Journal 8, July 27, 2008

Dennis Whitfield
July 27, 2008
LBST 2213

WiFi Turns Internet Into Hideout for Criminals
Authorities Struggling With Anonymity Provided By Unsecured Networks
By. Jamie Stockwell
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/10/AR2007021001457.html

Last summer in Arlington County in Virginia, police arrived at a high rise apartment building with a warrant to arrest a suspected pedophile who had traded child pornography online. But when the reached the apartment door, they found and elderly woman who the found had nothing to do with the crime except she had a wireless router on her computer. The elderly woman lived in a 10-story building in which any of her neighbors could of used her connection to trade the child pornography. This is a problem across the country with nearly 46,000 public access points across the country. Many of these access points are free with users logging on everyday from locations such as cafes, hotels, airports and even sitting on park benches. Most people do use this technology to check email or check up on work related business, but some are using this to commit crimes against children. Several agencies are looking at this problem, but they do not know how to combat this problem yet. They are concerned that by talking about this people will learn to say, ‘I can go to a parking lot, and no one will catch me.’

The way this works is that anyone who has a wireless card installed in their computer can access the Internet from any of the public wireless connection. This is especially a problem in dense areas such as Washington region, where some neighborhoods might have dozens of wireless connections to choose from. It is especially frustrating to officers, because suspects can go from coffee shop to coffee shop, or bounce from one connection to another committing crimes. One case was of a truck driver using free wireless signals across the country to post and view pornographic images of children at a Web site. By luck the man was caught, but only because the driver got online from his home computer. Across the country, a 46 multi-jurisdictional Internet Crimes Against Children task force has been created to carry out online sting operations.

Before reading this article, I did not know this was a problem. I myself have used the wireless connections from airports, coffee shops and hotels. I have also used someone else connection when visiting family and friends in cities from Chicago, NY, and Washington, DC area. I must say, that I am slow, because I never thought about the possibility of committing a crime while online, and having the ability to get away with it. I always assumed that regardless where you are, they could track your internet actions back to you. So by this article coming out, it helps educate America on how wireless really works. Hopefully most Americans will react like myself, and secure our wireless routers.
This article focuses on pedophiles, but this technology could be used for other malicious behaviors. Such as, posting threats to harm our nations security, or hacking into secure networks, gathering personal information, and causing harm to individuals. These are two instances I can think of, but I’m sure they are tons of others ways to to use this for harm.