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Nebraska Sheriff Wardriving, Sending Letters About Unsecured Wi-Fi
An anonymous reader sends this quote from JournalStar.com:
"The Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office has seen an increase in scammers using unsecured Wi-Fi connections to steal identities and mask their crimes during the past six months, Sheriff Terry Wagner said. ... So deputies spent the past few weeks finding unsecure connections and sending 40 to 50 letters to let people know about the potential dangers of strangers accessing their network connections. 'You're just opening yourself up for a series of potential pitfalls,' Chief Deputy Jeff Bliemeister said. ... Bliemeister said only businesses like coffee shops that offer Internet connections to customers need unsecured Internet connections.
I don't see anything in the article that said it was illegal to have open wifi, or that you couldn't.
It said that open wifi was being used for identity theft, and that notices of potential dangers (I'd imagine such as possible repercussions for the wifi owner if fraud is traced back to their internet connection) were sent out.
For a couple of older folks or just generally non-technical people who potentially just plugged in an unsecured D-link, not a terrible thing to be given information about, and somewhat pro-active of the Sheriff. It seems little different from the notices given to people who leave their cars unlocked in neighbourhoods experiencing an increase of car thefts...
As a former Phoenix resident, I have to say maybe it's because of things like this and this?
Sorry, but once you step over the line and nobody else is reigning it in, it becomes a federal problem.
Those of us in Maricopa County can worry about our sheriff; the rest of the country can worry about theirs. It's a local elected office. I do not understand the national media attention.
American citizens don't deserve to loose the fundamental constitutionally guaranteed rights when they travel through another county. Nor do prisoners deserve to be loose their (more limited) rights because they are transferred into your county. It's essential that his abuses get national media attention, so the rest of us can know to stay out of Maricopa county until you guys (or the feds) finally get around to doing something about it.
He said he would vote against telecom immunity but voted for it.
He said he would have the DoJ ease up on the prosecution of medical marijuana but they did the opposite.
He said he was going to institute a new era of transparency and rule of law but did neither.
He said he would shut Gtimo, and end torture camps around the world, he did the opposite.
He escalated foreign wars and most of them are actually secret, unofficial wars.
He claims the right to kill American citizen without due process; not even Bush made that claim.
The only one that is deluded is you.