The analogy is only in the contextually relevant case of a limited resource and the consumption.
The juxtaposition of individual vs collectivism, and the inevitable tragedy of the commons, was the relevance.
Of course, any technical analogy on HN gets pedantically deconstructed into atomic trivialness.
Anywho - if you don't broadcast your SSID, or, even less dismissively, don't Faraday cage your house, then anyone interacting with the electromagnetic field that you haphazardly allow to escape the privacy of your residence is within their rights to do so.
> anyone interacting with the electromagnetic field that you haphazardly allow to escape the privacy of your residence is within their rights to do so
You seem to have an insufficient understanding of how wireless communication protocols work, in particular the 'communication' aspect. Simply detecting the signal would not allow you to use the WiFi network. You would have to establish a connection with the access point and actively and continuously exchange information with it, thereby directly using its resources.
This is not the same as coming across a fallen coin in the street, or reading by ambient light emitted by someone else's candle
Reading by the ambient light emitted is constantly exchanging photons, which is information communication. Picking up a fallen coin is displacing localized complexity.
If it wasn't, you wouldn't be given any extra photons to bounce off the book and into your eyes, and wouldn't know of the candle across the street, since the photons were "insufficient" to make themselves known to you.
Again, pedantically deconstructing a technical analogy to dismiss it on its merits is going to be hard when faced with a more pedantic pissant.
The point of the entire exercise is to acknowledge the collective vs individual contributions to the emergent tragedy of the commons.
> Anywho - if you don't broadcast your SSID, or, even less dismissively, don't Faraday cage your house, then anyone interacting with the electromagnetic field that you haphazardly allow to escape the privacy of your residence is within their rights to do so.
Are you seriously arguing that anyone is allowed to tamper with your mobile phone signal as long as you're at home and they're outside the walls?
The analogy is only in the contextually relevant case of a limited resource and the consumption.
The juxtaposition of individual vs collectivism, and the inevitable tragedy of the commons, was the relevance.
Of course, any technical analogy on HN gets pedantically deconstructed into atomic trivialness.
Anywho - if you don't broadcast your SSID, or, even less dismissively, don't Faraday cage your house, then anyone interacting with the electromagnetic field that you haphazardly allow to escape the privacy of your residence is within their rights to do so.