No comment.

"some tech-savvy Bay Area neighbors are finding economies in sharing broadband Internet service. "

its not economies, its THEFT!!!
educated by "commie-libs", its okay to steal from the rich...

It is theft, plain and simply.

Is there anything in the service agreement that says you can not hook up a wireless system between you and your neighbor? Does the contract forbid such things? If not, then I see no problem.

Whoa, talk about privacy problems.

They should just hope their neighbor's kid (or a neighborhood snoop) doesn't download a copy of AirSnort to watch all their network traffic. ;)

I'm not sure I would want this kind of a "cheap" connection that cost me all my privacy.

It is theft, plain and simply.

I believe this issue is different than cable theft. When you buy broadband, you buy a fixed pipe. For example, my DSL is $49/mo for 1500bps down/384bps up. I pay for this specific amount of bandwidth...all of it. How I use this bandwidth should be up to me since the 1500/384 is paid for in full. Most cable and dsl broadband have a cap such as this.

If someone bought a keg of beer and asked his/her friends to share the cost of the keg, is that theft?

It is theft, plain and simply.

Not so certain. The actual subscriber pays for a certain bandwidth, let us say 600Kbs. If he shared this with his neighbours the total 600Kbs width DOES NOT increase and the subscriber might experience the slowdown/deterioration on his connection by splitting it into for example 300K plus 300K. Same if he attached the another phone to the same line.

What the provider could be losing is potential customer or the advantage of the less complete usage of already paid for connection. But this is not a theft, the subscriber could just run some process soaking all the bandwidth all the time and it would be bigger burden. Also the subscriber could connect directly PC of neighbours to his computer, would it be a theft? If family of subscriber uses his computer is it a theft? What is the loss of the provider, that relatives did not buy separate computers with separate connections?

the subscriber could just run some process soaking all the bandwidth all the time and it would be bigger burden.

Actually, my cable company says I can expect speeds of ca. 400k coming in and ca. 56k going out. They threaten to charge me on a per-megabyte basis if I use this connection for more than a specified amount of megabytes.

One thing is clear: I never manage to test my modem speed at anything higher than 200k coming in. ;(

I understand the outrage, but you raise a seriously good point.

If the service providers' license agreements do not specifically prohibit sharing then, technically, it is not "theft."

I'll be the first to say that it is unethical, but implying theft is a judicial term, when in fact it may not violate any law.

Problem is easily solved though. The service providers must rewrite their contracts to prohibit any sharing outside of a residence.

Absolutely correct.

Despite these possible pitfalls, the benefits do outweigh the downsides, especially if proper precautions are taken, users say. "You don't trip over Ethernet cords, I take my laptop to the kitchen to look up recipes, take it outside when the weather's nice . . . and I have social contact with others using the network," Berry said.

What an arrogant dolt. Just wait till some hacking group gets in range and does all sorts of fun stuff that gets logged and traced back to his connection and he loses it for violation of terms of service. Then he'll be whining about how "unfair" the "evil" corporations are.

Sidenote, I just clicked on the link you provided to test my DSL speed.

1028/104. It ranged between "awesome" and "dude!" Must be a slow day today. :-(

The service providers must rewrite their contracts to prohibit any sharing outside of a residence.

Still, what would be the point? The width is already limited and paid for. If they do not want to be used more then EXPECTED usage (but still within the paid limit) they can charge for the bytes traffic. It would decrease the present offering and would be counter-productive.

You can let your neighbour use a cordless phone on your line, is it a theft, even if the usage on the (flat fee to make analogy fit) goes up somehow?

No, I think that people who piggy back to their neighbour connections sooner or later will tire of it and become the regular subscribers. So patience is a good marketing policy for the broadband providers in this case.

It is certainly NOT illegal. As others have said, with DSL you're paying for X bandwidth which is then yours to do with as you wish, whether that's one connection/one machine or a multi-node home network or a network that happens to leave your property and go over to the neighbors.

Any company who doesn't like it can change their terms of service and then cancel service on those who violate the TOS. This leaves a nice free market, some ISPs can choose to lock down and other ISPs can say "hey, do what you want."

From a purely technical standpoint, I wouldn't touch this with a ten-foot pole, for the same reason I don't use wireless keyboard or mouse (except more so).

Pacific Bell also doesn't specifically forbid the practice ...

How can it possibly be theft when the providers' policies don't forbid it? Are you saying that any use of GPL'ed code is also theft? What about freeware? When the provider doesn't forbid sharing of connections, it is not theft. Pure and simple.

Theft?

Not if you do it right. - The solution is to setup a LLC to purchase the service; then all parties to the LLC have legitimate access to the service that they have purchased.

Just wait till some hacking group gets in range and does all sorts of fun stuff that gets logged and traced back to his connection...

It's absolutely stupid. Not only does "sharing" violate some TOSs (my contract prohibits "re-distribution") but it exposes the private stuff on your internal network by bypassing your firewall (assuming you have one).

Some guy comes around my neighborhood every couple of weeks trying to get into my wireless network. But my firewall only allows my own MAC addresses through, so even if he can guess my encryption codes, he won't get a DHCP address from my server, and my gateway will ignore him.

A typical Access Point won't give you this much control, and is very unsecure. Don't set up a wireless network unless you (a) know what you're doing, or (b) don't care about being "used".

its not economies, its THEFT!!! educated by "commie-libs", its okay to steal from the rich...

Rich?! ;)

I want to hear more about making a Pringle's can into a directional antenna.

I want to hear more about making a Pringle's can into a directional antenna.

Here's something on using a Pringle's can for an antenna