Wifi burglar busted in UK

Satdude

Wifi burglar busted in UK

Earlier this week, a 39 year old man was arrested in the UK for allegedly stealing a wireless internet connection.

Police officers arrested the man as he sat with his laptop on a garden wall in Chiswick, London.

He had allegedly hijacked the wifi connection of the home's owner and was using it without permission. Presumably the connection was unsecured and therefore easily accessible to anyone simply scanning for a network.

Over the past couple of years a handful of people have got on the wrong side of the law by illegally obtaining wifi, in breach of the Communications Act of 2003, but we wonder how realistic a crackdown on wifi thieves is going forward.

It's easy enough to spot a potential thief using a laptop suspiciously but with the proliferation of wifi-enabled phones around, concerned citizens and police officers are going to have their work cut out for them.

Regards Satdude.

rolfw

Well I guess that if people advertise the fact that they are doing it, they leave themselves wide open.

It amazes me that many wireless routers arrive with default settings of security being off and many novice users have no idea that they need to turn it on. I suppose they do it that way to reduce the number of support calls from new users who can't connect to their router.

For any members who use wireless routers and are not sure whether their security is enabled, find out from your router manual how to access the control panel and check it out, if you have problems, post in the computer section and someone will probably be able to instruct you as to what to do.

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jimbo

The particular article mentioned above was in the Evening Standard and they also showed how to set up a password on the router. If anyone thinks it might be useful I will re-produce the instructions on the site.

Jimbo

pimbanelas

Hahahahahaha! That’s a joke! How is it possible to steal a wide open wireless connection? If you access a connection that is open does that mean that you are on the wrong side of the law by illegally obtaining wifi? This doesn’t make any sense at all!

I point my satellite dish to Astra and I get CNN+ that, for some reason, is not encrypting it’s signal, that means that I am breaking the law?

My cable TV provider is transmitting the full package of channels, instead of just the ones that I have subscription for, I tune in to those channels, am I breaking the law?

How do you distinguish a public and completely private hotspot? Well, if the signal is encrypted it means that the WAN is private and that you need special credentials to access it that’s simple! If the signal is wide open, well you access it and, if you get arrested it means that the WAN is private, if not, it probably means that it’s a public Wifi HotSpot! Get a life! You should make a strong revision of your laws because if that news is true, your laws don’t make any sense at all!

I am working on a wireless connection (my wireless connection) that is wide open for any one that wants to access the internet on my residential area, and I know that people use it, and i am glad to share my connection.

rolfw

Yet another bunch of specious arguments to attempt to justify theft.

If a shop keeper displays his goods outside, is it OK for you to simply take them?

Is it OK to take food from the adjoining table in a restaurant if they temporarily leave the table unattended?

If your neighbour leaves his door open, I suppose you just wander in and use his bathroom or kitchen, or watch his TV.

I'm sure your cable provider doesn't transmit the channels unencrypted, you use other means to view them and that is illegal.

If you use someone else's broadband connection without permission, it is theft, you are using their bandwidth and they may even be capped, so you could be costing them extra money.

Unfortunately a lot of the general public are naive regarding internet security and don't realise that they need to protect themselves from idiots, they wouldn't dream of leaving their front door open overnight. For the guy stealing internet bandwidth, it is only a small step to infiltrating home networks and damaging people's data, or perhaps even stealing it for personal gain.

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pimbanelas

If a shop keeper displays his goods outside, is it OK for you to simply take them?
Of course not!

Is it OK to take food from the adjoining table in a restaurant if they temporarily leave the table unattended?
Of course not!

If your neighbour leaves his door open, I suppose you just wander in and use his bathroom or kitchen, or watch his TV.
Of course not!

I'm sure your cable provider doesn't transmit the channels unencrypted, you use other means to view them and that is illegal.
Yes, my cable provider transmits unencrypted channels from witch i have no subscription.

If you use someone else's broadband connection without permission, it is theft, you are using their bandwidth and they may even be capped, so you could be costing them extra money.
Yes they could, so encrypt your WLAN! If you use wireless internet connection off a completely open wifi hotspot you are not acting against the law! It doesent make sense to arrest somebody that access open hotpspots, that receives open satelite and terrestrial tv, radios, amateur radios, CB open frequencies, open wide IP's, open wide satelite specific data beams, and so on...

Unfortunately a lot of the general public are naive regarding internet security and don't realise that they need to protect themselves from idiots, they wouldn't dream of leaving their front door open overnight. For the guy stealing internet bandwidth, it is only a small step to infiltrating home networks and damaging people's data, or perhaps even stealing it for personal gain.
I would put it like this: Unfortunately a lot of the stupid public are naive regarding internet security and don't realise that they need to close local area wireless conections, they wouldn't dream of leaving their front door open overnight. For the accessing open WAN's it is only a small step to infiltrating home networks and damaging stupid people's data, but no worries, theres nothing interesting to steal for personal gain.

If a woman get's naked in from of you do you close your eyes because it's against the law?
Oh dear lord....

pimbanelas

Just for your information:
For the ones that are thinking of installing a local WLAN.
There is NO way to install a completely secure Wireless Internet Connection!

But if you want to install one be sure to use a router system with active firewalls that close communications between wifi clients and your home PC.

One of the simplest, and most effective ways to protect your local WLAN is to disable the broadcast of your SSID, but even with no SSID an experienced hacker can find it's way around.

The system needs some work on its configuration, but probably the solution goes trough configuring the router to allow access only to specific wifi clients MAC addresses.... that and disabling the broadcast SSID and applying and ordinary encryption (do not use WEP, it a week protection system that anybody with a simple LINUX operating system can hack in to), will be very dificult to hack...
But, with a big effort, it's possible....

rolfw

If you feel it is acceptable to take advantage of naive people, then it doesn't say a lot for your morals and as you well know "stupid people's data" can well contain very sensitive and useful information for the criminally minded.

Scanning to see if there are open wireless networks is one thing, using them is another, if you look at the naked woman it is one thing, taking physical advantage of her is another altogether.

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Satdude

Quote:

if you look at the naked woman it is one thing, taking physical advantage of her is another altogether.

I should be so lucky lol especially if she has had too much to drink :-

Regards Satdude.

Yeshi

First off its Which.

Secondly i would like to know which provider you receive free transmissions from.

I do believe there isnt any such supplier which does so.. if there was then id check what your supplier is actually trading as. (Freeview)?

If it isnt, then id check where you sourced your equipement from as i believe you are breaking the law in every country and state on planet earth.

Stealing is a crime.

Topper

Knowing a about WIFI certainly has not helped with your spelling
Just for the record week = 7 days

Weak defines the type of argument you are putting forward here. Whilst I am sure there are many people doing it or attempting to the fact remains that it has been deemed illegal so rather than insulting other members on this board I would be happier if you just toned things down a bit especially when replying to respected members of admin(the ones in red) The premise of your argument is flawed since it is the manufacturer's responsibility to ensure that sufficient information is given to the customer to enable even the most basic security function straight out of the box as only a small percentage of the general public are IT literate

War does not determine who is right, it determines who is left!

Formerly toppervte33h
whose six pack has turned into a keg

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pimbanelas

Topper, if you don't like the content or the tone of my replies then i suggest you not to read them.

“Week protection system comment” well, you can see it this way, if you encrypt your WLAN with WEP it won’t last a week before it has been hacked! But yes, your point of view is correct, it’s a weak and a week protection system, and yes, it was a spelling error for my part so excuse me for not practicing my English with you more often...

Yeshi, yes I have access to channels that were supposedly encrypted “non free view channels”, I don’t know for how long, from TVTEL, that’s a Portuguese recent TV cable distributor that has also launched encrypted channels on Hispasat.

Topper “replying to respected members of admin(the ones in red)” I thought that we were all respected members, do I need to have my name in red so that I am considered a respected member?
I have always used a correct tone and I am not offending anyone on this forum, I like to give short and direct answers and unfortunately there are plenty of stupid people on this subject, has we are on other subjects.
All of us are respected members of this forum, it’s not the color of the name that changes things, but if this is not the case then, all of us, “the ones with different color (uuuhhhh we are theeee ooonesss in black!!!!....), are the non respected members…

Well, anyway this subject sucks, feel free to ban me from the forum!.......... No, I was joking, I am the one that is pushing this subject to its best!

“Only stupid people take advantage of stupid people and only naive people take advantage of naive people and you don’t want to be any of them, so keep on reading this forum!”

rolfw

The job of a moderator is to do precisely that, read posts. I think you will probably be more at home on Usenet, it is more geared up to your style of posting.

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Yeshi

Respected member... ROFL..... How can you be respected as a criminal..???


Well then theres proberly a problem at headend... with the encription.. rather than shut the hole system down they allow the channels to be viewed without encription in the hope that people will not notice whats happening.. and anyway just thought, the box your using to view these channels.. its proberly there property.. so if you had subcribed to these channels you wouldnt notice the free channels.. thus you must of obtained the equipment illegaly IE stolen from the operator..

THIS IS ALSO THEFT..

Anyhow.. i dislike your attitude, it stinks. i just cant believe you are coming here justifying alsorts of crimes.. Theft, Burglary and even Rape.

Get a life.

Channel Hopper

One can 'cop a feel' whilst downloading naked women ?
WiFi does appear to have advanced since the early days.

There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"

Satdude

Police: There's no piggybacking crackdown

''But wi-fi theft is still a crime...''

The arrest of a man for piggybacking on someone else's wi-fi-enabled broadband connection is not part of a wider crackdown, police said.

A 39-year-old man was arrested earlier this week by two police community support officers (PCSOs) from Hounslow, as he sat on a wall outside a house in Chiswick, West London. He admitted to police he had used a third party's unsecured wi-fi access point to use the internet.

But this is not part of a proactive operation, said the Metropolitan Police. "This was not a strategic, pre-planned operation," said a spokesperson. "We're clearly not targeting broadband theft. The PCSOs saw a man acting suspiciously, and investigated."

The Met spokesperson denied the arrest was a waste of police time and resources. "We're not going to ignore crime. If we find somebody committing an offence then we act on it but this [crime] clearly doesn't happen in the hundreds or thousands."

After being arrested the man was taken to Chiswick police station where the case was handed over to the Computer Crime Unit. The man has been bailed to return to the station in October pending further investigation but may be let off with a caution, police said.

DC Mark Roberts from the Computer Crime Unit said: "This arrest should act as a warning to anyone who thinks it is acceptable to illegally use other people's broadband connections. To do so potentially breaches the Computer Misuse Act and the Communications Act, so computer users need to be aware that this is unlawful and police will investigate any violation we become aware of."

Regards Satdude.