Square Mile

[laser]

Does any one use Square Mile International Internet at marinas? if so what do u think of the free service? is it any good? and how much is it?

[donutsina911]

when I had my sealine I used the wireless internet service at Southsea Marina - highly recommended

[Richard B]

Originally Posted by laser

Does any one use Square Mile International Internet at marinas? if so what do u think of the free service? is it any good? and how much is it?

The free service costs exactly nothing, funnily enough! It's excellent, IMHO, 512kbps, and I've sat in Weatherspoons using Brigton Marina's 'net on my iPaq. Premier Marinas all do it, 512 kbps is free, you can pay more for extra bandwidth if you want. Maybe MDL will catch up! Alternatively there's often someone with an unsecured connection broadcasting their SSID

[laser]

yeh i have most of portsmouth mapped now with unsecure wireless networks

I was in poole marina last weekend and was gonna sign up but i wasnt sure what i was letting my self in for, wethere i was gonna have to sign up to something after the free offer ends!!

[MikeH]

Originally Posted by laser

yeh i have most of portsmouth mapped now with unsecure wireless networks

I was in poole marina last weekend and was gonna sign up but i wasnt sure what i was letting my self in for, wethere i was gonna have to sign up to something after the free offer ends!!

Recent court case led to a £500 fine and 12 months conditional for pinching someones bandwidth. Though I can't understand why this should be if the bandwidth owner can't be bothered to secure their network. I can understand it if you hacked into the network, but if you just happened to take advantage of an open hot spot then thats not criminal . . surely?

See this . . .

[Richard B]

Sounds like he was involved in a hacking activity known as "war driving" (so called because it can be done from a vehicle, covering different locations).

Also, if he had cracked the WEP encyption (which is easy as the algorithm is mathematically flawed and there are programs freely available on t'internet) then he may have been judged to have been actively hacking.

[codprawn]

Yeah but how the hell would they find you??? Government have been pushing wireless without understanding the implications - truly anonymous at last!!!

And the security IS dead easy to get around - when people have even bothered!!!

[Jono]

Originally Posted by MikeH

Recent court case led to a £500 fine and 12 months conditional for pinching someones bandwidth. Though I can't understand why this should be if the bandwidth owner can't be bothered to secure their network. I can understand it if you hacked into the network, but if you just happened to take advantage of an open hot spot then thats not criminal . . surely?

See this . . .

Sure.. and if you happen to leave your boat unattended for a second and someone decides to use it, so what? Can't be criminal surely...

[laser]

hmm interesting. i knew that had happened in america but not in this country.

[Polwart]

I don't think its comparable to taking someone's boat for a spin. Its possibly more comparable to reading the newspaper over someone's shoulder on the bus!

Since there are people who happily let others "borrow" internet access, and there is no easy way to determine the physical location/owner of most systems I think that if you don't turn off SSID broadcasting or encrypt the network you are essentially saying that the network is "free to use".

If you hijack the connection by downloading huge amounts of data then thats probably akin to stealing the newspaper from someone on the bus. But to simply check your email - I personally think that is acceptable and would happily go to court to fight my case. I would never attempt to hack an ecrypted network, or prevent someone from using their own network (I am aware of one local connection which not only is unsecured, but is using all the default settings including the rather unimaginative password of "password") - but if my machine automatically connects to someone else's network then I consider that acceptable.