> to someone on the street at night reading a newspaper by the light
> from your windows. Theft of light? If you don't want it to happen, put
> up curtains.

Similar but not quite the same because in doing so, reading the paper
does not impact on the other light in the house. Using network
bandwidth does.

Don't confuse the propagation of a radio wave with the data that it
carries. This whole issue of "well the RF was in my back yard" just
isn't the end of the story.

> Fair enough. But what's been stolen? Where's the intention to
> permanently deprive?

Similar to joyriding. Joyriding in a car isn't theft because there's no
intention to permanently deprive the owner, just go out and have a good
thrash in someone elses car with your mates. It never seems to become
theft when the car is set fire to either for some strange reason.

This will run and run and there's no point thinking up cute analogy
after analogy because it's for the legal folk to kick it around and just
like any other legal situation, it's the one with the best argument that
wins, nothing more.

Prosecution: "but my client had WEP enabled"
Defence: "well we all know that WEP is dead and can be cracked in 10
minutes, your client was negligent in not following network security
practice and for not knowing that wireless is by its nature insecure."
etc etc etc.

David.