July 8, 2005 - Florida Police Arrest Man for Hopping on Home Wi-Fi Network
I just read an interesting article in InfoWorld this week. It stated that a Florida man was arrested for sitting outside of someone's home and tapping into their wireless network. This scenario is becoming more and more common as many home users are setting up wireless routers to manage their internal network. Unfortunately, most users simply plug everything in and start using the network and never look at setting up a WEP password (Wireless Encryption Protocol). If you do not setup a password, anybody can access your network within the range of your router (about 100 or so feet depending on geography).

I can personally relate to this on a recent trip out west. I was in my parents condo at the time and was able to view three wireless networks in the area - two of which were completely unprotected.

By hopping onto your network these users can not only do illegal things on the internet through your connection but they can easily gain access to all of the computers on your network. I can't stress enough the importance of setting up encryption on your wireless network.

Click Here to read the article on InfoWorld.