Are You Liable If Someone Uses Your Wi-Fi for Illegal Activity?
Thursday March 23, 2006
| Commentary | Say that a hacker or a neighbor is using your wireless home network for some illegal activity. Are you liable for this? Those who say "yes" argue that you own the equipment and the responsibility to secure it from outsiders. Those who say "no" argue that because you are not personally performing the illegal activity, you are not responsible. Past articles on this topic and landmark legal cases have drawn many comments both ways. Think about it, and then let your opinion be heard:
Are You Liable If Someone Does Something Illegal On Your Wi-Fi? -
Vote: Yes or No - Results
Are You Liable If Someone Does Something Illegal On Your Wi-Fi? -
Vote: Yes or No - Results
Comments
I pay for by bandwidth and someone who logs on to access the internet is taking something I paid for. So I would consider that an illegal activity. On the other hand, if that person does something illegal on my network that person should be liable, not me. Say someone steals your car to rob a bank. Are you going to be charged for the bank robbery? No. Same for someone who steals my bandwidth to do an illegal act.
Wonderful world we live in, eh?
Larry
Well, if your car is running with plenty of fuel then you have somewhat created a situation the local police have warned you about many times.
Broadcasting your WiFi in my house, where is that right defined?
Unless you could be proven in a court of law that you were personally negligent in your responsibilities to your Internet Service, like never using a WiFi firewall even though continually recommended to, and even then how responsible are you for someone else using your service illegally without your knowledge. you should be held accountable for sure, to what extent may have to be determined in a court of law.
Shady area, if so? would the cable company’s, telephone (wired) companys, owners, server owners, backbone owners be liable also if someone uses there hardware for illegal purposes? THINK!
there is no way you can prove it in a court of law that you are not liable or guity because you are the owner of the equipment, you should know about all the activities it is used for.
for example if somebody or a friend sends mesiles from your house (room) to kill another person at the other end, are you guilty or not guilty.
I say it depends. If the owner of the equipment has taken reasonable attempts to secure their equipment then they should not be held liable. But if they aren’t at least using the supplied security features (e.g. WEP) and changed their default password, then maybe they should be held liable.
I currently have WPA, a MAC filter and various passwords in place to prevent other people from freeloading off of my wifi signal. Despite all that I’ve enabled, I believe all security can still be broken through if a person is determined enough. If a person leaves his front door unlocked while he’s on vacation and someone comes in and uses the house for criminal activity, the owner could be suspected of being an accomplice. Same with a WiFi signal, how can one prove that he didn’t actually LET a criminal use his signal for unlawful ends?
Think about identity theft. I hope I won’t be responsibe for any crimes committed by the crook(s).
My opinion is that unless there is a law, regulation or something similar by the government requiring WiFi equipment and WiFi software makers to conform to certain security regulations, I guess I could say “average”, in other words ignorant WiFi users can’t be held responsible for WiFi security they’re not aware of and don’t know how to use.
I’ve read that WEP encryption can be hacked in less than a minute. How many people use WEP instead of secure WPA and WPA2 encryption or even no encryption at all? And how many people know that?
If WiFi security is important enough to hold end-users responsible for any WiFi activity on their own network, well, that would require that end-users have a government “license” or something similar to ensure that they have had training to secure their own WiFi network. Because without that license, you couldn’t rightfully punish ignorance, ignorant people who don’t know how to secure WiFi networks. Why bother with WiFi licenses when the government could just regulate WiFi equipment and software to certain security standards? Which sounds much easier and much more effective than WiFi licenses to me.
To readily diffuse one variant of the fear of freedom some people have expressed here, if everyone, or the majority of people leave their networks open, then unless the criminal is caught red-handed, you, the network owner, could never be falsely proven as having committed the crime or having made the downloads, etc. b/c anyone could have done it. RIAA lawyers have dropped charges, lawsuits wholly because the network was open and couldn’t pin anyone specific.
No one should be compelled to share a network, of course, but certainly, no one should be punished for sharing it, either.
So are federal, state, and local governments responsible for crimes committed on federal, state, or local areas? No. If we want the world to tear down Berlin Walls and socioeconomic barriers, we have to put forth the trust and education, especially ethical/moral education, necessary to open the way for greater and greatest goods, even though any open good is always an equally open channel for bad. If you’re free to move, then you’re free to commit good or bad acts. The idea is to allow all acts, good or bad, and punish the bad ones. America is based on such freedom. In America, and pretty much every country, I am free to murder if I so want–just that it would be a bad act and punishable. (And when we don’t ethically/morally judge acts as good and bad and assign punishment to the bad, then good will fail, not all at once, but truly, inevitably. Removing punishments, like capital punishment, is a step to the downfall of good, or that of order. Without boundaries/laws, such as skin on a body, an immune system, or space between earth and sun, no shape or form or organism or life can exist and everything would be “a compound in one” and existence would cease.) With the freedom/power to do greater good comes the freedom to do greater bad. If we were all frozen like Han Solo, we could be assured of a world without bad things happening, but what is the point of an existence like that?
I recall a case a while back on this very thing. It ended with (paraphrasing): As long as you take reasonable security measures, you are not liable. So if you use even basic WEP, you’ve provided a “reasonable to the law” security measure, and are not immediately liable. Also, if your AP still has an SSID of “linksys” (example), they’ll likely consider you an idiot who can’t read directions (owner’s manual), and consider you partially liable. It’s the equivalent of hanging your car keys on a hook by your front door (outside).
And for those who say the burden of proof lies on the accuser to say you’re guilty, that’s only in criminal court. The RIAA takes its victims to civil court, a completely different matter, and they don’t even need “beyond reasonable doubt”, only “enough evidence to say it’s you” (IP address, date, time, etc, are all that’s necessary in civil court. Criminal court the State needs much more proof.)
No. That’s like saying you should get in trouble for someone smoking pot on your property without you knowing. THEY are the ones committing an illegal act, not you, and you shouldn’t be blamed for it.
I know many computer stupid people who couldn’t secure their wireless network even if they wanted to, and they shouldn’t be prosecuted merely because they haven’t been using their computer much.
Even my own Wi-Fi isn’t secure right now (my sister basically owns it and she’s worried about me mucking it up), but my internets are protected by a proxies and McAfee. People should only be responsible for their own actions.
Aside from that, I agree with Josiah completely. ^o^
I totally understand your point about if someone steals your car and rob’s a bank you think your not liable however if you left the keys in the vehicle i believe you are responsible.
You are allowing people access to the internet to do what ever they want it is your responsibility what they do on your network.
If you don’t take steps to prevent some one from using your wifi then you are Partially responsible for living it open
Hey, WEP can be cracked very easily in under ten minutes – watch the how to video on youtube. Many wireless use WEP and many people do not even know how to lock down their wi-fi so how can people be held responsible for this? This should be open and shut case. Also – who is responsible for the public Wi-fi Access points open to anyone?