Common Sense, People
August 16th, 2005 by FuzzOkay, there has been a fair amount of news lately about people stealing WiFi internet from their neighbors. While I do think it’s creepy for somebody to park outside of your home and use your internet connection for hours and hours at a time, I do believe it is the modem-owner’s responsibility to deny permission to the user.
In essence, if your WiFi router is not password protected, you are giving permission to any schmuck to access your network.
Here’s how:
1.) Your computer discovers the WiFi signal.
2.) Your computer (basically) asks permission from the router to connect.
3.) If the network is not password-protected, the computer connects.
4.) The router, inside whomever’s home, assigns an ip address to the computer.
5.) The router gives access to the user.
The computer asked. The router - YOUR router - said, “sure, why not.”
If you simply password protect the network, then you are denying permission to anybody who tries to access the network. If you do not, you are thereby allowing permission. Pretty simple, right? Even if you assign a really easy password, such as “1234″ or “admin,” you are denying permission to those who aren’t supposed to access your network. If they figure out your password, well, they are more or less “hacking” or “cracking” into your network. If you do not enable a password - well - it’s your own damn fault if they use your connection!
My theory is that it is much like Over the Air (OTA) television vs. DirecTV. Your television can “connect” to OTA television easily, and without a password. If you go and steal a DirecTV card and try to hack into their protected network, you are committing a crime.
So, if you don’t want your neighbors stealing accessing your network - enable a password on the S.O.B.
