Wifi burglar busted in UK

Earlier this week, a 39 year old man was arrested in the UK for allegedly stealing a wireless internet connection.

Police officers arrested the man as he sat with his laptop on a garden wall in Chiswick, London.

He had allegedly hijacked the wifi connection of the home’s owner and was using it without permission. Presumably the connection was unsecured and therefore easily accessible to anyone simply scanning for a network.

Over the past couple of years a handful of people have got on the wrong side of the law by illegally obtaining wifi, in breach of the Communications Act of 2003, but we wonder how realistic a crackdown on wifi thieves is going forward.

It’s easy enough to spot a potential thief using a laptop suspiciously but with the proliferation of wifi-enabled phones around, concerned citizens and police officers are going to have their work cut out for them.