News
[PSUs]| Tuesday 26th July 2005 |
Man fined for bandwidth theft
2:07PM, Tuesday 26th July 2005
In a landmark ruling, a UK court has fined a man £500 for logging onto a domestic Wi-Fi network without permission.
A jury in Isleworth found Gregory Straszkiewicz guilty under the 2003 Communications Act of dishonestly obtaining an electronics communication service and possessing equipment for fraudulent use of a communications service. In addition to his fine, he was given a year's probation.
Straszkiewicz was caught by police outside a private building with his wireless-enabled laptop, having attempted to connect to the network several times before he was arrested.
The police said that this is the first ever UK prosecution for 'war driving', which is the name given to the practice of locating and tapping into unsecured wireless networks.
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