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UK Police Cracking Down on Broadband Theft

Posted by samzenpus on from the throw-away-the-key dept.

dubculture writes "A 39 year-old man in West London was arrested for dishonestly obtaining free internet access" from an unsecured wireless router nearby. The article discusses a couple of other cases, including one where a fine of £500 (~US$1000) was handed out for, essentially, taking advantage of someone else's inability (read: apathy) towards securing their home network."

5 of 672 comments (clear)

  1. No problem by lukesky321 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have an unsecure network, and I really don't care if anyone uses it as long as nothing illegal is performed.

    1. Re:No problem by SL+Baur · · Score: 5, Interesting

      A bicycle unattended in my front yard is not express permission for you to take it. I left an unlocked bicycle unattended in my front yard in Tokyo for over two years hoping someone needy would take it (I lived near a woman's university and I truly didn't understand Tokyo at the time) but no one did. It's Japan, so the bicycle is probably still sitting there unlocked even though I moved away 4 1/2 years ago. Not enough other dang gaijin in that neighborhood I suppose. (Bicycle theft is epidemic in places like Tsukuba where there are a higher percentage of foreigners).

      Japan is the place where you can buy a bag of CDs, accidentally leave them in a nearby ATM and then later pick them up from the nearest koban where someone dropped them off after they saw you left it behind. I didn't do that, but I witnessed it. Can you imagine the same kind of thing happening in the US? I can't, I'm a native american.

      A coworker in Japan was telling me about the time she visited New York with her husband and after buying some things went to a restaurant, left her bags at the table and went away for a moment. In Japan, Nothing Happens when you do things like that, but that was New York and the bags were stolen.

      On another occasion when I was living in Tokyo, but working in Kobe (about 5 hours by train after you factor in the local trains) I accidentally left my apartment unlocked for an entire week unattended. Nothing Happened.

      The US isn't civilized and hasn't been for a long time. If you look away, you should have the expectation that whatever it was you're not looking at will disappear, because it will. And no, I'm not happy about saying this. I used to love living in California and the USA. It wasn't so many years ago that it used to be safe to leave a car with the keys inside (remember the "lock your car, take your keys" ad campaign?).

      So yes, I admire your sentiments, but anywhere outside of the best places in Japan, I've never seen them in practice. I've never been to the UK, but I presume they have worse problems than the US given all the surveillance cameras they've felt the need to install in recent years.
    2. Re:No problem by BillyBlaze · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, you obviously shouldn't use as much bandwidth (or water) as possible. But if you just need a drink, or to check your email, it's not a big deal. How do we determine how much is too much? Instead of arresting everybody seen with a laptop, we could wait for the owner to complain? Heck, the owner could just ask the leech to lay off, or secure his network, and we don't have to get the police involved at all. Much cheaper, plus we don't have to worry about our computers automatically making us criminals.

      And it's been said before, but - the leech did ask first, and permission was granted. I haven't seen a convincing argument why automated electronic permission, given as configured by the network owner, in the absence of any information to the contrary, is insufficient.

  2. Unauthorized use? by Jorgandar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Rubbish law. When you log into a network, so long as you're not hacking it, you politely ask the router "may i use this network and have an IP address?". The router says "yes", on behalf of you, the owner. Therefore it is authorized.

    Its NOT the same as leaving your front door open in your house, or your car unlocked.

    It IS the same as leaving your front door open in your house, having a visitor stop at the door and ask "may I come in?" and you replying "yes". You can't then turn around and sue for trespassing.

    -J

  3. "[PUBLIC]" in SSID of open hotspots by adrenaline_junky · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My idea never seems to get traction, but I still think its a good one and will repeat it once again:

    If you INTEND to make your wifi open access, then you should signify this by including the key word "[PUBLIC]" or [PUB]" at the start (e.g. "[PUBLIC] Joe's Wifi" or "[PUB] Megaboob, Inc").

    That makes the intent crystal clear (some other key words could also be included to provide flexibility).

    I agree that any open wifi spot ought to be assumed to be public in the first place, but since the law seems to disagree, I believe my idea is the next best alternative. Software that searches for hotspots could be updated to look for these key words to indicate if the hotspots are intended to be public or not.

    Long term, it would be nice if the wifi standard were updated so that a bit could be toggled which would indicate whether the hotspot is intended to be public or not. In the configuration menu it could be right next to the "Make SSID Visible" checkbox.