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Hold on a second
If I steal a car I deprive the owner of its use. If I am on my neighbors wireless, he can still use it. The whole neighborhood can probably use it without depriving him of its use. The only person that is being deprived is the internet service provider losing out on fees.
RE: It's interesting to see this..
Ethical norms do not always hold up.
1. If Ethical norms do not hold up, then they're not 'norms'. You can't say it's not unethical to do 'X' if 'Y' condition exists. That's ethical relativism, and you might as throw ethics out the windows. The consequences of an action are irrelevant--it's the action itself that determines ethical/unethical behavior.
2. A lack of absolutes is exactly why we have drive-by shootings. We're teaching our children than ethics apply differently to different situations; and that's just pure garbage. Drive-by's happen merely because someone 'disrespected' another person--and the shooting is considered to be a perfectly ethical reaction given the circumstance.
The belief that ethics are relative (or situational) is the true slippery slope.
As to your smoking comment, actually there is proof; there is an excerpt here that references the conclusion of a study here that you have pay to read.
As to the 'consequences' of using someone's wireless--you're using bandwidth aren't you? depriving them of the full use of what they have paid for--just as in taking the car.
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RE: It's interesting to see this..
Here's where your argument is weak:
1.) That's a completely false analogy. Stealing a car is not equivalent to using someone else's unsecured wireless connection:
Ethical norms do not always hold up. For example, stealing can be justified in extreme cases, e.g. if you need to rush someone to the hospital who would likely die if you didn't steal the car next to you.
Thus, you have to account for the consequences of the action.
The consequences of using someone else's wireless connection are not nearly as drastic as those of stealing a car.
2.) Even if you were to have a point about the lack of absolutes or ethical norms, making use of unsecured wireless has nothing to do with drive-by shootings either:
That's what we call a slippery slope. It's like saying that smoking cigarettes leads to heroine use. And not only is that on the extreme end of unlikelihood, it's also just plain annoying.
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