The 6dbi antennas *do* work


G-S

 

If there was intent then it's theft , still a stupid thing to do as
it's usually considered chargeable

 

She could argue she thought she lived near a wireless hotspot like a
Maccas..

 

But what sort of range do you get if you remove the antenna from the
equation?

I've got wireless at home, and have access to 5 different wireless
networks at work, and have used wireless networks in a number of other
locations/contexts as well, and I've never once got better than 50m
range from an unextended setup. Mind you, work (at least) is quite a
cluttered environment from the point of view of wireless connectivity,
so that probably doesn't help!

 

You are hard of reading , now try again

 

If you're at / near a Maccas and intend to connect to their wireless but
inadvertently connect to a different router .. that's NOT intentional.
Perhaps you're "hard of reading" (sic) ?

 

Geez atec, who's hard of reading now? "Genuine misunderstanding"...
"unwittingly"... where could you construe "intent" from any of that?
(Particularly given my previous post!) Oh, and I think I have already
admitted to a certain amount of stupidity (i.e., technological
unedumacatedness).

Aw shucks, silly me, you couldn't possibly be serious... you MUST be
stirring... right?

betty

 

If you've set up your computer/device to automatically connect to any
network in range (which may even be a default setting in many
instances), then it's certainly feasible that she might have connected
to that particular open network without realising it at all. With no
password prompt to alert her, how would she know, if she is not
sufficiently literate to be aware of the specific network she happens to
be connected to at any given point in time.

Even if the default was specified by the user, there is no way to prove
that it wasn't simply done for use on networks she was authorised to use
anyway.

The only person who has done anything wrong here is the adminstrator of
the network, who is guilty of neglect and/or incompetence by failing to
take an extra 2 seconds to configure a security option that would
require password access.

 

See my comments re default settings, and I'd be interested to see how
you could ever hope to prove intent short of the "perpetrator" freely
admitting it.

 

My little eeePC with no aerial picks up 3 other networks where I live.
One is totally unsecured and also has the default admin/admin username
and password on the router.

Another is secured, the next secured with WPA.

My SSID is hidden and uses WPA2.

 

Yay ! Put more lawiferously than I would but yay.

 

I must admit my wireless initially defaulted to 'first network found' on
installation. I could theoretically have attached to the neighbours, but
the difference between a 30% and 100% signal is big. It is quite
probable that such a thing could happen (and indeed does, given the case
in point). When you add that my router defaults to no wireless and that
can only be changed with a cabled setup (AFAIK anyway, DSLG604T).

 

you are an idiot , where did she say it was a maccas ?
rather her neighbours did she not or is your messing with my head mean
I shouldn't care ?.

 

If there was intent , but you claimed not so you might be innocent
( but have to be guilty of something)

 

Read the law , ignorance is NOT a defence under the federal act ,
although I happily accept her claim

 

Read the act , it's very close to guilty until proven otherwise ... sad
but true although a couple of minutes discussion with betty would prove
her ineptness in these things .

 

You were arguing about intent, which as I pointed out, is virtually
impossible to prove.

Not to mention your difficulties in proving that it was in fact her
device that was using that connection in the first place.

I'd really like to see you try to take a case like this to court, and
actually get somewhere with it. I'm sure it would be very amusing to
watch you try!

 

I don't need to read the act to know how the technology works. And it is
the facts of how the technology works that render any "case" in this
instance utterly worthless in terms of being worth pursuing. Again,
refer to my post above where I set out the basics for you.