Topics Ethics

Question I have a new laptop with the ability to connect to any unsecured wireless Internet hot spot (e.g., at Starbucks). Is it ethical for me to connect to ANY free connection, even if I don't know whose it is, or if I suspect that it belongs to someone who is unaware that I am using it? On the one hand, the question seems to be, "just because my neighbor goes out and leaves his house unlocked, that does not give me the right to enter it without his permission." On the other hand, the wireless signal is in MY house, without asking for my consent, so why shouldn't I feel free to use it, since my neighbor sent it there? I realize that the legal answer to this question is all over the map, with some localities arresting people and others refusing to prosecute. I am only really concerned with the moral arguments for and against this.

Accepted:
February 23, 2009

Comments

There is a similar issue in the book by Rabelais called Pantagruel and Gargantua, I vaguely recall, where someone in the street enjoys smelling roast meat, and the owner of the meat prosecutes him for stealing the smell without paying for it. I believe that the decision of the court was to award the owner of the meat damages which consisted of the clink of money. There are all sorts of ways we may benefit from our neighbor's behavior. The value of our house may rise because our neighbor keeps his house in a high state of repair, or because of the loveliness of his garden. Does that mean that he is entitled to a share in the sale of my house? Or I may enjoy listening to my neighbor singing out of his window as he shaves. It seems to me in these cases the neighbor can make no legitimate moral demands on us since these are free goods that others are entitled to enjoy.

If using the service presents no security risks to the neighbor, then we can use it. But of course it does and so there are good moral reasons against using it. So it is not really a free good at all, unless perhaps the neighbor agrees for us to make use of it, in which case he is not concerned about the security implications. It is a bit as if the neighbor leaves his bicycle in his front garden at night and I regularly, without his permission, borrow it to go to the pub. He never finds out since he is in bed, and so it seems that no harm is done. But there is harm, in the sense that were he to need it in the middle of the night, it would not be there, and he could not use it.