wifi warriors

[jimmy]

Gosh!
Two cautioned over using wifi without permission - I wonder how that is policed then? I've just been using some free wifi in the town centre to get online, and I'm using some wifi now at the in-laws house, but of course I jack into other peoples wifi without permission regularly.
Not using encryption should be seen as an open invitation really, and any level of encryption is a 'no thanks'.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/h...cs/6565079.stm

[MATTY]

me the same pipe, even my phones wifi ! if its there use it i say !!

[Brewer95]

I cant actually see how it can be policed as wifi opperates at 2.4Ghz which is classed as a deregulated band. So in theory it cant be policed as there are no regulations to police it by.

Please tell me if ive read things wrongly but I cant see how they can stop you recieving data from an open source on this frequency

[bigred5765]

its actually classed as electronic burglary,and you can be traced via your ip, and were your uploading to,websites etc, but it is very hard to catch people doing it, so why not, if you have no key more fool the person running the wifi

[DCM]

As much as I understand that in effect, this is theft, as you are not paying for the service, just leaching it, like someone jumping in the passenger seat of your car, cause the door is unlocked and you are going in their direction.

BUT....

Ignorance isn't an answer, and I do blame retailers a lot for this, in as much as they are not informing their customers of securing their wireless connection. When I was in staples looking for wi0fi and their computer 'expert' came over and I asked about encryption and security, he had to pick the box up to see....

So in the end, I do think it is up to the end user to ensure he/she has locked the door, so you can't just drop into their BB connection.

Another fun thing to do, sit on a bus/train, then set your bluetooth phone to scan for other phones, and you would be sooooo surprised how many are open and not pin activated.

[jimmy]

How is it burglary though if one person allows it and another doesn't ? There is no way of knowing that someone doesn't want you to jack into their wifi unless they password it. You can 'assume' that no one wants people to use their wifi, but maybe some don't mind. I think on a 20 minute drive I picked up around 360 wifi hot spots on the way home - about half protected, the rest either university, homes, businesses and gratis ones (installed to be free for everyone).

I can sit in the bar waiting for my food and connect to their free wifi - or I can accidentally click on the business/home next door with open wifi, or indeed my laptop can connect by itself to either when I turn it on. One is legal, the other is 'Illegal'? Ludicrous beyond words.

[telboy]

its like internet squating isn't it.

you leave your front door open and the next thing, you've got a load of hippies in your living room without your permission.

to be honest, if you fool enough not to have it protected then tufffff.

......mine is!
I know I don't want someone else using a service that I pay for, for their own gratification!

[DCM]

But I don't think people 'knowingly' leave access open, more ignorance, then, if they got a bandwidth limitation on their BB, they wonder why they get capped as they exceed it doing emails.

It is an extreme 'Grey' area, and Wi-Fi manufacturers should sell the units in a 'secure' state but give the option for them to be made open, rather than open with the option of locking. But then it would make the process of setting up longer, and garaunteed to overload their Tech Support.

We all know, leave the front door open people will come in and take things, but for most, computers are black magic.

[bigred5765]

Originally Posted by jimmy

How is it burglary though if one person allows it and another doesn't ? There is no way of knowing that someone doesn't want you to jack into their wifi unless they password it. You can 'assume' that no one wants people to use their wifi, but maybe some don't mind. I think on a 20 minute drive I picked up around 360 wifi hot spots on the way home - about half protected, the rest either university, homes, businesses and gratis ones (installed to be free for everyone).

I can sit in the bar waiting for my food and connect to their free wifi - or I can accidentally click on the business/home next door with open wifi, or indeed my laptop can connect by itself to either when I turn it on. One is legal, the other is 'Illegal'? Ludicrous beyond words.

officially your only allowed to use recognised and registered wifi spots that are registered as free wifi hot stops or pay for wifi hot spots,thats like saying the door was open so i walked in and took a look around,but I'm not poo pooing the idea, your own daft fault if u ask me,no encryption key,don't complain about it being high jacked,

[DCM]

true, most are ignorant to the fact of leaching and security

[jimmy]

That about only using official registered wifi spots is frankly bollocks... There is no official register of free hot spots.. I can allow people (any one I like) to use my wifi, and there is nothing stopping me - apart from the broadband contract might not allow it.
There are people who share and enjoy their wifi, do to others as you'd have them do to you. I've used other peoples wifi without them knowing - but so does that kid waiting at the bus stop with their PSP, surfing the net on their neighbours wifi. Hardly a criminal offence, and hardly comparable to going into anyones home.


The only way you can compare it to going into someones home is to say the home in question had a HUGE sign above the open door - 'please come in'. And then once inside, a bouncer tells you to get out because even though you were allowed in, they don't like your face and you aren't welcome.

After all, anyone with an open wifi might well be sharing it with their neighbours or friends - against the terms and conditions of their agreement and equally naughty. They might not want strangers using it, but that's what passwords are for.

Why should it default to 'everyone is stupid' - I prefer to assume that everyone is generous.

[budgio]

Having no encryption on your wifi is like having a water tap outside your home with a sign saying
"have a drink on me...i,m paying"

but if you are on a meter you are screwed


Ive passworded mine with WEP but even that can be haxxored quite easily these days

[Andrew Simpson]

the way i see it, its your opwn fault if your wifi isnt encrytped, my home one is, but i regularly use other peoples at friends houses

[jimmy]

yeah, hacking something is clearly naughty- offering it on a plate with side order of fries is a no brainer..

I won't go as far to say its a victim less crime, because I don't believe it's a crime in the first place. Maybe 'mischief' is a good description. Possibly even tomfoolery!

[DCM]

It is a harmless 'crime', what bothers me though, is you could realy be unscrupulous and get into the computers on their network with a little work, and they would be none the wiser. Ignorance isn't defence, but people are ignorant when it comes to computers and what they are bleeding into the airways. I might go wireless in the next 12 months, mainly cause I can't be arsed to route in some cat5 cable...

[jimmy]

The wifi were talking about here has no computer involvement - its a wireless router and there is no contact with their computer system at all.
Hacking computers is a whole different issue. I don't think most reasonable people would be even using their computers when I'm driving around trying to upload a race report .

[burgie]

Originally Posted by DCM

It is a harmless 'crime', what bothers me though, is you could realy be unscrupulous and get into the computers on their network with a little work, and they would be none the wiser. Ignorance isn't defence, but people are ignorant when it comes to computers and what they are bleeding into the airways. I might go wireless in the next 12 months, mainly cause I can't be arsed to route in some cat5 cable...

It isn't a harmless crime.

What happens when the local "paedo" sits outside somebodies house, (they may even be someones neighbour) and downloads a bucket load of kiddie porn? The Police will come a knocking on the door of the person who pays for the broadband - after all it is their IP address that will be registered as downloading the porn. (The Laptop in the street doesn't have an IP address - it gets that from the wireless router). And then the "innocent" party has their PC removed for "examination" and their name is smeared acroos the local papers, they are thrown out of work and possibly their house when the local boys decide to exact their own type of justice.

OK, it's a slightly extreme example, but it not beyond the realms of possibility. And it certainly isn't a "harmless crime" just ask the person who has had their life destroyed by a wireless leach.

I agree however, that the owner of the wi-fi connection should make it secure, and if they made it secure it would be harder to hack - indeed the average wireless leacher wouldn't bother to hack it - they would look for an easier connection. I also agree that securing the wireless network should be automatically done during the configuration of the router/pc link up. If Sky can use encrypment that is purportedly stronger than "military grade security" just so people can't nick their channels, the likes of Netgear can put a simpler automatic encryption onto their setup routines, so the user doesn't have to encrypt it. The option should be to have the network "open" rather than "locked"

I think that the police are in a no-win situation with this too. After all, they are under resourced, over stretched, not spending enough time on the streets, and all they do is stop honest people like us for speeding -they should catch "real" criminals - the drug dealers, the house thieves, the car thieves, the muggers, the kiddie fiddlers....oh, hang on a mo - if they police wireless leachers, one of those they catch might just be a kiddie fiddler....

To me, it's simple. Somebody is paying for a service and somebody else is taking advantage of it. The person taking advantage of that "paid for" service is in the wrong.

If it's not yours, don't take it. Dead simple.

Just my tuppence worth.

[andys]

Burgie.

I totally agree.
It's not as simple as saying people are 'stupid' because they have not protected their systems. Most PC users don't have a clue about stuff like this, it's hard enough for them to actually get connected on-line, let alone set up protection on their wirelss.

I work in IT (kind off) and I had my wireless totaly open for around 2 years, basically until the day I saw another wireless device in our street, that prompted me to set up the encryption etc, but it was far from straightforward on my early generation wireless router. So please don't blame the users, they aren't stupid, the manufacturers should make this stuff much simpler and show how to sort it clearly. Telling my dad to type in an IP address into IE, then enter a username and password to get into a router configuration screen that looks totally alien to him is a complete waste of time !

Jim, I know where your coming from, and were all glad you do find wi-fi spots to upload stuff, it's the people who do stuff that could be bad that worries me.

[DCM]

Personaly, I don't have a problem with it, if someone is ignorant, so be it, their loss, someone elses gain.

[andys]

So DCM.

If your not IT literate, then your Ignorant ? Interesting.... I think you'll find posting comments like that is in fact closer to the true definition of ignorant.

Shame we aren't all as IT savy as you eh ?