Wireless Hitchhiking

I had an interesting discussion with my brother this morning during Sunday brunch. We have two neighbors that have wireless internet access and the range of their network reaches into our home. So there is the possibility of using their service without their knowledge. And the question of whether this is stealing or not came up. My brother, Chris, adamantly maintained that it is stealing to use someone else’s wireless network without their permission. I am not so convinced. Without committing myself to asserting that it is definitely not stealing, i tried to argue that the issue is complex and debatable. It is not a clear instance of theft because nothing is being taken away from the "owner" of the service.

In our normal concept of stealing there is an owner who possesses an object which is then taken away by a thief. However, this concept is primarily based on the ownership and transference of physical objects, objects that have a clearly identifiable owner. This theory of stealing breaks down when the goods in question are not physical objects but services and non-material resources like time and space. It is obvious when someone steals my car but much more nebulous to say that someone stole my time.

When someone pays for internet access, they are paying for a service, not a tangible object, so what does it mean to say that the service has been stolen? If a thief hijacked that service and thus prevented the customer from receiving the benefits of the service that they paid for, it would be easy to agree that the service had been stolen. The customer paid for a service and that service was taken away from her. But that is not usually the case in wireless hitchhiking. The hitchhiker who gets a free ride on his neighbor’s wireless network does not prevent the paying customer from using the service that she paid for; he uses that service in addition to the paying customer. The hitchhiker gains something but the customer doesn’t lose anything. Is that stealing?

One of the reasons that we find wireless hitchhiking unfair is that the tenets of capitalism have inculcated us with the ideas of ownership and economic value. We believe that everything is owned and that everything has a price. If i own something and have to pay for it than it seems only fair that everyone else has to pay for it too. There are no free rides and charity is unacceptable. If internet access is something that i have to pay for then you should too. And if you don’t, it must be stealing.

In a country where 5% of the population controls 90% of the wealth, we have lost touch with the attitude of sharing, helping out the less fortunate, and donating the resources that we don’t need. When someone piggybacks on their neighbor’s wifi, they are not taking away what their neighbor uses but making use of their neighbor’s excess. They are taking advantage of the extra, unused service which, in the big picture, is the most economical approach: the least amount of service is able to supply the most clients. Instead of each internet user paying for their own individual service – thereby creating excesses that are left untapped – a system in which multiple users share a single line of service would provide for maximum access at minimal cost. Of course, the problem is that "maximum access at minimal cost" does not serve the interests of the companies who supply internet access. They are not interested in seeing clients share service; they want everyone to pay for their own service.

If we adopt corporate values as our moral guide then it is logical to conclude that wireless hitchhiking is stealing. But do we really want to do that?