WWTBAM Bored

finally paid their Comcast bill.

I admit I am addicted to this little tablet. And T-Mobile's free 2MB/month/life-of-sim-card doesn't last long at all.

When the person broadcasting the unsecured wifi doesn't pay on time for their Comcast bill it turns out the linksys wifi is hooked to, we spongers get the same "so pay up already" messages the subscriber gets. Along with no connectivity, suddenly. Except for gmail, which keeps working regardless, somehow.

ghostjmf wrote:finally paid their Comcast bill.

I admit I am addicted to this little tablet. And T-Mobile's free 2MB/month/life-of-sim-card doesn't last long at all.

When the person broadcasting the unsecured wifi doesn't pay on time for their Comcast bill it turns out the linksys wifi is hooked to, we spongers get the same "so pay up already" messages the subscriber gets. Along with no connectivity, suddenly. Except for gmail, which keeps working regardless, somehow.

It's tough being a freeloader.

You're at the mercy of people who are so often thoughtless about their credit rating.

Most of us pay for wifi access.

Just curious. Why would you feel it okay to complain about this?

Beebs52 wrote:Just curious. Why would you feel it okay to complain about this?

Why would she feel it OK to do it regardless of complaining about it? Just because someone doesn't lock up their stuff doesn't mean its OK to use it.

BackInTex wrote:

Beebs52 wrote:Just curious. Why would you feel it okay to complain about this?

Why would she feel it OK to do it regardless of complaining about it? Just because someone doesn't lock up their stuff doesn't mean its OK to use it.

Check out fb

Beebs52 wrote:

BackInTex wrote:

Beebs52 wrote:Just curious. Why would you feel it okay to complain about this?

Why would she feel it OK to do it regardless of complaining about it? Just because someone doesn't lock up their stuff doesn't mean its OK to use it.

Check out fb

Wow.

You are mistaking an open radio-frequency channel for somebody's personal keepsakes. I haven't hacked into their wifi. They left the channel open. Lots of businesses do that on purpose for their patrons. Since they are probably not a business, though they could be, presumably they're a neighbor that has some entertainment system set up that needs non-password -protected wifi in order to connect itself together.



Wifi doesn't get worn out or damaged by multiple users. The users can't see each other's mail or other data. As far as I've read, it doesn't get used up the way data on a data plan gets used up, either.


No reason to get sanctimonious about wifi use that I can see. One of the portable wifi devices suggested on this board in a previous discussion has in its terms-of-use contract that you don't password-protect it. I'm not saying that a hacker couldn't get your personal data through your wifi. But I am not a hacker & all I am using is a radio-frequency channel they for whatever reason leave open.

I also get a limited amount of data connection, 200MB/month/life-of-card, via the T-Mobile simcard I bought for $15.00. A few months before I bought it, it was available via the internet for 99c. Should I be yelling at T-Mobile about missing out on the deal? T-Mobile was at one time giving the tablet I bought away free to certain customers. I missed out on that too.

ghostjmf wrote:Wifi doesn't get worn out or damaged by multiple users. The users can't see each other's mail or other data. As far as I've read, it doesn't get used up the way data on a data plan gets used up, either.

Yes, yes it does. A wifi access point can only handle so much data at one time. The more users connected and using it, the slower everyone's connection.

ToLiveIsToFly wrote:

ghostjmf wrote:Wifi doesn't get worn out or damaged by multiple users. The users can't see each other's mail or other data. As far as I've read, it doesn't get used up the way data on a data plan gets used up, either.

Yes, yes it does. A wifi access point can only handle so much data at one time. The more users connected and using it, the slower everyone's connection.

I'm not sure whether Comcast has data limits either. If that's the case, the people from whom you're poaching could incur extra charges if they exceed those limits.

silverscreenselect wrote:

ToLiveIsToFly wrote:

ghostjmf wrote:Wifi doesn't get worn out or damaged by multiple users. The users can't see each other's mail or other data. As far as I've read, it doesn't get used up the way data on a data plan gets used up, either.

Yes, yes it does. A wifi access point can only handle so much data at one time. The more users connected and using it, the slower everyone's connection.

I'm not sure whether Comcast has data limits either. If that's the case, the people from whom you're poaching could incur extra charges if they exceed those limits.

It's all good... I share with my bestest buddies....

lb13

littlebeast13 wrote:It's all good... I share with my bestest buddies....

lb13

Found it!

If I was slowing up the connection, I'd feel those slowed-up effects. Services advertising hot-spots say they can support 8 to 10 users. I haven't researched Comcast, but I know Time-Warner that my cousin has, giving wifi as part of its cable-tv service, does not limit connectivity/charge overage fees. And that's the main competition in Somerville, where I believe you can get both (as opposed to my cousin's part of NYC, where you can get only Time-Warner).


If the proud owner of the wifi I am on wanted to contact me & get me to pay them, I either would pay or stop using the wifi, depending on their price. They could also password-protect their service.


My cousin used to be in a similar situation in NYC, with non-password wifi because of connectivity problems with the devices using the wifi. They've now gone to password-protected with newer equipment, but there are still connectivity problems.

silverscreenselect wrote:

ToLiveIsToFly wrote:

ghostjmf wrote:Wifi doesn't get worn out or damaged by multiple users. The users can't see each other's mail or other data. As far as I've read, it doesn't get used up the way data on a data plan gets used up, either.

Yes, yes it does. A wifi access point can only handle so much data at one time. The more users connected and using it, the slower everyone's connection.

I'm not sure whether Comcast has data limits either. If that's the case, the people from whom you're poaching could incur extra charges if they exceed those limits.

They don't have data limits on their wifi (none of the big providers do, AFAIK), but TLITF is correct- the more users of a wifi network, the slower the connection speeds.

However, the networks Comcast and the big providers give people is pretty damn robust- we routinely have a family of four come visit us, and I have had up to 10 wifi devices up and running on my system (both Comcast and FIOS) with no discernible loss of speed or connectivity.

I am ambivalent about wifi spongers. I get someone else is paying for it and not the sponger, but hey- if the owner leaves it unlocked...

If someone left their keys in their very lovely car, & the doors open, I would not get in & drive. I'd like to think that all but the most derisive of you know that.


The wifi thing is a different moral issue to me. It feels like turning a tv on feels. Or a radio. I pay only for the receiving device in those cases (since by choice I have neither cable/satellite tv nor satellite radio), not the radio/tv-freq waves. However, I am well aware that the co that sold me this tablet only gives me the 200MB/month free as a loss-leader, assuming I'll be back to pay for more.


At one point, when my housemate was discussing getting cable, I asked my immediate neighbors, 1 flight down, which cable co they used & they said "none". So the Comcast/linksys wifi is not theirs. Beyond that I don't know.

littlebeast13 wrote: It's all good... I share with my bestest buddies....

lb13

I know we have not given you much to work with lately, but that is one of the better avatars in a while.

elwoodblues wrote:

littlebeast13 wrote: It's all good... I share with my bestest buddies....

lb13

I know we have not given you much to work with lately, but that is one of the better avatars in a while.

I should start calling them The Avatar of the Month given that's about the frequency at which I draw new ones now...

lb13

ghostjmf wrote:The wifi thing is a different moral issue to me. It feels like turning a tv on feels. Or a radio. I pay only for the receiving device in those cases (since by choice I have neither cable/satellite tv nor satellite radio), not the radio/tv-freq waves. However, I am well aware that the co that sold me this tablet only gives me the 200MB/month free as a loss-leader, assuming I'll be back to pay for more.

You are not "feeling" this correctly. What you are doing is exactly the same as splitting their TV cable and routing a cable to your TV, unknown to them, without paying them and blaming them for not noticing your splitter. The only difference is that your connection is invisible, since it is wireless.

ghostjmf wrote:At one point, when my housemate was discussing getting cable, I asked my immediate neighbors, 1 flight down, which cable co they used & they said "none". So the Comcast/linksys wifi is not theirs. Beyond that I don't know.

You should have asked what they use for internet. I'm pretty sure one can get Comcast to be one's ISP without getting one's TV from them, too.

Someone needs to tell Android the design of their tablet OS offends so many. Turning off wifi requires constant vigilence. It keeps turning itself on. Including when strongest local wifi needs password I don't have. Where that happens its a real nuisance. As I said previously, people in Android forums complain & are told "we are working on it" by T-Mobile. Or are given solutions involving menus I don't have on this tablet.

It would be nice if people's wifi systems reported back to them "how many users", but my cousin's in NYC, supplied by Time Warner, does not, & I don't know if others do.

Also, I did ask my neighbors specifically about internet cable, since that is what housemate was interested in. The signal for the wifi I'm picking up is so strong up & down the street that I now doubt it belongs to a local household; possibly its a business on the next block.

Sorry, but your cable-splitting analogy doesn't hold; my only action is to turn my tablet on. If I can see a neighbor's tv screen (back home in Ohio a neighbor puts a giant tv near a giant picture window, so this is a real story) should I be paying them for their poor taste in video?


To turn the whole thing around, Hillel's version of what Christians call the golden rule (sorry, we came up with it 1st, that's where Big J, the other Big J, heard it) says I should ask myself "would I want someone doing this if it were my wifi?". Well, I'd like to think if it were my wifi that sucker would have a password on it, but my cousin's, for instance, couldn't because of the way Time-Warner made them configure the cable (with wifi somehow feeding 2 TVs & a laptop, & later I-pad) system. And T-W dicates what equipment you will use together with their equipment. And they want to sell it to you, too. They keep regrading (I really can't in good conscience call it upgrading) their system so that their equipment doesn't work, then selling you new equipment. Which usually also doesn't work. I think my sister won out with the new router which she had already bought when T-M said "but we'll sell you ours", but anyway. The new system is password-protected, but there are still problems. For instance, my little pop7 can get Bolt Bus's site to work via cousin's new wifi, but sister's I-pad, which is in almost every other way superior to the pop7, can't. This may actually be a problem with the way I-pads work, not the wifi system, as my tablet works on it, but its hard to prise these problems apart.


My cousin's system, before the regrade, wouldn't even do google searches beyond the 1st page. Which in previous years it could do just fine. T-W & my sister assumed that was because people in the building were sharing that wifi, but it could just as well have been that the system was cruddy. Which to be fair my sister also thought. When your variables are T-W's lame & self-serving cable deal, and a respectable but maybe 9-year-old laptop & an equally aged router & wifi generator, who knows. The laptop in particular is now plugged in via an actual cable, which I kept insisting would fix at least that part of the problem, & I was right.


So if I was generating, & presumably paying for an unprotected wifi signal I'd love to know who was on it. I wouldn't necessarily knock them off. But I wouldn't, for instance, want anybody who watches any kind of porn anywhere near a system my name was associated with. Not because any kind of porn except that which involves kids or unconsenting adults is illegal, but because I personally don't want to be associated with it. Not having people search terrorist sites via your wifi would be good too. It would be nice if the vendors selling connectivity could give this information. But they don't. Which is one reason I won't go with that Karma-whatever (sorry, gotta check the name again) if I do go for a portable wifi generator. Because Karma-whatever requires in their contract that you share your wifi. But I don't believe it lets you restrict who you share it with, or restrict what sites they can visit.