Wireless Hijacker Dealt First UK Punishment

paella_dodger writes "The BBC is reporting on a recent UK court case whereby a man was fined £500, sentenced to 12 months' conditional discharge and had his laptop confiscated for browsing the 'net on his neighbour's wireless Internet conenction. Perhaps I should secure my neighbour's wireless connection for him before Windows automagically connects to it and gets me arrested!"

Comments

In Perspective...

[md81544]

As has been mentioned on /. on several times before when this particular case came up, this guy didn't accidentally or "automagically" attach to his neighbour's wifi network: he sat outside their house, in his car, and acted very suspiciously when they walked past (e.g. snapping his laptop shut). He'd been doing this over a three month period. To my mind his punishment was more a result of his behaviour than mere connection to some idiot's wide open wireless network.

Re:In Perspective...

[bioteq]

Perhaps, but the same logic still applies; this guy was not just stealing it, he was making himself a target to be caught.

He is obviously not very smart, either, considering he was seen for the past three months in the same locations. That usualy means he was using the same network for the same deeds each time.

Honestly, I do not blame the UK government for going down on this guy; he deserves it. Especially since he was stupid enough to get caught the way he did. Sure, war driving is one thing, but blatently sitting infront of someone's home, leeching their network is a whole different case.

Sadly, this is just like what happened to the term "hacker" back in the day - it was idiots, like this guy, that ruined it for the real "hackers" out there; the script kiddies. Now, guys like this, and the other guy that got caught doing it, will give the term "war driving" a bad name. Hell, you mention "war driving" somewhere and people are going to start believing you're a "hacker" who uses "linux" to steal credit cards from them.

All in all, people should learn to secure their wireless networks. If they are unable to, or know nothing about the processes, they should be wired like the other drones. Or they should simply hire someone to secure it for them -- It's honestly not that difficult these days, especially with a linksys router. You simply type in a few things and click a coulpe check boxes and you're done. But this does prove that the common person, joe sixpack if you will, does not care enough about computer security to do anything until someone takes advantage of them. Then they cry foul.

Re:In Perspective...

[squiggleslash]

The wireless network was not "inviting" him to connect. The wireless network is not a sentient entity, still less one with the legal power to do so. At best, it might have been broadcasting a message saying "My owner welcomes complete strangers to this network", but as of yet there is no protocol within 802.11* for doing this.

Some geeks have attempted to hijack "There's no encryption on this node" or "My SSID is public and is..." to mean this, but given most WAPs are configured by default to have no encryption and to publically broadcast a SSID, and given both can be explained by many other reasons, this is simply legally non-sustainable as an argument.

Hiding a SSID in some ways is anti-social as it makes it more difficult for your neighbours to find your network if it interferes with their's. The lack of encryption is also a bad choice, I've come across wireless equipment that works "out of the box" but requires connection to a PC to configure any encryption features - adapters to put X-Boxes and PS2s on a wireless network generally work this way. Owners of such devices are very likely to want to use unsecured WAPs.

The wireless network would have been advertising its presense. This is a useful feature. But it wasn't "inviting anyone" any more than a door knob does.

Geeks need to get out of the habit of assuming that a default configuration amounts to "permission to use". It doesn't. Only permission to use is permission to use. The only surefire way to know if you have permission or not to use a network is to look for a publically posted notice, or to get written or oral permission from the network's owner. One day, 802.11* might have something added to make it easier to make it possible for a user to unambigiously give other's permission to use their networks (and that would be a useful feature anyway), but until then, look for notices, or talk to the operator. Don't assume.

Re:In Perspective...

[shellbeach]

Hiding a SSID in some ways is anti-social as it makes it more difficult for your neighbours to find your network if it interferes with their's.

What?!? All it does is remove the SSID information - you can still see that there's a network on a particular channel if you do a scan! You just can't connect to it ...

If you can't rely on SSID broadcasts, then how can anyone know when a network is public and when it's private? Perhaps, as you say, there needs to be a more unambiguous code for this ...

Geeks need to get out of the habit of assuming that a default configuration amounts to "permission to use". It doesn't. Only permission to use is permission to use.

Except that SSID broadcast without encryption has been assumed to be permission to use, by hardware manufacturers and even by certain OS software companies! Perhaps that's unfortunate, and perhaps it shouldn't be like that. I take your point, though, that there's no formal definition that a broadcast SSID equates to an open network, and that it's wrong to assume that that's so.

Re:In Perspective...

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

Of course there is. He did not merely "look" at wireless network. He connected to it and was using it. That's hijacking.

This is more like getting into an unlocked car and driving it around just because the owner left the keys in the ignition. Hardly fair or legal.

People leave their cars/houses unlocked. This doesn't mean it's perfectly acceptable to steal/rob them!

If I see a store with a sign labeled 'open' on the front of it, would you consider me a burglar if I walked into it without asking the shopkeeper first? If there's a bus sitting on the curb and the door is open, am I hijacking the bus if I just walk into it? If there's a house with a sign labeled "garage sale" out front am I tresspassing if I start wandering around the front yard looking at things sitting out?

The AP this guy connected to had a big giant sign *actively* saying "OPEN" on it. 802.11 provides many ways to make that sign say CLOSED instead. This AP used none of them. The guy's laptop sent a message to the AP saying "hi, is it ok if I connect" and the AP said back "sure, here's an association for you and an IP address you can use.".

Typical...

[Anonymous Coward]

before Windows automagically connects to it and gets me arrested!

Sigh. You know you're on Slashdot when anything bad, no matter how remote, gets blamed on Windows and/or Microsoft.

Re:I, for one,

[malkavian]

Hey, you use your car for maybe an hour each way to work. It's being wasted the rest of the day. Fair that I grab it without you knowing in between then?
Of course not. Anything you decide to do becomes their problem. And, well, it's just rude! If it's one of the low cap broadband connections, perhaps you're going to push them over their limit? Or several people using it will do that?
Still alright to cost them money?
All it takes is a nip round to your neighbour's place and say "Look, you've got a wireless point there and broadband.. Mind if I chuck you a bit of cash each month and piggyback on top of the link, 'cos I can't really afford it?". Many would say to just hop on anyway if it's not used, without you paying anything. That's certainly the arrangement I have with my neighbours that can't afford the link (now have 3 people on mine).
Nothing wrong with sharing a link, it's just good manners to ASK before taking things.

Idiot

[16K Ram Pack]

"Some people might argue that taking a joy-ride in someone else's car is not an offence either"

Wrong. It's more like going up a private road which isn't marked as a private road, and which you have contacted Google to tell them to put it on their maps. Don't want people to go driving up your private road? Put some signs up or a gate.

It's very simple - put WEP or WPA on. To be honest, if someone goes through your WEP, then that counts as a deliberate break-in in my book. If you don't have it no, don't complain when people go using it.

Re:How do u Hijack an OPEN network???

[MadCow42]

>>So if you have your door open in summer, I'm welcome to walk into your house and help myself to some of the cookies that are on the kitchen table?

Bad analogy - that would involve tresspass; there is a physical boundary of someone else's property that implies private access.

A better analogy would be if those cookies were floating through the air, coming in MY window and out my door, and I happened to eat a few as they went by.

Although it may not reflect the law, I personally believe that unsecured wifi should be public domain. WEP (even 1-bit for god's sake, to show that the intention for it to be private) should be enabled by default on routers, and it should be blatantly clear that you're providing public access (with consent) if you turn it off.

MadCow.

Intentional doesn't mean criminal

[NigelJohnstone]

"Fortunately, most courts still discriminate between intentionally and accidentally doing something. "

Except for one thing, you can't know if he neighbours INTENT was to share his open wireless connection for sharing. Thats the whole point of Open WiFi afterall, sharing. By doing this they're making Open WiFi illegal, because not only does your computer have to get permission to connect to the network (via the login) but now extra permission is needed too.

Let me put it another way. Suppose you have free open municiple wifi and Fred Bloggs open wifi, you computer has no way of telling which is the free Municiple open wifi and which is not so it connects to Fred Blogs's net, attempts to login and is given permission -> crime comitted. You had the intent to connect to an open network, but not the method to determine which network is permitted.

Or rather you did have the way, the login, but the court ignored that.

Re:Accident?

[HiroProtagonist]

And why isn't it secured again?

If a hospital network isn't secured, IMO it is GROSS negligence on the part of the IT staff of the hospital.