Slashdot Mirror
Jailtime For Leeching Wireless?
jginspace writes "A 17-year-old from Singapore is is facing three years' jailtime for accessing his neighbor's wireless network.
His neighbor complained and now the unfortunate Tan Jia Luo is facing charges under the computer misuse act and is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday."
More details at the local HardwareZone Forum:
Teen, 17, first to be charged with unauthorised wireless Net access
By Chua Hian Hou
A 17-YEAR-OLD polytechnic student has become the first person here to be charged with piggybacking on someone else's wireless Internet connection.
Garyl Tan Jia Luo was accused yesterday of using a laptop computer to gain unauthorised access to a home wireless network on May 13 this year.
If convicted, Tan faces up to three years in jail and fines of up to $10,000 under Section 6(1)(a) of the Computer Misuse Act.
Tan was released on $6,000 bail and is scheduled to appear at the Subordinate Courts on Wednesday.
Court documents did not describe the circumstances in which Tan was arrested, but The Straits Times understands that a neighbour near his Casuarina Walk home had lodged a complaint against him.
While there are no statistics on how commonplace the practice of piggybacking unsecured home wireless networks is, networking firm Cisco System's spokesman, Mr Rayson Cheo, said it is probably quite widespread here.
Most modern notebook computers and personal digital assistants (PDAs) have the ability to sniff out unsecured networks and hop online for free with just a few clicks.
There are numerous guides online that describe how to do this and the low cost of wireless networking equipment means that most HDB or condominium blocks have unprotected networks users can log on to.
Said Mr Cheo: 'People assume, wrongly, that since it is there, it is okay to use it.'
Mr Aloysius Cheang, the chairman of local infocomm security association, the Special Interest Group in Security and Information Integrity, said: 'Most people probably do it because it is convenient, or because they are cheap and want free Internet.
'But, for some, it is because they want to do something illegal like defaming someone or downloading pirated MP3s, and they don't want the activities traced back to their own network.'
In the online world, there are even special terms for it, like 'wardriving' and 'Wi-Fi mooching'.
The problem, said lawyer Bryan Tan, is that while most people know that mooching is not quite legitimate, they probably do not know that it can be treated as a serious offence.
'Blinkered by the convenience and allure of ?free Internet', people don't realise that mooching is the virtual equivalent of trespassing,' he added.
Likewise, many users do not seem to realise that they can block moochers simply by installing a password on their Internet connections.
For most users, the only indication they get that someone is mooching is when their connection speed slows down, though Mr Cheo said software tools are available for download that can track who is using a network and what they are doing on it.
While the case is the first of its kind here, there have been at least two similar arrests and convictions in the United States.
In some countries like Holland, Mr Tan added, Wi-Fi network owners can even be held liable by the courts for crimes committed on their unprotected networks.
chuahh@sph.com.sg
False. Yes, most consumer ISP service agreements forbid this. There are significant exceptions. And almost any ISP that has any non-consumer operations will sell you a connection that you can share if you're willing to give them enough money. I have a "legal" open wireless network, with the permission of my ISP, and so do lots of other people. There is no reason my users should assume my network isn't legitimate.
If you leave a network wide open, you are doing the only thing you can to invite people to use it. Absent information to the contrary, there's no reason it should be forbidden to assume the good faith of such an invitation. If your ISP service agreement doesn't permit you to share the bandwidth, then you need to close down the network, or somehow put people on notice that they can't use it. Only you, not the users, are in the wrong if you don't.
Uh, an open AP is literally an invitation. Nobody is hacking your wirez, you are actually broadcasting the availability of a service. Another great example of getting pissed off at someone else because you didn't read the damn manual. It's a FIVE PAGE BOOKLET. It HAS PICTURES. They literally DREW A PICTURE FOR YOU.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
How the fuck this got modded Informative I have no idea, but here are the firsthand facts from someone living there - water wastage is indeed illegal, but the context in which it is applied has always been towards wanton wastage of public water for non-constructive purposes. Private usage of water has never been regulated - you're free to do exactly what you want with the water flowing out of your taps; just be expected to pay for it. On the other hand, public water (aka those from public taps) wastage is regulated, and there should is no reason why it shouldn't be. While washing your cars with water from public taps or using them to fill up water guns for a friendly water fight has and will always be fine, there should be no reason to allow people to use up a swimming pool's worth of water just to clean a dirty windscreen.
As for the gum and the subway issue, I don't know where you live, but over here, automation means the lack of human oversight, so to err on safety is always better for commuters. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be flung out of a high speed train onto a set of electric rails just because they decided that hey, a door that won't shut isn't as important as sticking to the schedule. As a citizen and frequent user of said train system, despite what was reported, gum pretty much affected the running of the trains. What gum certainly was though was a public nuisance that stuck to your shoes or pants if you were unlucky enough. I'll concede that I don't think the magnitude of the problem back then was large enough to warrant a complete ban.
In any case, you clearly have no idea of what you're talking about. Gum was banned in 1992, and your other posts on kids and drugs (categorically false BTW) makes it abundantly clear that (a) you've never stepped foot in Singapore (b) you have no idea what is going on in Singapore.
The neighbor knew how to check if someone is using his wireless network, but doesn't know how to secure it? An open wireless network is an invitation for anyone to use it.
Internet access through a wireless network that is probably connected to a ADSL modem has fixed costs. The guy really didn't lose anything. So he just doesn't want anyone else to benefit from something he has paid for.
The charged teenager is 17 years old. The neighbor could have told his parents what he was doing and they could have told him to stop or take away his computer...
Sounds like the neighbor wanted someone to use his network, so he could sue them.