Aside from the obvious analog that your neighbors wifi is literally a light you cannot see, if they aren't maxing out their bandwidth, then it makes similarly no difference that you use it.
It's not 10 years ago, the neighborhood using your router for Facebook doesn't dent the bandwidth.
So how is it not comparable to stray light?
That is a big assumption right there. The neighborhood streaming 4k cat videos from youtube could make a massive dent, and I can easily use all the bandwidth I have for my own needs.
That's before we consider the potential consequences of them "borrowing" my IP address and all. Of course it's on me to keep my network secure so I don't let that happen, but in theory they could find the next vulnerability that lets them in.
The analogy is only in the contextually relevant case of a limited resource and the consumption.
The juxtaposition of individual vs collectivism, and the inevitable tragedy of the commons, was the relevance.
Of course, any technical analogy on HN gets pedantically deconstructed into atomic trivialness.
Anywho - if you don't broadcast your SSID, or, even less dismissively, don't Faraday cage your house, then anyone interacting with the electromagnetic field that you haphazardly allow to escape the privacy of your residence is within their rights to do so.
Are you seriously arguing that anyone is allowed to tamper with your mobile phone signal as long as you're at home and they're outside the walls?
You are allowed to broadcast a cell phone tower signal and MiTM the connection.
You are not forcing others to connect to your signal.
The spirit of this freedom is even emblazoned on every compliant device, look for the FCC warning.
As for jamming, that is entirely unrelated, not comparable, and illegal. It would be akin to blaring loud music and lights.
You seem to have an insufficient understanding of how wireless communication protocols work, in particular the 'communication' aspect. Simply detecting the signal would not allow you to use the WiFi network. You would have to establish a connection with the access point and actively and continuously exchange information with it, thereby directly using its resources.
This is not the same as coming across a fallen coin in the street, or reading by ambient light emitted by someone else's candle
If it wasn't, you wouldn't be given any extra photons to bounce off the book and into your eyes, and wouldn't know of the candle across the street, since the photons were "insufficient" to make themselves known to you.
Again, pedantically deconstructing a technical analogy to dismiss it on its merits is going to be hard when faced with a more pedantic pissant.
The point of the entire exercise is to acknowledge the collective vs individual contributions to the emergent tragedy of the commons.
Wrong. You don't emit photons
> Picking up a fallen coin is displacing localized complexity.
That's a meaningless statement
> Again, pedantically deconstructing a technical analogy to dismiss it on its merits is going to be hard when faced with a more pedantic pissant.
It's an analogy that doesn't work, picking apart the differences is revealing
> The point of the entire exercise is to acknowledge the collective vs individual contributions to the emergent tragedy of the commons.
Another meaningless statement