Sharing an ISP on a Wirless Network

I have several acquaintances who live in multi family dwellings. Apartments, condos, whatever. They piggy back on someone else's ISP over a wireless network. One woman rents a room, has Verizon for an ISP, and allows others in the house to use it. One man lives in a condo and uses his neighbors internet connection, unknown to the neighbor as far as he knows. Several others use either their parents connection or that of another relative in the house.

What's the legality? Can one person in a multi-dwelling situation pay for an ISP and then share it? Can a group chip in for one connection and can the entire group then use it? Is there no policing on the part of the providers? I have a small network, my desktop and an old laptop I use for old programs so I presume there is no check on this sort of thing.

Good question! I'm sure ISPs want everyone to pay, but for a household it's unlimited. Household being the key word. I bet it's in the fine print. My wireless is off unless I have guests. Using a connection without permission is stealing, like tapping electricity or phone.

Commercial business (motels, coffee shops) have free Wi-Fi for guests, part of their business plan with the ISP. Libraries and some cities have free Wi-Fi hotspots. Some cases are open about the ISP's client being responsible for people using their network. People accused of downloading movies and child porn for example.

I wouldn't worry about a boarder or even my neighbor using my ISP for e-mail or low bandwidth purposes, but I'd have a strong user code and change it from time to time. If you use a wireless network, make sure your router isn't using user/user or admin/admin for the passwords. Sometimes kids at Motel Hell would play World of Warcraft or multiple people would stream movies killing the network. I'd shut it down for a few minutes or the rest of my shift if they pissed me off enough.

Word of the day: Wardriving

Last words: Read your contract. Longer than the Constitution.

Kind of what I figured. I guess, to be on the safe side, I should put a password on my little network. Thank you.

More about using an unsecured WiFi than anything. Google has been collecting unsecured WiFi info with it's Google Street View cars.
From the BBC:
Google's Street View faces multi-state US probe
US state Connecticut will lead a multi-state investigation into Google's collection of wi-fi data.

It is the latest in a series of global investigations aimed at the firm.

Google has admitted that its Street View cars "accidentally" collected data from unsecured wi-fi networks in 30 countries because of some rogue code in the software used by the service.

The US investigation will attempt to answer how that code ended up being used by Street View.