Bandwidth Bandit Gets Jail Time
wow... this article caught my eye today... a 17 yr old kid has admitted to using his neighbour's unsecured wireless internet access... and as a result, he could face up to 3 years of jail time... he has also agreed to sign up for early national service to 'reduce' his sentence... this is just plain ridiculous on several grounds..
a) if the offence is sufficiently severe to warrant 3 years of jail time, it doesn't make sense to allow a person to swap out his jail time with national service... it just makes a mockery of the system... it makes NS seem like mandatory jail time for all s'porean males... i wonder how that makes all my s'porean friends here feel... if it's not that severe, then the jail time doesn't seem as appropriate anymore...
b) it's one thing to punish a person who hacks into a secured wireless network in order to 'steal' your bandwidth and it's quite another thing to punish a person who does it when the owner of the network doesn't even secure it... let's use an analogy... if you've left your door wide open, and a 17 yr old walks through the door, and breathes your air... you'd give him a sound trashing but you wouldn't charge him in court and sentence him to jail for up to 3 yrs...
c) it's a 17 yr old... a kid... trash the kid, whack the kid, scold the kid... it's just a kid... you don't go putting jail time and ruining a kids life for something as petty as that... stupid neighbour... i wonder how he/she feels about ruining someone else's life...
d) for people who say that this is like walking into the house and stealing something, it's not true... he has not deprived his neighbour of any property... the neighbour's internet connection is still there and still works... it's like breathing the oxygen in the neighbour's home... that's about it... seriously stupid...
e) and for the law to have jail time for such an offence is just plain stupid... it's not like he did anything evil... it is michevious but non evil... the kid should be made to pay a fine and maybe be asked to do some community service to teach him some lessons about responsibility.. but come one, jail time is just stupid...
this is s'pore for you...
3 comments:
wow.. i've been sneaking on my own neighbour's unsecure wireless for years! good thing i'm not in singapore..
heck, they didn't even let me sleep in the MRT station, forcing me to spend money on accomodation there. crap.
I know..I read the news too and I thought it was pretty harsh for the boy..Why did they have to bring such a small matter to court?? Its such a small dispute!
well, little chienfen. it is time to introduce you to the REAL world.. :P
but seriously, sometimes people just blow out of propotions the most nonsensical things.. singapore isn't the only case.. you can see it a lot in malaysia as well.
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