http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/04/24/scitech/main20056899.shtml?tag=stack
Interesting that the “Computer Emergency Readiness Team” recommends home
users make their networks invisible to others by disabling the
identifier broadcasting function.
In Germany you can get fined too… “In Germany, the country’s top
criminal court ruled last year that Internet users must secure their
wireless connections to prevent others from illegally downloading data.”
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.4 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.37.1-1.2-desktop
up 1 day 1:23, 4 users, load average: 0.02, 0.04, 0.05
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 270.41.06
Yea, it is a crime alright if you have your wifi open and not secured with a password.
Just imagine what people can do with an opportunity like that.
Well, like in the story stated.
In fact, you have to proof that you did not do anything illegal, versus where the state has to proof that you did something illegal.
You got wifi? You better be sure how to secure it or yo get fined. Although i think it is somewhat harsh in a way.
Since i don’t wifi in my home, i disabled it.
Are you surprised that ordinary people don’t recognise the value of secured networks? After all it took the spooks years to realise, even in the middle of the cold war, that networks needed to be secure - just read ‘The Cuckoo’s Egg’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo’s_Egg_(book) to find out.
Oh but think of the fun you can do with people who access your open WLAN.
For example last summer I was sitting at a cafe with my laptop and decided to have a little fun. I turned on the WLAN, set it as open with no password, setup a route for it to redirect all http(s) to localhost and put a random assortment of “interesting” pictures on display whenever someone tried to access the net on their browser.
Even had people go “WTF?” and “EWW!” in the cafe. He-he!
I was demonstrating wi-fi on my laptop to a friend at his house today and it found four networks, three of which were open.