#1 The illegality is self-evident. These are unsecured wireless signals that someone else is paying for. You have no legal rights to be ‘on them’ at all, other than the age-old argument that you are not guilty if your neighbour’s garden sprinkler system sprays water into your garden.
Strictly speaking that scenario is not breaking the law, but if you then deliberately interfere with the spray from another adjacent neighbour, you have then made a conscious effort to gain from the work (and costs) of another.
#2 From a technical point of view: the entire basis of internet communication is based on the principle of Packet technology. Your computer sends information in tiny little blips of data (Packets) and these blips shoot off into the ether (whether wireless or wired, the technique is the same).
Each Packet has your ID attached to it so that when it arrives at the other end it can be identified as to where it has come from. The ID of the Packet is then further used for any replies that are generated as a result of the initial receipt. Out on the information highway, in between each of your Packets are other packets, belonging to other users worldwide, with other different address IDs, all coming and going from other computers.
However, any reply cannot occur until all requisite packets (components) have been received – the packets are re-assembled at the far end into a complete communication.
The process then happens all over again but in reverse – the packets are all sent back to you and re-assembled after they’ve all been received. [b]These Packets are broken down, sent out then re-assembled is fractions of microseconds and all rely on a computer-cognitive form of communication[/b]
Now – if you imagine introducing a SECOND wireless signal into this mix, you are not simply using two signals in order to double your speed capability. You are actually quadrupling the possibility of [b]Data Error[/b]
Since no comms instructions are invoked until ALL packets have been received (if a packet is missing from the mix, the other packets are held until the missing packet has been re-requested and then re-sent), any increased difficulty in identifying WHERE a Packet has originated from, will inevitably SLOW the entire process down, NOT SPEED IT UP.
Your computer would also slow down because its hardware would have to scan for more than one radio frequency simultaneously.
As I have (hopefully) already pointed out, there is no guarantee in which order Packets are received, so your computer would easily become confused by you doubling the possible wireless frequencies being used for both despatch and receipt – as would the computers at the far end of the chain, because they’d be receiving data from two different IP addresses that belong to the 2 different signals, NEITHER OF WHICH YOU LEGALLY OWN.
Get your own wireless IP and live an altogether easier life. If you secure your own legal wireless signal you might be surprised how much FASTER it is, mainly because no-one else is stealing your bandwidth!!!
Don’t forget – by using someone else’s wireless signal, you are not getting the full speed of that connection – you are only getting the space in between all the Packets that the legal owner is sending/receiving. THAT is why you are trying to increase the speed. 😉