Brewed Awakenings, with its pithy name, artful drinks and wireless Internet service, has found itself unexpectedly percolating on the forefront of high-tech law.
“He doesn’t buy anything,” Manager Emily Pranger says about the man she ended up calling 911 about. “It’s not right for him to come and use it.”
Pranger says 20-year-old Alexander Eric Smith of Battle Ground sat in the parking lot in his truck for three months, spending hours at a time piggybacking on the coffee shop’s wireless Internet service for free.
When deputies told Smith to knock it off, he came back and is now charged with theft of services.
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This whole issue is going to be moot in a few years. Wireless will be everywhere. Many major cities are already set up. Libraries have it. It’s in the air and it’s free. I really don’t think these poeple (the coffee shop) have a case here. The man’s being a sex offender has absolutely nothing to do with the situation. They are sending something into the air unsecured. They’re using it to attract customers. There are drawbacks to every advertisig scheme. This is one of them. The thing they need to ask themselve is is it attracting more paying customers than freeloaders?
How do they keep people from downloading stuff?
Anyways…couldn’t they just block his computer?
I know guess they’ve never heard of the terms “WEP” or “SSID” either encrypt or dont broadcast its that simple.
Even just blocking the guy’s MAC address(es) would have done the trick…