#69 - Stealing is Stealing is?????

A Michigan man was arrested in Michigan for "stealing" free wireless Internet. The man would park every day outside of the Re-Union Street Cafe in Sparta, Michigan and use the wireless Internet to get his email. He admitted to the activity and was fined $400 and given 40 hours of community service. The maximum sentence could have been 5 years in jail and up to $10,000 in fines. Now that's scary!

I saw an interview with the police chief and he said he had to look up the law and found a 1979 Ethernet network protection act that was recently updated. He said the fined man had no idea it was illegal and had a clean record. The cafe has an unsecured wireless set up that they would like for customers (coffee buyers) to use. There are literally thousands of similar set ups in the country. I was telling a customer recently that you can find over 50 similar set ups in Covington alone. You could park literally anywhere in the city and find unsecured Internet.

One of my neighbors asked to used my home wireless set up. He purchased a couple of big antennas and I set up my system to put out a stronger signal for him. The local library has 3 power full wireless access points that lets everyone withing 100 feet of the library to use their signal. And I have been known to surf for unsecured access on occasion, especially when traveling.

So is this a bad thing to do? What are the risks? There are some risks. If you don't have your files secured, someone borrowing your wireless can access those files. It is an easy process to secure your wireless network. By securing the network, anyone wanting to use it would have to know your hexadecimal password. Different security schemes (WEP, WPA) are available to protect your wireless information. The way I look at it, is that if you don't have your wireless secured, then you are inviting the world in. If you have any question about that, just drop me a line and I can tell you how to secure your wireless network!