Man Charged With Stealing Wi-Fi Signal

yahoo! news ^ | Wed Jul 6, 8:15 PM ET

[blackeagle]

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - 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.

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Benjamin Smith III, 41, faces a pretrial hearing this month following his April arrest on charges of unauthorized access to a computer network, a third-degree felony.

Police say Smith admitted using the Wi-Fi signal from the home of Richard Dinon, who had noticed Smith sitting in an SUV outside Dinon's house using a laptop computer.

The practice is so new that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement doesn't even keep statistics, according to the St. Petersburg Times, which reported Smith's arrest this week.

Innocuous use of other people's unsecured Wi-Fi networks is common, though experts say that plenty of illegal use also goes undetected: such as people sneaking on others' networks to traffic in child pornography, steal credit card information and send death threats.

Security experts say people can prevent such access by turning on encryption or requiring passwords, but few bother or are unsure how to do so.

Wi-Fi, short for Wireless Fidelity, has enjoyed prolific growth since 2000. Millions of households have set up wireless home networks that give people like Dinon the ability to use the Web from their backyards but also reach the house next door or down the street.

It's not clear why Smith was using Dinon's network. Prosecutors declined to comment, and a working phone number could not be located for Smith.

[LiberationIT]

I would add to your excellent short list, be sure you have changed your router management password to something other than the factory default.

[TChris]

...arrest on charges of unauthorized access to a computer network, a third-degree felony.

Felony!? ...for connecting to somebody's unsecured WiFi signal? That's ridiculous!

This is the equivalent of walking across somebody's lawn, for cryin' out loud. In this particular case, it might be like taking a nap on somebody's lawn. Unless there is some evidence of malicious intent of some sort, then the "perpetrator" has done nothing worse than steal a few cents' worth of bandwidth. That's hardly felony territory.

[oceanview]

yes, but the problem is that how do you distinguish between someone who inadvertently uses it, and someone who does it willfully? how are you going to establish intent on a wide open WLAN? if someone flips open their laptop and finds a hotspot and doesn't know where its coming from and starts using it - are they also guilty of a crime?

[kAcknor]

if his WLAN was wide open, there is no case here unless he had some sign on his lawn that said "DO NOT USE MY WIDE OPEN WLAN

Actually there may be a case with or without a 'sign'. But not in the way it's being prosecuted here.

Along with having having any broadband service installed part of the contract is an agreement that that service will not be resold, or made available to anyone else.

If Richard Dinon failed to implement the built in security features of his wireless router he may in fact be in violation of that contract and guilty of making it available to the public.

[SilentServiceCPOWife]

Don't you have a responsibility to find out how you're connected if you don't expect to be? Sure, there are public hotspots, but they would be identified as such.

[Arthalion]

I don't think so - try taping your neighbor's conversations on his 2.4 GHz cordless phone and see how far that defense gets you.

That defense would only fail because there's a specific federal law that prohibits eavesdropping on telephone signals. 802.11 radio computer networks are more akin, legally, to routing a data packet over a CB Radio. If someone wants to capture and read that packet, there's nothing you can legally do about it. If someone wants to send their own packet on the same channel, once again there's nothing you can legally do about it. The computer networking companies have known this since the very beginning and tend to print teeny-tiny disclaimers in their manuals to cover their legal butts, but it's well established that you cannot prosecute someone for sending a perfectly legal signal over deregulated and public airwaves.

This is actually a case of technology outpacing law. Legally, the fact that your computer equipment accepts and routes legal radio broadcasts from total strangers is a problem with YOUR equipment, not with their transmitter. There have been quite a few arrests for this sort of thing across the country over the past few years, and not one has resulted in a conviction.

The lesson here is simple...if you don't want strangers using your network, you need to tell your computer equipment NOT to route strange signals. Otherwise, you're leaving your rubber ball in the middle of a public park and screaming when strange kids start playing with it.

[oceanview]

well yes, but that just opens up a whole new can of worms. what's next, will the service provider (DSL, cable modem) not allow you to install your own wireless router - you have to get one provided by them, and they have administrative rights and the ability to tunnel into it and see what is going on in your network?

[oceanview]

it depends on the locale. if you have a mix of private citizens that have WiFi - and businesses that offer it up free. if someone flips open their laptop in that vicinity, do we expect them to be sure they are on the proper network, else they are felons?

some cities and towns want to put in free WiFi everywhere to encourage economic activity, what happens then?

[rwfromkansas]

They could hack into your closed one as well.

Nevertheless, since I use DSL, they can't use my wireless since I don't have any.

[Arthalion]

Don't you have a responsibility to find out how you're connected if you don't expect to be?

But shouldn't the responsibility lie on the network owner? If you have an 802.11 network, you have a simple choice: You can configure it to be public and accessible to the entire planet, or you can configure it to be private and only allow your personal computers to access it. If you choose the first option, isn't the assumption automatically made that you want everyone on the planet to access it?

Oh, and I don't buy into the "they don't know how" argument either. The fact that people don't know how to use their equipment isn't my problem, and should have absolutely no legal bearing on anything (stupidity should not be a valid legal argument).

[general_re]

The presumption should be on the side of public use.

It looks to me like the presumption is trending the other way, towards treating these things like your front door - locked or unlocked, you have no business in there without an invitation. I neither approve nor disapprove of this, I should say - it is what it is.

[general_re]

That defense would only fail because there's a specific federal law that prohibits eavesdropping on telephone signals.

So when you said "all", you meant something less than "all", actually. Right? ;)

The lesson here is simple...if you don't want strangers using your network, you need to tell your computer equipment NOT to route strange signals. Otherwise, you're leaving your rubber ball in the middle of a public park and screaming when strange kids start playing with it.

If I've got my property with me at the park, and some strange kids start playing with it, I have no right to complain? If they monkey with my radio, eat my food, steal my blanket, I have no right to complain? If I park my car in a public lot, do I not have a right to complain when strange kids start playing with it? Interesting...

Regardless, that's not how the law is for rubber balls - they call that theft, when someone takes your property, whether it's in the park or not. Nor does it appear that Florida will make it the law regarding WiFi - it appears that the safe way to treat these things, legally, will be to presume that you cannot make use of the couch simply because the door's unlocked. As I said elsewhere, I neither condemn nor condone this presumption - it could just as easily go the other way, but there's no reason to think it can't go this way as well.

[SilentServiceCPOWife]

Of course they should take responsibility for securing their network and I'm not going to say that they shouldn't have to because they don't know how. But just because these people are stupid doesn't give someone else the right to steal from them.

If my daughter's classmate leaves a $20 bill on the lunch table I would not accept "Well, Mom, they were too stupid to make sure that they put the money back in their wallet, so I had the right to take it."

[Myrddin]

I would add to your excellent short list, be sure you have changed your router management password to something other than the factory default.

Agreed. That is usually the first thing I do that isn't configuration related.

[Myrddin]

They could hack into your closed one as well.

Hacking into your secured WLAN is an overt act of intrusion. There is no way the hacker could claim innocent, ignorant access in that case.

[kAcknor]

you have to get one provided by them, and they have administrative rights and the ability to tunnel into it and see what is going on in your network?

The worm can has been there waiting to be opened for along time. Can't help that.

I don't see your point though. There are ISP's already using wireless router/combined DSL and Cable Modems that setup for a desktop and a laptop with basically hands off ease. If they in fact have a way for the ISP to look into a private network that too is already illegal, it's called hacking.

Publishing companies do not have access to your house to insure you aren't making a copy of a book. Music companies have no access to your personal computer to see what files are there and which ones may be in fact an unauthorized copy of a music file. Both require search warrants.

It's simply not legal to copy and share those items, and it's not legal to share an Internet connection. If you provide probable cause, or opening make them available however, that (and this) is another story.

[kAcknor]

or opening make them available = or openly make them available

sigh

[mikegi]

Otherwise, you're leaving your rubber ball in the middle of a public park and screaming when strange kids start playing with it.

No, it's more like having someone walking down the street looking for unlocked doors. The intent here was to find an unsecured access point and use it without the owner's consent. How is that different from stealing?

[Arthalion]

But we're not talking about you sitting next to your rubber ball or lunch. Certainly, if you see someone leeching your signal and you tell them to stop, they have to stop because you have declared the network private, but you're NOT always around to police it. Perhaps my rubber ball explanation wasn't clear enough. If you fire up an unsecured 802.11 network, it's the equivalent of dropping your rubber ball in the middle of a public park and going home. Certainly the rubber ball is still yours, but no reasonable person could EVER support prosecuting some poor sap who came walking though the park and decided to play with it. 802.11 is a completely unregulated public space, and by putting your "ball" into that space you're taking the chance that someone's going to want to play with it. If you don't want that to happen, you need to either guard it or chain it down.

As for the couch analogies that keep popping up on this thread: Nobody has to tresspass to connect to your 802.11 network. If your signal intrudes into a public space like a park, street, or even a neighbors house, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy unless you secure your network. YOUR signal is intruding into THEIR space.

For the record, I have an 802.11 b network with an aerial and amp that give me a range of about 1000 yards. It's unsecured, and I have no problem with neighbors connecting and borrowing my network services (my personal machines are behind a private firewall, isolated from the WLAN).

[Arthalion]

Completely different. Wardriving isn't like looking for unlocked doors, it's more akin to searching for parks in a neighborhood full of nice, but private, lawns. As I've said in other posts here, you don't own your 802.11 signal, so you can't make a theft argument. If you don't like that, petition the FCC or your congresscritter to change the law.

If you don't want your equipment talking to strangers, you need to set your equipment up to behave appropriately. If you configure your equipment to handshake with every strange WNic that comes it's way, you have no reasonable grounds to object to people browsing a PUBLIC RESOURCE.