Brits "could face legal action" for leaving Wi-Fi unsecured

Sod off. It's my connection, I pay for it I'll use it how I want to.

Yesterday I helped someone else with their setup and found, cheerfully; that their laptop would drop the connection when any form of encryption was used.

Perhaps if the bill had not been bought and enacted by a corrupt individual twice guilty of fraud such deliberate stupidity might not now leave the vulnerable and less technically aware made to feel guilty.

Anyone else remember when a 9 year old placed a keylogger on an MP's computer?

By bubbles16 on 18 May 2010

I second the above. If this were the US then you'd have fourth amendment protection (Right to privacy). There's must to be something in the European Human rights convention to stop this madness, after all it's got to be useful for something.

What's going to happen to coffee shops and hotels that provide free open access to the internet. Or campus/dorm room access. Or to these free city wide wifi networks that the government wants to spend tax payer's money on.

Push of Government, keep your noses out of our routers.

By Perfectblue97 on 18 May 2010

Security on a Wifi enabled router has always been compared to that of the front door to your house. You wouldn't leave your front door open and not expect your house to get burgled so why do the same with a router and leave it unsecured.

However, as it is not illegal to leave your front door open neither should it be illegal to leave your router unsecured. Surely it is the owners choice.

Although I do think that by default routers should come secured with some random password and then you can switch it all off if you choose.

By clkenton on 18 May 2010

There's no such thing as secure wi-fi. The moment you change from hardwired cables to data being sent through the air, security goes out the window. The closest wifi networks get to security is the new WPA2 encryption, which only tends to be on brand new devices.

What this says to me is that having a wireless network AT ALL leaves you vulnerable to legal action.

That's not how it should be.

On another note, about the fact that leaving a network open means that you are "allowing" others to use your network; how about simply setting your SSID as "Do not use"? I would assume that this is a clear instruction to anyone looking to connect - surely this is true from a legal point of view?

By dlynch on 18 May 2010

*If* having an insecure network (or more to the point, insecure computer which can be used as a 'bot') becomes a source of major disruption, then either making it illegal or making the owner part-liable for the damage, makes some sense. Of course the industry will have to provide easy and realistic ways for people to secure their systems.

If you left your front door open, it is not illegal, but your insurance would not pay out, and I doubt the police would investigate. So you would know not to do it.

An insecure PC does not affect the owner, it affects the people attacked by DoS, or spammed. An insecure router might make it harder for police to track criminals (although I've not heard a case of criminals hijacking wifi!)

By davidsoap on 19 May 2010

If a someone wants to get onto your wireless network, they will. Securing it will only delay them getting onto it.

By t2i3m on 19 May 2010

Isn't that against a very basic law....

"Article 12
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

Direct interpretation of this basic law could be that if its your own property, you can use it as you desire and where it has been misused by others or attacked in some way (and I would presume that someone using it for illegal activity could be considered here) then you are entitled to get aid from the authorities to rectify the situation. If you instead get abused by the authorities, then I think something is not right here.

Oh, and this law has a very common name: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

By climberjames on 19 May 2010

Someone had better let Boris Johnson know then, as he has (today) announced plans to turn all of London into a huge wifi hotspot...

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/33179/london-becom
e-giant-wi-fi-hotspot

By joecool12 on 19 May 2010

Isn't that against a very basic law....

"Article 12
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

Direct interpretation of this basic law could be that if its your own property, you can use it as you desire and where it has been misused by others or attacked in some way (and I would presume that someone using it for illegal activity could be considered here) then you are entitled to get aid from the authorities to rectify the situation. If you instead get abused by the authorities, then I think something is not right here.

Oh, and this law has a very common name: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

By climberjames on 19 May 2010

Daft Law

It's a bit like holding councils legally responsible for all burglaries because they provide and maintain a road network used by criminals to escape.

By john_coller on 19 May 2010

It is daft, but not completely...

I think what this law is trying to do is more like the idea of someone downloading illegal / copyright material using your open network - as such it's near impossible to find the 'real' culprit, therefore those that make it easy (open WiFi) are held as aiding & abetting.

Another way of looking at it: someone uses a stolen credit card to buy stuff & has them delivered to your house for picking up later.
Saying "I always leave my front door open so the postman can leave parcels in the hallway out of view of the street" is not likely to get you off the hook.

It not as though you are getting burgled - it's not your data that is getting downloaded or uploaded, for that matter - torrents have to start somewhere - this is more in line with the idea of handling stolen goods. At least if your WiFi has some security (yes, even WEP) then you can plead you've made an attempt to stop it.

How this is supposed to work for public networks in cafés
, hotels, libraries or London, I don't know - methinks some more consideration and clarification will be required

By greemble on 19 May 2010

It is completely daft ...

If I want to run an open WiFi access point as a service to my community then why the hell shouldn't I? Until the appalling Digital Ecomomy Act act was smuggled through parliament in the dying days of the Labour tyrany, this would have been regarded as public spirited.

Ask yourself why the owner of the access router is the one supposed to police Big Media's copyright interests? Could it be that they are the first link in the chain not rich enough to bribe MPs?

By JohnAHind on 19 May 2010

What a load of rubbish

How I secure my home network is none of these people's business. If someone steals my car and uses it for a bank raid it would not make me liable for punishment as a gang member.

I am in the music business and am very concerned about abuse of copyrights, but this sort of paranoid response is just missing the point and defines why copyright abuse is such a problem - because the lawmakers have not got a clue what they are talking about.

We should have better strategies than to go after the soft target of insecure home networks with a range which sometimes does not even make it upstairs to my daughter's bedroom or to the front garden, let alone beyond it.

By TonyF12 on 20 May 2010

Techno-fear

The country is full of people incapable of making the necessary changes to achieve this. Are we criminalising those who don't even know the settings exist, let alone how to configure them.

By the_Seahorse on 20 May 2010

What a load of rubbish

How I secure my home network is none of these people's business. If someone steals my car and uses it for a bank raid it would not make me liable for punishment as a gang member.

I am in the music business and am very concerned about abuse of copyrights, but this sort of paranoid response is just missing the point and defines why copyright abuse is such a problem - because the lawmakers have not got a clue what they are talking about.

We should have better strategies than to go after the soft target of insecure home networks with a range which sometimes does not even make it upstairs to my daughter's bedroom or to the front garden, let alone beyond it.

By TonyF12 on 20 May 2010

Using Napalm to get rid of weeds

If the entertainment industry could sort out a business model for trading audio and video media in the "online" world there would be no need for any of this nonsense. If the ISPs had enough moral backbone to isolate and block the likes of child pornography there would be no need for this nonsense. Sadly the financial aspirations of a few are funding the imposition of draconian measures on the rest of us. Maybe a better solution would be turn off the electricity and then we could learn to play musical instruments and start to live interesting lives of our own.

By bbkrob on 20 May 2010

All for a quiet life

If securing my WiFi network is all I have to do to prevent the possibility of unwelcome attention from the law then I'll happily do it. As it happens I already have, but I don't - for the home user - see the big deal.

Change your ESSID, make sure the router does NOT use the default uid and pwd. Set your router to use WEP/WPA/WPA2 or whatever your other hardware will support, set a password, make sure all other devices have the same password.

Maybe even enable MAC filtering.

A matter of minutes and you're pretty much guaranteed a quiet life. Remember WiFi thieves will look for open networks. They can't be bothered wasting time trying to hack yours when Joe Bloggs next door has an open one. It's not about making it perfect, it's about making it just hard enough to not be worth the effort.

By CeltiKaos on 20 May 2010

Lock It Or Lose It

Reading the comments likening this to leaving your house unlocked, or having your car stolen and used in a robbery reminded me of this little gem ... down here in Aus, it's actually illegal to leave your car unlocked. Having said that, nobody locks their houses.

By JimRu on 20 May 2010

It's my connection

When will we realise that Acts only apply to a legal fiction and not a human being and that the EU has absolutely NO right whatsoever to tell us what to do because it is against our Constitution..

By gianorossi on 20 May 2010

Not as secure as they look

Thomson routers (and the ISP-branded versions of them) come with a secure-looking WEP/WPA key and SSID. Unfortunately both are derived from the serial number, and as a result there are online tools available for calculating the WPA key for a given SSID.

Those secure-looking keys aren't secure at all!!! ISPs who dole these units out had better send notices for the users to change their SSIDs or keys!

By mspritch on 20 May 2010

Use a VPN

Recently I spotted a BT OpenZone hotspot.

(I assume it was a real one, not a fake, but how would one tell?)

Trying to browse the web, I was taken to the OpenZone home page, and I noticed they provide free VPN software from Cisco.

This is to allow secure communication to/from the hotspot. Sounds sensible.

If the government wants to encourage hotspots in travel locations, or in pubs and hotels, it would help if each potential user had to have an account with an organisation providing a VPN service that opens onto the internet, and if the free (or cheap) hotspot could reject users not using such a VPN service.

Thus the provider of the hotspot could be considered to be a 'common carrier' which, like the Post Office, is not taken to court for delivering mail, no matter what its content.

Actually the exact same law should apply to communications in paper and electronic form, surely? Which reminds me that the Data Protection Agency implements rules for digital data that do not apply to printed copies, even though those may be less secure. Another anomaly.

PCPro, why don't you devise a Citizen's Charter Of Digital Rights, with input from your customer base, and then put it forward to the new government?

By fogtax on 20 May 2010

Common Sense

All these 'rants' about "It's my connection" and i will decide how I use it – WRONG! if it's unsecured it's anybody’s – all this analogy of house doors open, get real, It’s your line your money under your control. You wouldn’t hire a village hall, pay for it, then allow people from anywhere use it as they like, wreck it smash it up and then deny responsibility – your name on the paperwork – you sort it. It’s easy to setup security on most routers, WEP or whatever, MAC filtering helps – 5 minutes and it’s done.
The real question to answer here is -- why when you pay for something you normally use it yourself. Why with WiFi do you strangely decide you want to share it with anyone you don’t know and would probably not want to know?

On that point -- I’d be happy to use your new car for a few days if you are that nice, please fill the tank before I take it, I won’t bother you with my name and address as I may break the law and if I remain anonymous you can pick up the fines and the repair bills – good chap!

By davejstacey on 20 May 2010

Surely anybody other than a music industry lawyer should realise that this is silly.

How far is the individual expected to go to prevent others from breaking the law?

Should I unplug my tv so that anyone passing with a suitable remote control is unable to point it through the window to turn on my tv?

Should I turn off the water mains when out so that any garden hopping scapegraces do not use the garden tap to "steal" my water?

Should I bury the Virgin media coax which currently runs up the wall lest someone else branches of it and does something naughty?

Too much of the digital economy act seems flawed.

The burden of proof falls upon the contract holder. High levels of downloads, by other members of the household does not imply crime necessarily.

By imaginarynumber on 20 May 2010

Unsecured WiFi is not the issue...

The issue here is the fact that the ISP contract makes their customer responsible for illegal use of their internet connection.

That would cover downloading child porn or copyright music files or co-ordinating a terrorist attack.

If the person responsible for the internet connection has not taken reasonable steps (eg securing their WiFi connection) to ensure that their internet connection is not used for illegal purposes then they leave themselves open to legal action.

The same sanctions would apply if it was someone in their household using a wired connection.

Providers of free WiFi services in pubs or cafes who do not apply any control over who uses their internet connection risk legal action if their connection is used for criminal purposes.

By premitel on 20 May 2010

Other money spinner

More money for lawyer is the prime reason why they very keen to do this. Simple facts.
The DE act need to scrapped, so we can spend more for better Wi-Fi equipments.
No such thing as perfect security.

By riscy on 21 May 2010

@gianorossi

And when will you Daily Mail readers learn to check your facts before knee-jerk blaming everything on the EU.

This idiocy was imposed on us by our own dear (in both senses of the word) parliament. Just because the German parliament is equally (and separately) daft does not mean this came from the EU.

In fact in this case, the European Court (which incidentally is not the same as the EU) may well save us. The DE Act gives private companies the power to force other private companies to cut off service to ordinary people on suspicion without legal process. This violates any decent conception of human rights, including the European one.

By JohnAHind on 21 May 2010

Misconceptions

QUOTE "However, as it is not illegal to leave your front door open neither should it be illegal to leave your router unsecured. Surely it is the owners choice" UNQUOTE.

All this pontificating about personal rights ignores the fact that noone is interested in what befalls YOUR network. Rather that your network does not become part of a botnet - infecting or spamming millions of other internet users, or become a link to infiltrate the computers of friends, banks, businesses etc. to steal personal details of millions of people.

It has nothing whatever to do with Human Rights, DRM, illegal downloaders, or snooping on porn surfers.

Basic security is already provided with routers, and should be used - it only takes a few minutes to set up, and costss nothing. It is your responsibility to the rest of the world. Not to do so is "aiding and abetting criminals", and should be regarded as such.

By ssscotty on 22 May 2010