Wireless piggybacking case sets precedent: experts
Yet another newspaper article on IT law. This article recounts previously reported stories of piggybacking or mooching WiFi (wireless Internet connection) attracting criminal liabilities. First, was teenager and avid gamer, Garyl Tan, who tapped on to a neighbour’s WiFi signal because his parents had confiscated his computer modem to stop his game-addiction. Second, was the student who tapped on a neighbour’s network to send out a bomb hoax. He was sentenced to 3 month’s imprisonment and received a S$4000 fine.
It is likely that these were the first such cases in the region. While Hong Kong and Korea have laws relating to hacking, Howard Lau (the president of Hong Kong's Professional Information Security Association, an industry grouping) said that, "There is no similar criminal case in Hong Kong. And we believe Singapore is quite a pioneer in this area".
Singapore had 779,000 broadband subscribers in January 2007, while household broadband penetration was 62.8 percent, according to government figures. The city-state has a population of about 4.4 million. Wireless connectivity is also becoming increasingly common. The government has also announced plans to increase the number of wireless hotspots from 900 to 5,000 over the next two years. All this, in its effort towards the city-state having a 90 percent home broadband usage by 2015.
According to network firm Cisco Systems Asia Pacific, moochers make up an estimated five to 10 percent of the region's wireless traffic at any time. Residential wireless networks are more vulnerable to piggybackers than corporate networks because only about 40 to 50 percent of home networks are secured, compared with 80 to 90 percent for corporate users.
With so many people currently using the Internet, what is surprising is not that we have these 2 cases at all, but rather why there aren’t more such cases.
The reason for the lack of cases seems to be that enforcement is difficult to say the least.
Top technology lawyer, Bryan Tan said that "the sheer number of Wi-Fi networks used at homes is so large and typically are not monitored by experts. Therefore, it would be difficult to identify whether unauthorised access has taken place”. He expects that this will soon change.
Yet another newspaper article on IT law. This article recounts previously reported stories of piggybacking or mooching WiFi (wireless Internet connection) attracting criminal liabilities. First, was teenager and avid gamer, Garyl Tan, who tapped on to a neighbour’s WiFi signal because his parents had confiscated his computer modem to stop his game-addiction. Second, was the student who tapped on a neighbour’s network to send out a bomb hoax. He was sentenced to 3 month’s imprisonment and received a S$4000 fine.
It is likely that these were the first such cases in the region. While Hong Kong and Korea have laws relating to hacking, Howard Lau (the president of Hong Kong's Professional Information Security Association, an industry grouping) said that, "There is no similar criminal case in Hong Kong. And we believe Singapore is quite a pioneer in this area".
Singapore had 779,000 broadband subscribers in January 2007, while household broadband penetration was 62.8 percent, according to government figures. The city-state has a population of about 4.4 million. Wireless connectivity is also becoming increasingly common. The government has also announced plans to increase the number of wireless hotspots from 900 to 5,000 over the next two years. All this, in its effort towards the city-state having a 90 percent home broadband usage by 2015.
According to network firm Cisco Systems Asia Pacific, moochers make up an estimated five to 10 percent of the region's wireless traffic at any time. Residential wireless networks are more vulnerable to piggybackers than corporate networks because only about 40 to 50 percent of home networks are secured, compared with 80 to 90 percent for corporate users.
With so many people currently using the Internet, what is surprising is not that we have these 2 cases at all, but rather why there aren’t more such cases.
The reason for the lack of cases seems to be that enforcement is difficult to say the least.
Top technology lawyer, Bryan Tan said that "the sheer number of Wi-Fi networks used at homes is so large and typically are not monitored by experts. Therefore, it would be difficult to identify whether unauthorised access has taken place”. He expects that this will soon change.
posted by Clem | 1:49 PM
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