Sharing other peoples’ WiFi internet connections is nothing new. Most people with a laptop will happily logon to any available network they can when they are out and about, some will even utilize a neighbors WiFi connection instead of paying for their own internet service. While there are a good number of free WiFi connections springing up all over the country, they usually have some form of terms of service to use them. This is rarely enforced and even harder to prosecute, until now. A young man in a small Alaskan town may be facing a large fine and possibly jail time for using his library’s free internet connection.

A Palmer man has been waiting to see if he’ll be charged with criminal wrongdoing after a patrolling police officer seized the laptop he was using to play online video games in the parking lot.

If a business is going to put a public WiFi connection online, they should secure it. This is a unique case though, as libraries are usually financed by taxes, therefore making them a place where the general public can use and utilize their serves. Clearly this young man wasn’t trying to get any sort of higher education by using the internet connection to play games, but what if he was? Would that have made it ok?

Source United Press International.

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