Roderick Stewart <rjfs@escapetime.nospam.plus.com> writes:

> The fact that a network is unsecured may not necessarily constitute
> an "invitation" to use it as it may simply be unsecured as a result
> of its owner's ignorance.

But, in a legal scenario, should the owner's ignorance be taken into
account? Should there not be the presumption that the owner/operator
is responsible for correctly configuring and operating the equipment?

If someone bought a house which had a backdoor, accessible from an
alley, to the garage with the sign 'Free Apples Here' affixed to it,
put apples in the garage, did not remove the sign and kept the back
door unlocked then I am sure they would not have any valid legal
grounds for complaint if people came into the garage via the back door
and helped themselves to the apples even if they never use the back
door to the garage, did not notice it was unlocked and never walked
along the alley so were not aware of the sign.

While this may seem a ridiculous analogy, it is almost exactly the
situation of someone who (by ignorance) runs an 'open' wireless router
without changing the configuration.