Occasionally, I have the version of the American
Dream where I want to chuck it all and move to
some quiet, rural town. Picket fences. Porch
swings. Autumn pumpkin festivals.
But of course, every
Mayberry has its Barney Fife. (For you twenty-somethings,
that's a reference to a bumbling deputy from the
bad old days when we only had three TV channels.
Look for "Andy Griffith" on YouTube.)
Take Sparta,
Mich., for example. Instead of Barney Fife, they
have Andrew Milanowski, and he's chief of police.
The village of
about 4,000 sits in Michigan's orchard country,
which explains the large red apple on the village
water tower. In the picturesque home of the
Pumpkin Daze festival, you can carry a concealed
weapon, but you can't borrow your neighbor's Wi-Fi.
Not on Chief
Milanowski's beat, you can't.
Sparta's finest
was alerted to a possible crime in progress
outside a local business, the Union Street Cafe.
It turned out to be a crime worthy of "The Andy
Griffith Show," a police sitcom set in a town
where the law was rarely broken. The risk of crime
in Mayberry was so low that Deputy Fife was
allotted only one bullet, and that was to be kept
in his pocket.
According to
reports in the Grand Rapids Press, Milanowski's
forces were tipped off to a pattern of suspicious
activity. Someone was parking in front of the
aforementioned eatery for a while, and then
driving off. This nefarious behavior happened
several days in a row.
Police
investigated. Repeatedly. After several days, they
caught up with the perp, one Sam Peterson II, a
local toolmaker and volunteer firefighter.
Milanowski made
the collar himself. Peterson told the chief he was
using the unsecured Wi-Fi network to check his
e-mail during his lunch hour.
The chief wasn't
sure whether there was a law being broken, but he
was prepared to go to the mat.
"But Andy, if we
allow people to access free Wi-Fi outside the
restaurant instead of going inside, it could start
a crime wave. Next thing you know, we could have
jaywalking, right here in Mayberry."
Milanowski took
the case to the county prosecutor, who apparently
also has too much time on his hands.
It turns out that
Michigan has a law against computer hacking,
including wireless access of a computer system.
So the no-nonsense
law of Kent County made an example of Peterson and
his purloined e-mail. They threatened him with a
felony charge - a possible five-year sentence and
a fine of up to $10,000. But they allowed him to
pay $400 and do 40 hours of community service.
Somehow, I don't
think you would need F. Lee Bailey or even Matlock
to get this case thrown out. First of all, I doubt
you could prove Peterson used the wireless
Internet without his confession, which likely came
before he was read his rights. Do you think they
actually read the guy Miranda rights for Wi-Fi
piggybacking?
More important,
the prosecutor would have to prove that Peterson
obtained the Wi-Fi through "false or fraudulent
pretense, representation or promise." In this
case, the "fraud" involved sitting outside the
restaurant instead of going inside.
The cafe offers
free Wi-Fi to its customers, but also sends the
wireless signal into the street. Laptop owners
don't have to pretend, represent or promise
anything. They just have to use the Wi-Fi signal
that their laptops find for them.
If someone
watering the lawn lets water run onto the sidewalk
and my dog drinks from the puddle, is my dog
stealing that water through fraudulent pretense?
Of course not. It's freely accessible on public
property.
It's the same with
Wi-Fi.
This isn't the
first time the issue has come up - a Florida man
faced similar charges in 2005 - and it probably
won't be the last.
The problem is
that the people writing the laws don't seem to
understand Wi-Fi technology. And in these rare
cases of prosecution, the people enforcing the law
don't understand the technology.
The Federal
Communications Commission - which does understand
the technology - doesn't have a problem with
piggybacking on an open Wi-Fi connection. Wi-Fi
has a built-in feature that allows the system to
be secured, to keep out neighbors and people
parked on the street. In an interview about a year
ago, an FCC spokesman suggested that consumers use
the security features if they're concerned about
Wi-Fi piggybacking.
My understanding
of Wi-Fi technology falls somewhere between that
of the FCC and the Michigan prosecutor. I paid a
whopping $39 for my wireless router. Even my
no-frills gadget has a firewall. If I left my
system unsecured - I don't - my neighbors could
piggyback on my signal without using my computer.
They would be on their side of the firewall and I
would be on my side. I could turn my computer off
and they could still piggyback on my Internet
connection.
The point is,
borrowing a little Wi-Fi from your neighbor isn't
hacking. There's an argument that it's unethical.
But there's no way it's a felony in a sane world.
The kicker to the
Sparta Wi-Fi story is that it wasn't the cafe that
called the cops. The cafe owner didn't press
charges. According to one news report, the tip
came from the barbershop, where a caller expressed
concern that Peterson was stalking an attractive
female employee of a nearby business.
"But Andy, how can
you say that there's no victim? Floyd over at the
barbershop is pretty gosh-darned upset about all
of this."
The way I see it,
there are two victims here. First there's
Peterson, who spent $400 rather than foot a hefty
legal bill to fight a bad interpretation of an
overly vague law.
And I personally
have lost my American Dream.
I am going to stay
out of Sparta, Mich.
