UK WiFi Theft is Rife

A recent UK survey by Sophos revealed 54% of those surveyed had used someone else’s wireless Internet access without permission. Many within the media are calling this practice “WiFi Piggybacking”, and I’ve even seen quotes from liberal academics backing the practice. In my view this is plain and simple WiFi Theft, its wrong and it’s completely illegal in the UK.

The offence is under section 125 of the Communications Act 2003, which states that "a person who (a) dishonestly obtains an electronic communication service, and (b) does so with intent to avoid payment of a charge applicable to the provision of that service, is guilty of an offence”. The maximum penalty is six months in jail and/or a fine of up to £5,000. There have been several prosecutions under this act. In fact I'm aware of the arrest of a 39 man in August, who was spotted using on his laptop in the street, accessing an unsecured WiFi connection within someone’s home in Chiswick, London.

I have heard some people say, they don’t care if their neighbours use their WiFi for Internet access. Well first of all, every UK ISP I have encountered has a clause within the contract, which clearly states you aren’t allowed to share your WiFi Internet connection with your neighbours. Secondly if you leave your WiFi broadband open, it allows the potential for anyone (even your neighbours) the ability to browse illegal and unsavoury websites, commit online fraud, download illegal movies, and even host illegal movies and unsavoury material. All of this activity is done in the name of the WiFi owner, some people still don’t realise the Internet is far from being anonymous usage, everything can be easily traced back via your ISP, back to you. So if someone uses your Internet bandwidth illegally, it will be your doorstep the authorities will darken. Thirdly, someone connecting to your WiFi connection can eavesdrop on your Internet activity, reading your Emails, building up a profile for identity theft and gathering any non-encrypted website username and passwords. Fourthly, many ISPs provide bandwidth limits, especially the cheaper deals out there, so your Internet usage is quite literally a limited resource, so you certainly shouldn’t want others stealing and using it.

How many unsecured home WiFi connections are they in the UK? Well the answer is about 1 in 4 residential wireless routers are unsecured, according to Moneysupermarket.com, who commissioned an amateur hacker to test the quality of wireless security in the streets of Liverpool, Manchester and Chester earlier this year. About 88% people secure their home PCs from the Internet with Anti-Virus and Firewalls, but it seems significant numbers are neglecting to secure the WiFi Routers. It’s possible for bad guys to compromise an unsecured WiFi router and bypass the security on home PC. Particularly if you think about the consequences of changing DNS settings and routing on the WiFi Router, so keeping the default WiFi Router name and password and leaving your WiFi unsecured isn’t such a great idea,