Is Wi-fi Internet Access A Risky Business?

Your computer is said to have a wi-fi connection to the Internet if, instead of being hard wired to your router, it uses low frequency radio waves to make that connection. Recently, the media have been giving much publicity to the security risks, and even the possible health risks, associated with wi-fi Internet connections. But could there be yet another, almost unmentionable, risk?

The security risk arises because when the your wi-fi enabled computer needs to access the Internet it "searches" for your wi-fi connection. The trouble is that if there are other wi-fi connections nearby the computer will "find" those as well. By this means someone else could possibly hack into your connection, and unless they are actually caught in the act their visits to, say, child porn sites or terrorist sites could never be traced to them, only to your Internet connection.

Fortunately there are some fairly straightforward ways to give yourself some protection from being attacked in this way. They revolve around the way you configure your router. Never, for example, just plug a new router in and use its default settings. The default password may have been set to something that a hacker could easily guess, say "admin" or even "password". So, for a start, change the default password and, if possible, choose the option to "encode your transmissions".

Accessing the Internet via someone else's wi-fi connection is a crime in the UK and, interestingly, the crime apparently relates specifically to the "Internet access" rather than what that access was used for. According to a recent issue of The Times newspaper (Nov. 2007), 'anyone found guilty of using someone else’s broadband connection without permission faces a maximum fine of £1,000 and up to five years in jail'.

According to a study by global internet security firm, Sophos, very large numbers of people admit to having secretly used someone else's broadband Internet connection (also known free-loading, broadband tapping or piggy-backing). Yet there have been very very few prosecutions reported in the media, and seemingly very little in the way convictions and penalties.

In the UK alone it is said that there are millions of wi-fi connections that are not sufficiently well "protected", although they easily could be. The implication being that the owners are irresponsible and that, even though innocent, they could find themselves in great difficulty if a hacker used their wi-fi connection to access an illegal Internet site that was being "monitored" by the authorities.

But could there be an altogether different kind of risk associated with unprotected wi-fi connections. Could there perhaps be cases where people who want to access questionable Internet sites might deliberately fail to protect their wi-fi Internet connections, so that when MI5 arrive to question them they could plausibly say "Nothing to do with me guv', must've been a free-loader".