Unprotected WiFi

Recently I read a story about some people who were cautioned by the Police for unauthorised use of a wireless network. It seems that neighbours noticed someone using a laptop in a car and reported them to the Police, the Police found they were connecting to the Internet over someones unsecured WiFi and so they were arrested and had their wrists slapped!

This raises some interesting issues, first off there's the fact that in the UK its illegal to use a WiFi network without authorisation which in itself has sparked constroversy. Many take the point of view that there's no harm in it (which I tend to agree with), however the other point of view is that its tantamount to theft as someone is paying for the WiFi network and the Internet connection thats being used.

I think a lot of people are doing this and aren't getting caught, after all there are a lot more pressing problems for the Police to be spending their time on. I don't think its such a big deal if the people doing it are checking their email, for example. But what if its something a bit more sinister, something criminal?

This could be someone sending spam or far worse it could be a paedophile trying to cover their own tracks by using someone elses account. The IP addresses of the computers connecting to a server can be easily logged so its quite possible that their unsavoury actions are traced back to an innocent person, whose only crime was that they hadn't secured their WiFi.

Research shows that many household networks are unsecured, and up to a quarter of business networks are also unsecured. A WiFi networks reach extends far beyond the walls of your premises so its a very good idea to take a little extra time to secure it.

Access points come with tools that allow you to prevent unauthorised machines from connecting in two ways. Firstly a list of computers allowed to connect can be created (using the unique ID or MAC address of the machines network card), secondly the data that's broadcast between the computer and the access point can be encrypted requiring that the computers that access the network know the password (or key) for that network.