Lab Notes

MicroPatent, a intellectual property firm, found itself being extorted by a cyber criminal demanding millions in exchange for not releasing the company's private, proprietary information. The thief masked his whereabouts by using the unsecured Wi-Fi networks of unsuspecting homeowners.

Hopefully I'm wrong, but it's cases like these that make me think that sometime in the future Wi-Fi network owners could be held liable for the malicious use of their networks. We've seen cases of open Wi-Fi networks being accessed for sending spam, downloading child pornography, and now extortion. Since the actual criminals can be difficult to track down, it wouldn't be surprising to see civil or criminal suits brought against an easier target, the owners of the networks used by criminals. Of course, the easiest way to avoid this is to simply enable WPA Personal on your home network. It's simple, it's secure, and it's supported by most everything out there (OK, not by pre-XP Windows or pre-Panther Mac OS X, but this gives you a good excuse to upgrade!)