UK Police Cracking Down on Broadband Theft

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."

Re:First ping

[Anonymous Coward]

The person whose base station this was either set it to public access or left it on public access. So no "borrowing" occurring. This was sharing pure and simple.

I leave my base station set to public access for precisely this purpose, to share my internet connection wirelessly over the public airwaves to the public nearby.

U.K. police and courts are being quite backwards in this situation (paralleling some U.S. courts and police) to mistake a wireless base station set to public access for anything but a wireless base station set for public access.

Re:Hmmm.

[Stevecrox]

Most wireless networks I've come accross (which is alot) are secured, currently from my bedroom in my house I can detect 8 secured wireless networks and 0 unsecured, if I travel through the city with my PDA which supports 802.11b/g it highly rare to come accross a unsecure network. 3 or 4 years ago you would have been right I still remember being able to walk from my house the two miles into the city centre listening to Radio 1 as my device hopped from one network to anouther. Today I can't do that there are only three unsecured networks (University, B&Q and the pub/bar wifi network) that I've found in my home city and all through require you to go through a VPN to gain web access.

Perhaps you should spend less time insulting British people and making snide comments, networks were unsecured because people didn't know what WEP and WAP were, they didn't realise people could access their network. Thanks to prosecutions like this and the news/papers reporting on it they know now to secure their networks even if they still don't know what WAP and WEP are.

Ah, techonology...

[Shikaku]

These days you can Wardrive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardriving [wikipedia.org]) with a Nintendo DS. You can even access the internet through that said Nintendo DS using the information gathered. Granted, it is quite limited on the scope of what it can do, but the point is it isn't as hard as one would think.

The analogy of someone leaving the door open is quite correct in a way. However, the technology makes the door more like an unlocked door of a giant mansion with many entrances that are all unlocked. People, especially the common person, would probably never know that someone was using the internet.

Even with encryption, it has been proven it isn't hard to break anyway: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/ 05/1428250 [slashdot.org]

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:No problem

[BillyBlaze]

Other than the bicycle analogy, why should we assume the default state is "I don't want you using my WiFi"?

If we must use analogies, let's keep it in the realm of computers. Running an open WiFi is like running a public web server - even if the url isn't use-this-webserver.example.com, we still assume you intend for people to connect to it. In other words, there's nothing magical about express permission - there are lots of things you can do by convention. Since this is a new legal area, we have a choice which convention to choose.

Besides that argument, there are other advantages to assuming it's open unless secured. You're less likely to be arrested just for hanging around somewhere with your laptop. We don't have to waste public funds arresting you unless the owner complains. And we all get more free WiFi.

Re:Hmmm.

[jrumney]

in Germany, pretty much all access points are secured. In the UK, pretty much only those owned by IT people.

Right now I can see 5 wireless networks, 2 secured with WPA, 3 with 104 bit WEP. In the evenings, I can often see up to 20 access points, all secure. Most of the non-technical users have APs labelled BTFusion-XXXX (WPA), BTHomeHub-XXXX (WEP) or SKYXXXXX (WPA), which come preconfigured with security on.

Just in case you need to use someone else's ...

[The Mutant]

bandwidth, first make sure they want to share [consume.net].

if you want to share your bandwidth get a Fonera

[dominux]

FON [fon.com] sell cheap routers called La Fonera with dual SSID. One is secure and for your own use, one is open and for the benefit of other people who share their bandwidth with a Fonera router. Guests who don't share their bandwidth can also connect for $3 per day. There are a few other permutations including a revenue sharing model, go read about it. Most ISPs in the UK don't let you share your bandwidth, however Fondoo.net [fondoo.net] do.

Re:"Dishonestly obtaining free internet access..."

[ManxStef]

If anyone's interested, here's the relevant section of the Communications Act 2003 [opsi.gov.uk]:

• 125 Dishonestly obtaining electronic communications services
  • (1)
    A person who--
    • (a) dishonestly obtains an electronic communications service, and
    • (b)does so with intent to avoid payment of a charge applicable to the provision of that service,
    is guilty of an offence.
  • (2)
    It is not an offence under this section to obtain a service mentioned in section 297(1) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c. 48) (dishonestly obtaining a broadcasting or cable programme service provided from a place in the UK).
  • (3)
    A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable--
    • (a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both;
    • (b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to a fine, or to both.

Here's the relevant section of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 [opsi.gov.uk]:

• 1 Unauthorised access to computer material
  • (1)
    A person is guilty of an offence if--
    • (a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer;
    • (b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorised; and
    • (c) he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that that is the case.
  • (2)
    The intent a person has to have to commit an offence under this section need not be directed at--
    • (a) any particular program or data;
    • (b) a program or data of any particular kind; or
    • (c) a program or data held in any particular computer.
  • (3)
    A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or to both.