In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by nemeth782:

In reply to a post by ian72:

... nested quotes trimmed ...

Indeed. The owner of the line is 100% responsible for what happens on it and so if someone was to access any dodgy (illegal) sites then you could have a knock on the door and unless you have some very good logging it would be difficult to prove the neighbour was responsible. Effectively if you share your connection you need to consider ISP level logging to protect yourselves in the event of an issue.

Sorry, but could you provide some sort of reference to legislation that makes this the case?

I get that suspicion would likely fall on the subscriber in the first instance, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't mean they are responsible for the criminal acts of others.

There may or may not be any relevant legislation, but sure as hell it will be part of your ISP's T&Cs. They've got their own backsides to cover.

If I were the neighbour being asked I'd be rather wary given that the police can and do simply come in and take every part of a suspect's computer (including keyboard, monitor, mouse etc.) rather than just the storage items and, no doubt, keep them for months, years or forever.
It was precisely because of all the confusion above that I decided the best way might be hacking rather than asking my (friendly) neighbour! In the event I didn't need to attempt it as my internet wasn't cut off.

Although I've not read mine I'm very sure the ISP's T&Cs will ban sharing - they have profits to consider!

Remember accessing a wifi network without permission is an offence under the computer misuse act, i.e. you've broken the encryption

My experience is that the people hacking wifi have probably got iffy stuff on their own device/s. Once they're in, the network is exposed (via the intruder) to the incessant probing that goes on 24/7.

You also be in trouble under Communications Act 2003

The last case of someone being arested I know of is:

BBC News: Is stealing wireless wrong?

BT allow you to do this on their BT hotspots from thousands of home users routers!

The key is ALLOW, i.e. the network is set up to be shared and they know a bit about the person piggy backing too.

In BT Wi-Fi via HomeHubs you are using a tunnel so your traffic is distinct from the homeowners, so if you break a law over content accessed the homeowner is not affected.

Additionally you have to have a login to the WiFi network - and that is traceable so all actions are directly attributable to the "account" that did them not to the home owner.

It could be argued, given how locked down ISP routers are, that the ISP would be responsible if anyone connected via Wifi... perhaps that should provide some food for thought when deciding to restrict users from even changing DNS.

I read this article awhile ago, I assume it's along your colleagues concerns where WPA2 is flawed?

https://www.krackattacks.com/

The link was given in one of the security newsletters I receive - I can't remember if it was from the Sophos Newsletter or from another genuine security research newsletter).

On the subject of Internet "Attacks" of any kind, I found a recent TV piece (can't remember the program) where those who are infecting peoples machines with BitCoin Mining Malware are doing it subtlety. In as much as limiting the CPU load so it's less obvious and Not installing any other Malware.

So it makes me wonder, are those out there trying to hack Wi-Fi networks doing so out of interest, or doing so to cause damage ie installing malware etc.
The reason I mentioned the Bitcoin scenario is it appears those trying to do bad, look for the easiest routes to their ill gotten gains. So on that premise I would have thought that Breaking Wi-Fi would be low down on the Hackers list of activities.

Edited by Vorlon (Fri 04-May-18 20:52:53)

They are infecting people's machines by getting people to click on links and then install malware to mine bitcoin or whatever. No need to hack WiFi for that.