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From: Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: TV Judge Issues Restraining Order; Threatens Arrest Warrant
Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2024 19:35:45 -0400
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On Mon, 08 Apr 2024 22:14:45 +0000
BTR1701 <no_email@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> This case is amazing at all levels.
> 
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0LMEL6_b15o
> 
> First, we have a guy suing his neighbor because she
> password-protected her wi-fi signal, which he had been leeching off
> for free, claiming he's entitled to it because the wi-fi waves are in
> the air which belongs to everyone.
> 
When I was doing DSL support, I once took a call from a guy who needed
help configuring his new router. That was a very routine call but when
we got to the part of setting a password, he said he didn't want to
encrypt his signal. I warned him that he was opening himself up to
neighbours stealing his WiFi and that stealing WiFi was a felony in
some jurisdictions. He said he already knew that because he was a
police officer and that it was a class D felony (I think that's the
specific class he cited) in his state, which I believe was
California. I finished helping him configure his router without
encrypting the signal. I think he was the ONLY customer I ever had that
wanted his signal unencrypted in nearly 4 years!

As for this notion that your neighbour's WiFi should be free:
poppycock! The neighbour whose WiFi you're using is paying his Internet
provider for his service and there's a pretty good chance that he can
go over his quota of bandwidth because you're using a good chunk of it,
he'll be paying more. And if he happens to doing something illegal,
like downloading child porn, the police are going to show up at YOUR
door, not his!

> Then we have a judge who, in rightly ruling against the guy, also
> decides to issue a restraining order against him from contacting his
> neighbor and/or harassing her and warns him that if he violates the
> order, he (the judge) will issue a warrant and have the police pick
> him up and bring him back to court for further proceedings.
> 
Even that might be reasonable if he's actually harassing the neighbour
who is piggybacking off his WiFi.

> Except this is a TV judge. He's not a real judge and this is not a
> real courtroom. It's a TV set. The only power this judge has is to
> decide the monetary split the two parties agreed to in order to
> appear on the show. He can't issue retraining orders and he sure as
> hell can't issue warrants and have the police arrest anyone.
> 
And that's where the wheels fall off this whole thing. Is ANYTHING in
this anecdote real? Did someone actually steal WiFi? Did the crime go
to a real court? Obviously, the judge isn't real.

> Apparently he never actually was a judge in his prior life, either.
> His only previous claim to fame was as an actor playing a police
> captain in a YouTube show called SOUL SNACK.

My mother used to watch Judge Judy regularly and I remember watching
with her a couple of times. If I recall correctly, she was a real judge
and the disclaimer in every episode insisted that these were real cases
with real defendants and plaintiffs. It sounds like case you're
mentioning is one that has very little connection to reality. I suppose
it was made for people who just want to see "judges" scold people for
their actions without giving the proverbial rat's ass for whether the
case is real or the TV judgement reflected what happened in a real
courtroom. I'd stay away from any show like that but maybe that's just
me ;-)


-- 
Rhino