Wi-Fi: Who's Using Yours?

A recent arrest has highlighted a potential problem for travelling wireless users. You cannot just open your laptop and log on via any convenient passing signal without breaching the 1990 Computer Misuse Act and the 2003 Communications Act. Whoops!

A man was arrested last week in Chiswick, London on suspicion of stealing a Wi-Fi connection. He was found using his laptop whilst sitting on a wall outside a house. What this means is that you cannot just drive around, stop your car and hope to connect to the unsecured network of someone else for free, be it householder or business.

Should the arrested man be regarded as naive for sitting in the open, blatantly surfing, whilst being approached by a couple of the Met's finest? Or is the arrested man as guilty as the vast majority of us that think that ball point pens are effectively "public property"? Could you explain where the various pens and pencils on your desk were sourced? And was their acquisition strictly legit?

This issue is important to YOU as an individual and as a representative of your organisation. Both home and business computers need to be protected against the thousands of people who either use "free" connections casually - or who are deliberately seeking sensitive business data. And if you are responsible for staff accessing sensitive data from home - what have you done/what are you going to do to protect that data? Or one day you may be explaining your inactions to the Information Commissioner!