Some people prefer to let their Wi-Fi networks go without a password, either as a matter of convenience or to support their ethical convictions. Either way, they can run the risk of being misidentified by law enforcement officials, as underscored by three recent cases noted by Ars Technica’s Jacqui Cheng. While such cases are clearly the exception to the rule, they may give you pause the next time you consider setting up your own Wi-Fi network without locking it down with a password.
“The three stories all fall along the same theme: a Buffalo man, Sarasota man, and Syracuse man all found themselves being raided by the FBI or police after their wireless networks were allegedly used to download child pornography … In all three cases, the accused ended up getting off the hook after their files were examined and neighbors were found to be responsible for downloading child porn via unsecured WiFi networks.”
A nasty neighbor downloading kiddie porn isn’t the only risk, either – if someone within range of your Wi-Fi network is downloading copyrighted content using BitTorrent, you run the risk of being implicated because it can be traced back to your router’s IP address. What’s more, some ISPs measure bandwidth usage and reserve the right to shut you down (permanently) if you dramatically exceed your quota.
FBI child porn raid a strong argument for locking down WiFi networks [Ars Technica]
While setting a password on a WiFi network is important, what happens when a user uses the insecure WEP encryption to set the password, a hacker bypasses this protection in a matter of minutes and accesses illegal content? The owner will still be tracked down by law enforcement, but this time, he will not have the defense of his WiFi network being open. Law enforcement may wrongly conclude that he must be the perpetrator since his WiFi network was “protected”!
Apple needs to address this security issue. I’m wondering if there’s a better way to handle encryption than either a five or thirteen character password with my Airport Extreme. It’s hard to remember a 13 character password with appropriate capitalizations, numbers and symbols. And five characters is too short and easy to breach.
I have my network secured with the 13 character password, but I don’t bother with hiding the SSID (good hackers can get it anyway) or registering MAC addresses. But I would never leave it insecure because there are way too many perverts in every community who will gladly jump on an easy network to access. And it will discourage war driving because they will find the insecure network next door much easier to access.
I should probably add a guest network with a WEP password for guests who want to use their iPhone on the network temporarily. It’s a good compromise, and at least makes the FBI less likely to wrongly charge me and then I wouldn’t have an out otherwise because there is an easily hacked way in for someone who is persistent. Or by saying that did I just negate my argument? 😛
WEP is useless.
I am new to wireless internet, if your computer is turned off are you still vulnerable?