RHC-NET

as a international community it is probably pointless to point out that legislation will be differnt between two countries. although unfortunatly it seems that the US and UK goverments have taken the same view.

Martin

Ultimately, analogies are unhelpful little beasts. Wifi should be compared to wifi, and that's it. Radio, phone, etc, are all different systems. The law doesn't deal in analogies, so it's probaby best if we don't either.

As to the question earlier about whether belief in consent, by way of the network being open, would prove a lack of dishonesty...the short answer, IMHO, is no. Although reasonableness of belief is not a determining factor, nevertheless it constitutues strong evidential status, and it is (arguably) not reasonable to presuppose that every owner of an open network is deemed to have consented to you accessing it simply because it is unsecured. There would need to be some other indicia of consent; whether it be express, whether it be from the network being named "free internet use", or something else.

In my mind, a putative defendant is far more likely to have joy under the Ghosh principles of dishonesty. In any event, it may well be the case that the courts will not apply the definition of dishonesty under the Theft Act to s.125-127 CA 2003, but instead rely solely on common law principles (as enunciated in Feely and Ghosh). Of course, it's far too early to tell, but eventually a case will reach the RCJ, and hopefully we'll get some definitional interpretation on the relevant sections.

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psionandy

Originally Posted by RHC-NET

as a international community it is probably pointless to point out that legislation will be differnt between two countries. although unfortunatly it seems that the US and UK goverments have taken the same view.

Although seeing as this thread is about a UK person breaking UK law any legal points made here should be UK ones. The thread about the recent US prosecution can be used to discuss US law

Alexim

Originally Posted by tabten5

In my mind, a putative defendant is far more likely to have joy under the Ghosh principles of dishonesty. In any event, it may well be the case that the courts will not apply the definition of dishonesty under the Theft Act to s.125-127 CA 2003, but instead rely solely on common law principles (as enunciated in Feely and Ghosh). Of course, it's far too early to tell, but eventually a case will reach the RCJ, and hopefully we'll get some definitional interpretation on the relevant sections.

As is pointed out by the above and as is the case normally with new Laws there have not been any real test cases so far, so no real precedents have yet been set.

You could keep on wardriving until the situation becomes clearer, but it might be an idea to find a lawyer beforehand - like tabten5 - who knows what he is one about, just in case the long arm of the law should reach out and touch you as an Axim/PPC toting wardriver :)

And as PsionAndy said, this is more about the UK situation, although the US and UK share similar legal systems, the laws are not the same - so mixing UK and US legislation will lead to big confusion.

One final word for Howard2k: So wifi systems are like CB radio, is that what you are saying? I know the law is not big on analogies - it would take a brave lawyer indeed to get embroiled in such unnecessary complexity