I've discussed, with many of you here and offline, the complicated legal and moral debate surrounding so-called Wi-Fi leeching, or the use of another person's wireless signal without permission. While many see borrowing someone else's openly broadcast wireless signal as a crime, others find it a victimless one at worst, amounting to something about as heinous as throwing an apple core into someone else's trash.

The state of Maryland is becoming one of the first states, if not the first state, to side with the latter viewpoint. Its state Judiciary Committee has reported "unfavorably" on a bill that would officially criminalize Wi-Fi hitchhiking, subjecting violators to punishments ranging from a $1,000 fine to three years in jail. If the access point is password-protected, the punishments could hit $10,000 and ten years in jail. Ten years in the slammer for using another person's router! Yow!

Numerous cases of unauthorized Wi-Fi use have hit the court systems in recent years, with generally low penalties. In Michigan, a man who was using a cafe's Wi-Fi signal from his car was ultimately fined $400 and given 40 hours of community service to work off his transgression. (Michigan law allowed for up to a $10,000 fine and five years in prison.) Similar cases have typically resulted in similar sentences, with sub-$1,000 fines and no jail time actually served. But in virtually all of them, the "intruders" are indeed found guilty of some crime in the end.

As a curious side note, Ars Technica notes that the Maryland bill was the brainchild of LeRoy E. Myers, a legislative Delegate who came up with the idea... after a neighbor used his network without permission, because he'd never bothered to set up security for it. His solution was not simply to turn on WPA, but instead to try to write a law to turn his neighbor into a criminal. Epic fail!