Detectives arrived last summer at a high-rise apartment building in Arlington County, warrant in hand, to nab a suspected pedophile who had traded child pornography online. It was to be a routine, mostly effortless arrest.
But when they pounded on the door, detectives found an elderly woman who, they quickly concluded, had nothing to do with the crime. The real problem was her computer’s wireless router, a device sending a signal through her 10-story building and allowing savvy neighbors a free path to the Internet from the privacy of their homes.
Perhaps one of those neighbors, authorities said, was stealthily uploading photographs of nude children. Doing so essentially rendered him or her untraceable.
With nearly 46,000 public access points across the country — many of them free — hundreds of thousands of computer users are logging on every day to wireless networks at cafes, hotels, airports and even while sitting on park benches. And although the majority of those people are simply checking their e-mail and surfing the Web, authorities said an increasing number of criminals are taking advantage of the anonymity offered by the wireless signals to commit a raft of serious crimes — from identity theft to the sexual solicitation of children.
“We’re not sure yet how to combat that,” said Kevin R. West, a federal agent who oversees the computer crimes unit in North Carolina’s State Bureau of Investigation. “Free wireless spots are everywhere, and it makes it easy for people . . . to sit there and do their nefarious acts. The fear is that if we talk about it, people will learn about it and say, ‘I can go to a parking lot, and no one will catch me.’ But we need to talk about it so that we can figure out how to solve it.”
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They’re JUST realizing this? Suppose the person who answered the door had been a man? How long would they have dragged him through the media ruining his marriage his career his reputation? Sure when the whole thing is finally settled a news story will appear on page 56 of the local newspaper not on page 1 where he was originally “exposed” to the public. Law Enforcement is so far behind in technology it would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous for the rest of us. The answer is NOT to outlaw wifi. Wifi is our right and law enforcement has to adapt. But for heaven’s sake THINK before you act! Be sure!