There was a storm here a few days ago and ever since then my Shaw modem hasn't worked. I've been waiting to see if maybe it would wake up, but nothing has happened. I phoned Shaw and they said it's likely shot and that they'd just give me a new one to replace it. In the meantime I've noticed that there is at least two wireless networks that I can get access to from pretty much anywhere in my house so I haven't really missed the internet that we have right now.
Which begs the question: Why not freeload off of some other person who hasn't figured out how to lock down their network? Saves me $30/month and they probably won't notice much of a performance hit for the amount I use (except when I download torrents of 'The Daily Show').
My main issue, aside from the fact that I think it's probably in the grey area of stealing, is that potentially someone around me could actually know what they are doing and are leaving their network open in the hopes that someone will use it to access their banking/secure information and thereby leave a trail for them to try and 'hack' in. A bit far fetched to be sure, but entirely possible since everything I'm doing would be going over their network - including this entry.
As tempting as it might be, I think I'll just get our modem replaced and go back to using my own network. Maybe I'm just yella.
