Actually the purveyors of this “magic box” never use the word stealing. Instead, choice words like open, freeloading and my personal favorite, canalized are used. Hey, whatever keeps the po-po’s away right? The Slurpr is a home made concoction by two friends who noticed tons of unprotected WiFi signals floating around Amsterdam. Individually, they offer meager connection speeds but the Slurpr unscrupulously finds them all and combines them to make one ultra-mega connection.
Now the duo are totally aware of the legal consequences but since they live in the EU, who cares! They plan on selling the box for 999 EURO which is a little over 1,000 US. They’re taking pre-orders now.
via Nextlust
I'm living near Amsterdam and just read about it online. Anyhow Dutch/EU rules are a bit strict. A while back we had a so called "wardriver" driving trough Holland in a white van checking for unsecured Wireless networks to login an check his e-mail etc etc. The police found out (a white van with appearing everywhere in Holland with a man constantly working on a notebook will be noticed at a certain point) so they arrested him as a "potential terrorist" and sued him for illegal access to "unsecured" wireless networks. Never heard of it again, but at the time it caused a little stir down here with the local media.
Anyway i think logging in to a unsecured wifi network for just checking your e-mail and a bit surfing ain't a problem. But when you start cracking and downloading illegal stuff (not talking all RIAA with a illegal .mp3 file from bittorrent but more like the real illegal stuff setting up bot networks etc.)... Then I think the authorities have a case.
As someone who just spent a lot of money in Europe, 999 euros is quite a bit more than just over 1000 US. according to google, it's more like $1343. I normally wouldn't bother correcting someone over this, but as a person who originally figured spending 8 euros for drinks wasn't that bad, I feel I need to spread the word to other fools like me.