After discovering an open wireless net available from his sofa, Steven "Hackers" Levy interviewed lawmen, academics and WiFi activists about the legality and ethics of using open wireless access points.
I downloaded my mail and checked media news on the Web. When I confessed this to FBI agent Bill Shore, he spared the handcuffs. "The FBI wouldn't waste resources on that," he sniffed. Now I know that if it did, it would be hard to argue that I broke a law. What's more, I certainly didn't feel illegal. Because—and this is the point of all that war-driving and -chalking and node-stumbling—when you get used to wireless, the experience feels more and more like a God-given right. One day we may breathe bandwidth like oxygen—and arguing its illegality will be unthinkable.
(Thanks, Steven!)
