The Internet Connection That Wouldn't Die

[Uncle Dick]

Something really weird happened today...

I have one cable modem and two computers. The modem is directly attached to the "main" computer (hereafter known as "the G4") which then uses a wireless Airport card (802.11b) to share the connection with the other one (a.k.a. The iMac).

Theoretically, anyone within a 150 foot radius of my room who has an 802.11b card in their computer can leech off of my connection, not unlike a wireless "hotspot" at a Starbuck's coffee house, but, since I live in a lightly populated area of town, I never gave it a second thought... until today.

I had disconnected the cable modem from my G4 to free the ethernet port for some file-transfers I had to do with a crossover cable, effectively severing the internet connection to the iMac. Problem was, the connection wasn't severed.

When the wireless internet link from my G4 was cut off, the iMac searched for and found another wireless internet broadcast somewhere out there. So, for the past two hours or so, I have been happily connected to the internet by way of someone else's bandwidth.

There are only two or three other houses in range of my computer and the area I live in isn't what I would consider "tech-heavy," but somehow, some way, I've managed to find someone else with a home networking setup almost identical to my own.

Two questions for anyone who's made it this far:
1) Has this ever happened to you?

2) Is it ethical to leech off of an anonymous wireless broadcast like this?