Wireless hacker cut down to size

On Wednesday [July 20] Gregory Straszkiewicz received a 12-month conditional discharge after being found guilty of using bandwidth he did not own.

According to detective inspector Chris Simpson of the London Metropolitan Police, Straszkiewicz was tried under sections 125 and 126 of the Communication Act 2003. In addition he was forced to pay £500 ($872) fine and his laptop computer has been confiscated.

"Unfortunately a lot of people leave their wi-fi networks unencrypted. This is like leaving your phone outside your house for anyone to use," said Philip Stansfield, practise director at Morse Mobile. "The thing is that prevention is simple, turn on encryption. If you don't do that you are inviting anyone to use your connection."

The Communications Act of 2003 gave regulation body Ofcom full powers to oversee communications in the U.K. Among its many provisions it introduced Community Radio, lifted many restrictions on cross-media ownership and banned the use of wireless networks to which the user did not hold a subscription.

At the start of July SC reported AirMagnet researchers are tracking a new kind of wireless attack that can flood a company's central authentication server. The attack has been called 'phlooding.'