Lawsuit 'theft' WiFi is unprecedented in Asia

When 17-year-old Garyl Tan Jia Luo "stole" into the neighbor's wireless Internet to chat with friends, he could not think that he was writing his name in the legal history of Asia.

Never had a precedent

Both the lawyers and IT have said that Tan was the first case in Singapore, and perhaps across Asia, was condemned before the court for "network theft" without permission.

They said they had never recorded a similar indictment in the entire Asia-Pacific region. In North America during the past 3 years, people only count a few such cases.

" We believe Singapore is a pioneer in this, " said Howard Lau, chairman of Hong Kong's Professional Information Security Association.

According to Lau, Tan's case will set a precedent in Asia, paving the way for similar charges. Although this is the first time, a "Wi-Fi network theft" has been dragged to court, but in fact, experts say this situation is quite common.

Popular in silently

Source: BusinessWeek " They can account for 5-10% of the total wireless capacity in the region, " said Bernie Trudel, Cisco System expert. Victims of "network theft" are often individual and household users, rather than corporate networks. The reason is because home users are always indifferent and less concerned about security.

Mr. Bryan Tan, an IT lawyer from Keyston, Singapore, said that in Florida, the United States had a lawsuit similar to that of Garyl Tan. A 41-year-old man was arrested for parking in front of other people's houses and deliberately accessing the home wireless network.

Remembering less than 2 months ago, also in Singapore, a 21-year-old young man was sued in court for stealing wireless networks. Lin Zhenghuang, the name of this person, was sentenced to 3 months in prison and fined $ 4,000.

Committing the crime in unconsciousness

One worrying fact is that both Tan and Zhenghuang are unaware that their behavior can harm others. Some people don't even think this is a crime. " The most common concept of the people is that this is not a crime, because there is no victim. People who suffer from cyber theft only suffer from a slight decrease in speed, " Tan said.

Newspapers almost rarely mention network theft, while this behavior can be done very easily, because many laptops are designed to automatically detect the nearest, most powerful Wi-Fi signal.

So far, Singapore has about 779,000 broadband subscribers. The rate of broadband universalization in households accounts for 62.8%. Wireless connectivity is not only available in offices, schools and indoors but is also about to be deployed for free in public areas in 2007.

It's just the matter of time

Under this National program, the number of government-installed Wi-Fi hotspots in public places will increase from 900 to 5,000 within 2 years. The goal of Lion Island is to increase the rate of family broadband access to 90% by 2015.

But with wireless networks becoming more and more popular, lawyer Tan predicts that cyber-theft lawsuits will appear with thicker frequencies. " It will only be a matter of time. "

Trong Cam