Unsecure wifi leads to mistaken child porn raid

MSNBC reported earlier this week about a home in Buffalo NY that was raided by police who accused the owner of downloading thousands of child porn photos.

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Lying on his family room floor with assault weapons trained on him, shouts of "*********!" and "pornographer!" stinging like his fresh cuts and bruises, the Buffalo homeowner didn't need long to figure out the reason for the early morning wake-up call from a swarm of federal agents.

That new wireless router. He'd gotten fed up trying to set a password. Someone must have used his Internet connection, he thought.

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The raid happened in March, and after about a week, the police arrested a neighbor who was the real ********* (case is still pending). The report goes on to cite other 'horror stories' that people got into for not securing their wifi. You can read the full report here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42740201/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/

So if you have wifi in your home, make sure its password protected and secured!!!

That would suck. But you would think in this age of technology the police would have better intel. There are tons of people who do not protect their wi-fi. When we drive in the car my laptop will pick up unprotected wi-fi and it happens alot.

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Originally Posted by Riggo

That would suck. But you would think in this age of technology the police would have better intel. There are tons of people who do not protect their wi-fi. When we drive in the car my laptop will pick up unprotected wi-fi and it happens alot.

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One of the biggest issues with WiFi is that they really dont make it simple enough for the Non industry ( Internet working ) people. Most dont know how to set it up and they are not overly user friendly.

My linksys was great and easy but I could only have 1 password as no matter how hard I tried it would not let others work. And I know a fair bit about them.

Now imagine some guy who works at a bowling alley or hotdog stand.

Yep I went for the first few years with mine unsecured. I never thought about something like this happening.

What i find even funnier is some of them allow you to lock down your wifi but not the router. a friend of mine has a D link router. i changed his password on him and locked him out of his router.(i gave it back of course)

its something that needs fixed to secure everyone

In a different study, over 1/3 of Americans surveyed admitted that they either tried or successfully used an open wifi service without the owners knowing or without asking for permissions. That is not only a risk for stuff like this, but also would lead to less speed for your own use, and if you are on a capped bandwidth plan where they charge for extra bandwidth usage, it could also lead to a big bill too!