News Lincolnshire boy arrested over WiFi theft

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/10/31/lincolnshire-boy-arrested-over-wifi-theft/1

A boy in Lincolnshire was recently arrested over accusations that he had 'stolen' a neighbour's WiFi connection using his laptop computer.

 

It is up to network owners to secure their own equipment, as it is up to the owner of a car to secure that before they leave. I also have a hard time understanding why the police acted at all, surely this is a matter for the lawyers to sort out...

 

The police should have just issued a warning.

 

Hahaha you are kidding me I live in Lincoln and not heard of this yet

 

meh, I don't know. I don't know how it works in the UK but here in Italy when a provider connects you to the internet they never set your wireless access point with any encryption whatsoever. How the hell is my Mom supposed to know how to enter the access point web server and enable the encryption ? As a consequence nearly every place here in Rome is full of default SSID names of unencrypted wireless. Again, how the hell is my Mom supposed to know which network her laptop is connected to ?

They should start using access points with hardware encryption that can not be disabled or something like that.

PS I did encrypt my Mom access point.

 

I agree, if you don't secure your WiFi then its your own fault if it gets hijacked and I don't believe it should be considered a criminal offence. How many times do we hear about either a burgalry or car crime because of a house or car being left unlocked and the insurance companies say "sorry mate if you left it unlocked then its your fault, you're not covered". An unsecured network is the same thing as far as I'm concerned

If you ask Windows to search for available networks then it will show all it can detect and if one pops up as available and unsecured can we all honestly say that we wouldn't be tempted to try it?

 

If you run an unencrypted wireless network and someone uses it then the responsibility and cost for pursuit of legal action should rest on you. If your network is secured properly and you find out someone has hacked it, then it's probably time to involve the police as it might not just be you that is being attacked.

 

Wireless hardware should come set up with at least wpa.

 

If he accessed the the router and disabled encryption on it, then yes, book him.
If the network was never secured I'd be more inclined to charge the owners of the router than the guy accessing it 'illegally'.

 

I live in lincolnshire aswell and i never heard about the story? One of my neighbours has an unsecured network, and depending on where i am in MY flat Windows does sometimes connect to theres instead of mine!

 

Not sure how easy this would be to achieve.
It would be simple to have a wizard that prompts you to set it up though, its not rocket science.
And anything less than WPA with a strong password (WEP, MAC filtering, hiding SSID etc) is useless for security anyway.

 

Sorry. Sorry...

I've learnt my lesson.

In all seriousness though, if someone is allowed to enter your house legally as long as they don't break and enter, it should not be a crime to use someones WiFI, unless they needed to do some code cracking first....

 

Lincolnshire, IL? I probably know him. :O

 

If my neighbour comes into my home, puts down a plate of chocolates, then leaves with no word, no note, or not covering telling me not to touch them, then I log into my PC and it tells me "there's chocolate over there if you want to have one".

Hell yea I'd eat it.

 

in this day and age its so easy for anyone to set up a password. if you leave the network open, you should expect people to use it. if you dont want them to, add a password.

 

Why the hell were the Police called-in anyway? If someone gets on my WIFi, I'll change the encryption, kick them out & carry on. Job done. If they carry-on hacking, I'll carry on reconfiguring. They'll soon find something easier & more rewarding to do. In this case it seems an unencrypted system was running & the boy selected it by mistake.

 

Here in the states there is no law for usings someone's wifi connect (GREY AREA). It only becomes an issue if you hack, alter, damage etc their system and/or equipment. So basicly if you wanted to browse the web with someone elses internet there is no violation of the law. I need to dig up an article I read a few months back about the US and the internet.

Heres one: http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/08/technology/personaltech/internet_piracy/index.htm

 

All routers I've seen/used come with a setup utility that the manual says to run, which, if you complete it, asks you to set a password for your router. Most people don't bother with it and just leave their router unencrypted.

Honestly, even if someone does something bad with your wifi.. if you left it unencrypted, then it's your own fault. It's like saying "Well, I left my front door open and someone came in to my house, that *******!"