Wardriving

As I sat down last night, supposedly to continue writing my essay discussing “how appropriate the cinematic principle of montage is as a means of conveying the realities of post-socialism” (yes, for one of my Siberian courses), instead, I messed around with my computer a bit. Frustrated with my lack of internet access, I tried to scan my neighbourhood, to see if anybody actually would have any open wi-fi networks active.

Surprisingly, they do. I am writing this in the relative comfort of my own home, using the internet connection of some unsuspecting neighbour. This is called Wardriving, and it is, of course, ethically suspect to some degree. Yet, as long I limit the amount of bandwidth I take up to a minimum of googling, emailing and blogging, I don’t think I’m ruining anybody’s internet experience.

Of course, if you have a Wireless Access Point, you should probably make sure that your local network is properly secured, even if you feel generous enough to share a bit of internet with your fellow man.

In any case, this is just another example of the new variety of grey-zone ethical discussions offered by the digital age (along with such conundrums as Intellectual Property, authority and reliability of Internet-based information resources and whether it really is the porn industry that is driving technological development forward.

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