Security Expert: I Leave My Wi-Fi Wide Open

I greatly respect security expert Bruce Schneier and I blog about his writings frequently. But his latest, a column for Wired, had me a little taken aback. Why? Schneier says he leaves his home Wi-Fi network open for any passers-by who might like to borrow its signal.

Such behavior flies in the face of common sense and what we've been told since the dawn of wireless: Protect your signal to protect yourself. Who wants interlopers hopping on their network?

For Schneier, it's an issue of "basic politeness." Visitors, he says, should have open access to the internet, just like they do to heat and electricity. And I totally agree with that: It's the unwanted visitors I'm not too thrilled about.

A big concern about open Wi-Fi is always that some creep sitting outside your house will use your network to commit a crime (they always say child porn) and then that crime will be pinned on you. But such crimes are largely theoretical, says Schneier: Who would really go to such an effort to do such a thing? And what better defense is there, asks Schneier, than to say he has an open network and that anyone could have done it?

I'd respond in two ways: One, that was Jammie Thomas's defense in her landmark file sharing trial. And though there were a lot of problems with her case (including the possibility that she didn't have a wireless network at all), the jury didn't buy her excuse. Second, it's not the casual interlopers that bother me, it's the neighbors. I imagine Schneier lives in a traditional suburban neighborhood with a little bit of distance between houses. I live in dense San Francisco. On a good day I can see 12 Wi-Fi networks from my living room; up to 100 people could probably hop on my signal right now if it was open. Do I trust all of them to do the right thing and not abuse my hospitality? No way.

Schneier has other arguments, but they mainly come down to a) it's polite to share and b) the risk of sharing is limited if you secure your PCs at the source. But Schneier is probably better at computer security than most people, and, you know, my rude neighbors can get their own dang internet service.

LINK: Steal This Wi-Fi