Man Charged With Stealing Wi-Fi Signal http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/07/07/wi.fi.theft.ap/index.html Thursday, July 7, 2005; Posted: 11:23 a.m. EDT (15:23 GMT) ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (AP) -- Police have arrested a man for using someone else's wireless Internet network in one of the first criminal cases involving this fairly common practice. Benjamin Smith III, 41, faces a pretrial hearing this month following his April arrest on charges of unauthorized access to a computer network, a third-degree felony. Police say Smith admitted using the Wi-Fi signal from the home of Richard Dinon, who had noticed Smith sitting in an SUV outside Dinon's house using a laptop computer. ~ Thoughts? I'll bet this act becomes prevalent throughout the world as home WiFi expands... but is it a crime? IntheNet
I think there was a Wired article a while back that explored the legalities of using your neighbors WiFi and the conclusion was that there wasn't a law against it. Personally, if you're not encrypting your network, you're basically asking your neighbors to use your internet. They should be glad they didn't get hacked into. BTW, as I type here, there are 5 available wireless networks. Only mine is password protected. God bless you, Netgear, Belkin54g, Linksys and Apple Network 8a79s5.
As I understand it, with the routers and receivers, it is possible indeed probable that home and business WiFi use opens up personal internet connections to others who have a WiFi equipped computer and the signal strays from your property... sort of like receiving a radio signal... I question the criminality of the act if your signal strays from your property; thus if your neighbor can access your WiFi signal, how in the world could that be considered a crime?
Yes...that would be a crime! That is not a good analogy however... if you have WiFi and the signal strays away from your property, into your neighbor's property, shouldn't he/she be able to use it? A slightly better analogy would be: If it is a hot summer day and the shade from the tree in your yard strays into yoru neighbor's yard, should he/she be able to rest in the shade of your tree, without paying for it?
Granted the guy was acting like a total tool, a felony charge is a bit harsh. I have a wireless bridge that I use for my MythTV box. When I was setting it up I could of logged onto 6 networks in the area all with the name 'linksys'. Most people don't a friggin clue when it comes to computers and wireless networks.
Followed by an even worse analogy. Shade isn't paid for the last time I checked, and if you're paying for it you're getting taken. I agree with Skip that if you don't have your wireless encrypted then your asking for it, and there are no laws against it. That being said, it doesn't mean it's right. This reminds me that I have to double check that when my roomate reset our wireless router that he changed the name and put a password on it.
I don't know about the keys laying on the seat. But if the keys are in the ignition and running and you're not there, that is also a crime against you in a lot of states.
I had no idea it was a illegal. I have the option to jump on three networks were I live. I have password to protect against this type of stuff.
It's not that hard to crack WEP. Check these out: http://fromtheshadows.tv/r.php?r=3 Original articles from the WEP cracking segment: http://www.tomsnetworking.com/Sections-article118.php http://www.tomsnetworking.com/Sections-article120.php
if not many people may bother password-protect their wireless network, only a selected few would bother cracking wep and that would be a crime
Have to say that since the guy was driving around and using his laptop to find these signals to connect that he is committing a crime. He is actively looking for a signal to steal. Bottom line is he is taking free service from someone who is paying for that service. I say the guy should have to pay for this other persons service for a year. Nice punishment and keeps the other guy out of jail.
Just accessing a signal to gain access to surfing the net ought to be a minor penalty. However, this guy was parked in a car outside the residence. That doesn't seem like casual access. As the article stated this access can be used to transfer illegal porn anonymously or send threats. It could also be used to access the other computers on the network and thereby gain personal and financial information. All of these are easily felony events. Maybe because the nature of this access was so suspicious was why they came down hard on this man. I think the DA ought to have the option to give a heavy charge and hopefully use it at his discretion for cases in which the violator may have more nefarious plans. So there ought to be penalties, but they should depend on the intent of the defendant.
Out of curiosity what does it mean if I scan for available wireless networks and mine doesn't appear but others that are labled "encrypted" do? *My network is encrypted, I'm just curious.
hey guys... so i just set up a dlink wireless router and all right... well it isn't encrypted and i would like to encrypt it. can someone forward me to a step by step process on how to do it or is it so easy where i can be taught through a reply to this post? thanks for reading this at least. some info: i have a dlink router hooked up and i have apple computers accessing the wireless signals.
Actually, someone doing this would be a good idea. I've been trying to explain te process to a friend setting hers up, but I kind of lucked into my setup and haven't been able to adaquately explain it to her so as to actually make it work.
login to your router via computer d-link router ip is 192.168.0.1, check your manual login (unless you changed it): admin password (unless you changed it): there should be a 'wireless' tab +choose a name for your network +++save settings +++++go back into the 'wireless tab' and look for a 'security' sub-tab +++++++you should be able to choose WEP or WPA (more secure) +++++++++enter password (write it down just in case) +++++++++++save settings *you can also hid your network id, but it can also hinder the connectivity* *you can also address your router to host only MAC address (airport id) certified on a list* with your Mac click on the airport icon, find you network (or type it in manually if you hide the network), enter password (if you have tiger it should save it in your list of networks, I think in panther you have to check the save box) edit: I haven't gotten WPA to work with Tiger so I'm not quite sure how to set it up. I'm going to research it later tonight
Another thing to remember is that if you leave your wireless network unencrypted, anyone can easily come in and change your settings. Some mischievous/helpful types will actually change the name of your network to something vulgar so you will know your network was hacked into. --- When I moved into my current apartment and didn't have DSL hooked up, I used my Airport station as a remote station for my neighbor's wireless since the signal wasn't strong enough. I also updated my neighbor's base station firmware since it hadn't been updated in like 2 years.
We were talking about this in my MCSE Class today, we took the instructors labtop with his wireless nic and connected to 3 different networks in our building alone. Security, gotta use it.
here I have to agree that he got it so hard because of the fact that he was running around in his SUV looking for signals, I mean if it spills into your house, I guess it your call whether or not to use it, unless they are monoring for the source, and I doubt they are because if they were it would be encrypted in the first place, they won't know you're using their signal. I guess one better example would be like if your neighbor is playing music loud, and you're able to hear it, is it a crime for you to listen to it? I mean it is your neighbor's music, and if you do listen to it, your getting free entertainment, right? the only difference here would be that unlike using your neighbors internet signal, you cannot use his/her stereo to listen to your favorite music, unlike his/hers internet signal where you can use it to surf to your favorite sites, independently of what sites he/she is surfing too. It comes down to what screcrow said, you, because the wireless routers are equipped with security for this reason, and if you decide not to use it its basically you're fault. Because if you leave your house unlocked, sooner or later a thief will get in.... at any given time, I pick up 4 to 5 signals on my laptop, not counting mine, all my neighbors seem to have wireless, and if I wanted to I could probably stop paying my service and use theirs and I would be fine, but I'm not again cause of my ethics.
I think the an argument one can make against this analogy is that freeloaders can slow down your connection. Usually, the effect is negligible, but if someone is uploading a huge file on your network, you're going to notice the difference. But yeah, people should at least take the simple step of encrypting the network and changing the name to something other than NETGEAR. Same here (well, except for the first couple of weeks in my apartment). And whoever I was mooching off finally decided to put a password on the base station (but not the network).
Ok, so due to some technical problems I had to reset my (Linksys) router last night. After reencrypting I found that I couldn't reconnect to the signal, and I can't figure out why. I ended up just removing the encryption and connecting without it for the night. The name is changed and hidden from view so I'm guessing that I'm relatively safe for the moment (firewall up as well). Anyone have any ideas what happened to me?