Police are arresting those who connect to unsecured wireless networks. But is it really a crime to surf for free?

Piggybacking on your neighbors Wi-Fi connection may seem like a victimless crime unworthy of punishment, but some officials beg to differ. In late August, the BBC reported that London police arrested a 39-year-old man for connecting to an unsecured Wi-Fi network while standing outside the network owner’s home. In the U.K., clear provisions such as the Communications Act 2003 and the Computer Misuse Act ban this practice. But here in the States, the laws are vaguer.

The closest the U.S. comes to outlawing Wi-Fi mooching is Title 18, Section 1030 of the U.S. Code, which prohibits “unauthorized access.” According to Tracy Mitrano, director of information technology policy at Cornell University, there are three types of laws that courts use to try to prosecute Wi-Fi filches: those dealing with trespassing, hacking, and creating counterfeit cable boxes.

“It’s not a perfect fit,” Mitrano says. “Trespass law was based on physical space. I don’t think any of them successfully address the issue.”

Often, state and local regulations are prosecuted in vastly different ways. In 2005, a Florida man was charged with a third-class felony for lurking outside a Tampa house with his laptop. And two men, one in Alaska and one in Michigan, were handed down fines for accessing free Wi-Fi hot spots from the street, instead of inside the walls of the business.

In 2006, the legislature of Westchester County, on the outskirts of New York City, became the first in the country to pass a law requiring businesses to secure their internal wireless networks. County Board Chair Bill Ryan says that the measure was put into place to protect both the data of local businesses and the personal information of employees.

Mitrano, like many others, feels the responsibility lies with users to secure their home or business networks. She warns against hindering wireless technology’s progress through over legislation.

“Thank goodness we don’t live in a country where we are required to process all of our technology through federal and state governments, where it is not released until lawmakers are shown every intended and unintended use to establish a legal framework,” she says. “We would throw ourselves back into the Stone Age if we did that.”

Let’s put it this way: You’ll certainly make an impression. It’s not exactly Air Force One, but with an Aeroscraft ML866 sky yacht, you’ll have a fully connected wireless office in the sky. Picture yourself commanding a high-definition video conference from your personal dirigible.

You’ll be tooling along at 138mph over the limos of lesser individuals. Imagine the command and control you’ll have over your empire from your bleeding-edge computerized office. And then laugh all the way over the bank as you think about the hangar fees your deflatable sky yacht is saving you.

Continue from Part 2.

Group systems manager David Lloyd said the system produced near perfect accuracy and slashed operator working times. ?It is amazingly accurate,? he says. ?It takes 15 to 20 minutes to train operators in the system and it is then 99.9% accurate. In any stock control system, the keyword is accuracy. The only way this can fail is if the operator puts in the wrong information, but even then everything is recorded so there is an audit trail.

Building on WiFi is Wimax, or IEEE 802.16. At the early stages of adoption, it offers the potential to replace copper in the last mile and to support up to 75Mbit/s over tens of miles. In a few cases, entire cities have achieved WiMax coverage.

Another new kid on the wireless block is Zigbee. Based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, access to the specifications is controlled by the Zigbee Alliance. The key benefits are cheapness, simplicity and long battery life when compared with similar personal area network technologies, such as Bluetooth. Transmission range is up to 75m, bandwidth is up to 250kbit/s and nodes can be arranged in star, peer to peer or mesh topologies. The ability for Zigbee units to form mesh networks is seen as a key advantage, because that configuration can reroute should one node go down.

Expectations for Zigbee are high. Market research company Harbor Research says that, by 2008, there will 100million wireless sensors in use, up from about 200,000 today. The worldwide market for wireless sensor networks, it says, will grow from $100m in 2005 to more than $1billion by 2009.

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Cable is on the retreat. In almost every data application, one form of wireless networking or another is supplanting copper and fibre, whether in the last few metres with personal area networks or in the ?last mile? with WiMax.

The key technology areas ? mobile phone networks, wireless LAN and short range, low bandwidth methods of transmission such as Zigbee ? are becoming pervasive. So, what levels of adoption are they achieving and what are their chief uses in industry?

Mobile ?phone based remote monitoring and control benefits from wide areas of coverage and bandwidth ranging from a few kbit/s on GSM networks to a few Mbit/s with 3G. In many applications, sheer bandwidth is not necessary and effective monitoring and control networks have been built which capitalize on mobile networks? ability to cover wide areas of the countryside.

British Waterways, for example, has used Vodafone?s GPRS network to monitor flow rates, pumps and water levels on 2000 miles of rivers and canals. There previously staff had to manually check often remote locations, data is now polled in seconds using sensors connected to modems which transmit to the organization?s SCADA centres where key details are shown on a geographical information system.

Elsewhere, industrial and medical gases supplier Cryoservice has connected 30 of its delivery and engineering staff to back end applications using O2?s GPRS network and XDA II PDAs supplied by Handheld PCs. This allows real time tracking of deliveries and work assignments, proof of delivery and stock control via flyingSpark field services software which is also linked to satnav on the PDA.

Neil Grimshaw, CryoService?s financial controller, says: ?By automating many of the tasks the engineers previously had to do manually, such as time sheet recording and reporting back to head office, the solution has created a 20% to 30% time saving.?

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Intel has completed the design of its first mobile WiMAX baseband chip, pairing it with a previously announced multiband WiMAX/WiFi radio to create the WiMAX Connection 2300 chipset.

This chipset was demonstrated last week at the 3G World Congress in Hong Kong by executive vice president Sean Maloney. ?WiMAX Connection 2300 will help speed the deployment of mobile WiMAX and accelerate the availability of a new wave of ?personal broadband? laptops,? he claimed.

The baseband chip features multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) functionality to enhance signal quality and data throughput and the chipset brings Intel a step closer to an integrated wireless SoC. This, it claims, will help drive WiMAX adoption by maximizing usable space in mobile devices.

Users wanting to add a mouse to their notebook computer should take a closer look at Logitech’s new VX Nano Cordless Laser Mouse. Ergonomic curves, a low-profile design, and a soft rubber grip make the VX as comfortable as it is diminutive. The mouse has five programmable buttons and a scroll wheel that has two scrolling modes. By default, the VX’s One-Touch search button provides quick access to search results in the user’s preferred search engine. A pair of AAA batteries will power the mouse for approximately six months, depending on usage.

The 2.4GHz laser receiver extends just 8mm from the USB port, letting it remain plugged in without creating an ungainly bulge. You can also store it in the VX’s battery compartment. The Logitech VX Nano Cordless Laser Mouse is compatible with Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later. The package includes the mouse, receiver, batteries, Logitech SetPoint software, a protective travel pouch, and a three-year limited warranty.

Belkin’s N1 Vision wireless router is the first to feature an interactive display that provides at-a-glance access to important network information. The display details upload and download speeds, available network bandwidth, the number of connected devices, and guest access keys. And if your network goes on the fritz, the N1 Vision displays troubleshooting information designed to help you correct the problem.

Belkin also introduced several USB hubs aimed at making it more convenient to add USB ports to your PC. The Swivel Hub has a two-way connector that rotates 180 degrees, letting you add up to four USB devices to your computer without obscuring any other ports. The Clip-On Hub attaches to the edge of a tabletop or a bundle of cables and includes two top and two front USB ports. The Hub-To-Go features a 3-port desktop hub and a detachable 4-port travel hub. The travel hub’s rotating connector lets it connect to a USB port without obscuring any other ports.