Reading about FON handing out free wireless home gateway boxes, which just happen to act as public access hotspots at the same time, I noticed this comment from one US ISP:

“People need to know that sharing their broadband service amounts to theft,” says Time Warner cable spokesperson Maureen Huff.

More misuse of the word “theft.” Of course, Time Warner is also one of the companies that is screaming theft for other things. That’s not to say it is not wrong. It is almost certainly a violation of the terms of service that the company requires you to agree to before providing service. I’m not a lawyer (thankfully), but I don’t think that’s theft. Sounds more like a contract violation.

I have a FON AP, but it is running on our office network. It is one of several that we have at work in fact. The new La Fonera boxes are also very small. The switch from the Linksys WRT54GL to an Atheros based design of their own allows them to offer virtual APs, so the box has the unencrypted public access network, and a second private wireless network that comes configured for WPA-Personal.