Man charged with stealing Wi-Fi signal

This is such a common occurance. I help people all the time that are connected to someone elses wireless network without even knowing it. I guess people have no idea how to set up their network key protection. I had one person that lost her wireless connection only after her neighbor moved, and she had been paying for her own for months. Is there more of this to come?

www.cnn.com...

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.



[edit on 7-7-2005 by valkeryie]

I don't think this is right... It's not thier fault that they end up on someone else's wireless signal. It's like someone watering thier lawn... Some of the water ends up on thier neighbor's lawn. Is the neighbor in some violation of the law? I don't think so!

there seems to be alot of questions of security of wifi that have not been cleared up, even though many people seemed to be moving to that system without researching how to protect themselves on there network

people just jump on new technologies without considering there may be flaws

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
I don't think this is right... It's not thier fault that they end up on someone else's wireless signal. It's like someone watering thier lawn... Some of the water ends up on thier neighbor's lawn. Is the neighbor in some violation of the law? I don't think so!

Actually, in a case like this it's not accidental. This is more akin to something like the neighbor hooking up a hose to your faucet. I know of a few people who do actively seek out a Wi-Fi connection in the manner mentioned in the article--drive around with your laptop and wait till it says you're connected. The one's I've heard of just do it to keep up with work while they're in the field, but like the article states, it can be used for illegal purposes.

If you have a wireless router for your laptop in your home, everytime you log on to the internet it's using the router's IP address, which is generally static. If someone drives by and snags your WiFi, then they download some kiddie porn or something, your IP address is getting logged and there's little you could do about it if they track it down. Kinda scary if you think about it.

Which is WHY you:

1) Rename the SSID & Turn OFF SSID broadcasting
2) Set WEP (encyption) to max possible
3) Create a user pc list with MAC addresses of all machines allowed internet access.

Most people just have no clue but it is sooooooo easy to do the above steps and be secure.