Piggybacking on Internet access is the practice of establishing

a wireless Internet connection by using another subscriber'swireless Internet access service without the subscriber'sexplicit permission or knowledge.

It is a controversial practice, with laws that vary by jurisdictionaround the world. While completely outlawed or regulated insome places, it is permitted in others.

Computer users who either do not have their own connections orwho are outside the range of their own might find someone else'sby luck and use that one.

Person residing near a hotspot or another residence with theservice have been found to have the ability to piggyback off suchconnections.

Many computer owners who cannot afford a monthly subscriptionto an Internet service, who only use it occasionally, or wish to savemoney and avoid paying.

The cost of Internet service is a factor.

Views on the ethics of piggybacking vary widely. Manysupport the practice, stating it is harmless, and that it benefitsthe piggybacker at no expense to others, while others criticizeit with terms like "leeching" or "freeloading".

There are few things which relate this practice with thefamiliar situations like—

Sitting behind another passenger on a train, and reading theirnewspaper over their shoulder.

Enjoying the music a neighbor is playing in their backyard.

Borrowing a cup of sugar.

These are the views of those people who think thatpiggybacking is legal.

Opponents to piggybacking compare the practice to:

Entering a home just because the door is unlocked.

Connecting one's own wire to a neighbor's house to obtainfree cable TV service when the neighbor is a subscriber.

Laws regarding “unauthorized access of a computernetwork" exist in many legal codes, though the wording andmeaning differ from one to the next. And there is no generalagreement on whether piggybacking (intentional access of anopen Wi-Fi network without harmful intent) falls under thisclassification . Some jurisdictions prohibit it, some permit it,and others are not well-defined.

Countries like Australia,Canada,HongKong,Italy,Singapore,UKand USA had laws regarding unauthorized accessing ofwireless network.

United KingdomThe Computer Misuse Act 1990, section 1 reads(1) A person is guilty of an offence if—

• He causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer;

• The access he intends to secure is unauthorized; and• He knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function

that is the case.

Hong KongUnder HK Laws. Chapter 200 Crimes Ordinance Section 161 Access to computer with criminal or dishonest intent:(1) Any person who obtains access to a computer-

• with a view to dishonest gain for himself or another; or• with a dishonest intent to cause loss to another,• whether on the same occasion as he obtains such access or on any future

occasion, commits an offence and is liable on conviction upon indictment to imprisonment for 5 years.

In the UK,a teenager was fined and his computer wasconfiscated for using someone else’s open wifi connection tochat online.

In November 2006, the 17 year old Garyl Tan Jia Luo, wasarrested for tapping into his neighbor's wireless Internetconnection. He faced up to three years' imprisonment and afine under the Computer Misuse Act.

An Illinois man was arrested in January 2006 for piggybackingon a Wi-Fi network. David M. Kauchak was the first person tobe charged with "remotely accessing another computersystem" in Winnebago County.

If you think these cases amount to piggybacker harassment,think about this:

If your wifi connection is unprotected, most of the time youwon’t be able to tell who else is using it and for what purpose.It could be an innocent piggybacker accessing the wi-fi tocheck his email. Or it could be a hacker or a terrorist. Internetproviders log activities originating from your home Internetconnection.

Last year, Germany’s top court decided to make people withunsecured wireless connections partly responsible for thecrimes of others who use them. The court ruled that Internetusers must use password to protect their wifi or face a fine if athird party uses it to illegally download music, movies or othercopyrighted media.

Wifi hacking isn’t just being used to commit white collar crimes. In 2008,terrorists affiliated with the Indian Mujahideen group hacked into a homewireless connection of a U.S. citizen living in Mumbai. They used it to sendout an email warning of their attacks in several cities which killed 46people and wounded 200.

A 2009 survey of 12 cities and 40,000 wireless networks by Data SecurityCouncil of India found that 86% of networks were vulnerable to hackers.

As a result, Indian police have begun taking an action against those whouse unsecured wifi. In some cities, violators will be fined and even faceprison time for failing to secure their wireless networks.

Secure your home wireless network. Use strong Wi-Fiencryption. That means using WPA instead of WEP, which isan easy target for hackers.

Change the default password on your wireless router. Don’tuse a password that anyone can guess.

Check the law in your state to find out if piggybacking on openwireless connections is illegal.

If you see evidence that someone else has gainedunauthorized access to your wireless network, contact yourwireless service provider.

Since every device connected to your network has a unique IPaddress and MAC address, you can easily see a list ofconnected devices -- often listed as "clients" -- on one of thesettings pages of your wireless router.

Want to make absolutely sure no one's going to figure outyour password?Your router can hide its SSID, meaning it won't show up foranyone searching for connectable networks. The address willhave to be entered manually.

“But with a secure connection, you shouldn't have to worry about that. “

Laws do not have the physical ability to prevent such actionfrom occurring. The owner of any wireless connection has theability to block access from outsiders by engaging wirelesssecurity measures. Not all owners do so, and some securitymeasures are more effective than others.Network operators may choose from a variety of securitymeasures to limit access to their wireless network, including:

WEP

WPA

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is an olderencryption algorithm used to secure transmitteddata across wireless networks.

• WEP uses a security code chosen duringconfiguration called a WEP key, which uses asequence of hexadecimal digits.

• This digit sequence must match on all devices tryingto communicate on the wireless network.

Advantages:

When users see your network during wireless detection, theywill most likely be discouraged since it will require a key. Thismakes it clear to the user that they are not welcome.

WEP offers is interoperability.

Disadvantage:

WEP encryption uses a shared key authentication and sendsthe same key with data packets being transmitted across thewireless network.

Another disadvantage to using WEP encryption is that if themaster key needs to be changed, it will have to be manuallychanged on all devices connected to the network.

Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) is a much strongerencryption algorithm created by Wifi Alliance. Theydefined this in response to the weakness found inWEP.

• Like WEP, WPA uses the same encryption/decryptionmethod with all devices on the wireless network, butdoes not use the same master key.

• Devices connected to a WPA encrypted wirelessnetwork use temporary keys that are dynamicallychanged to communicate.

Advantages:

WPA uses a Temporary Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP),which dynamically changes the key as data packetsare sent across the network.

Since the key is constantly changing, it makescracking the key much more difficult than that ofWEP.

If the need arises to change the global key, WPA willautomatically advertise the new key to all devices onthe network without having to manually changethem.

Disadvantage:

The biggest issue is incompatibility with hardwareand older operating systems.

“If possible, you should choose WPA over WEP when configuring your wireless network. It

provides much better security.”

It is a controversy that whether it is legal or illegal activity, but yet

piggybacking is a darker side of wi-fi.

The cyber terrorist attacks in India are a harsh reminder that wecan’t control what happens on unsecured wifi networks anywherein the world.

So it is responsibility of owner and network administrator tosecure his wireless connections.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggybacking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggybacking_%28Internet_access%29

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/how-to-tech/how-to-detect-stealing-wifi3.htm

http://www.privatewifi.com/wifi-and-the-law-whose-wifi-is-it-anyway/

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/how-to-tech/how-to-detect-stealing-wifi3.htm