The costs of piggy-backing
October 14, 2008 at 1:48 pm
If I were to warn you of the dangers of “piggy-backing”, would you think I was talking about a playground game? Well I’m not. Piggy-backing is the latest hazard associated with the internet and refers to the habit of individuals helping themselves to someone else’s wireless connection.
Whilst we wouldn’t dream of wandering into our neighbour’s home and sitting down at their computer, it seems that all scruples desert many of us when we are sitting in front of our screens. One in eleven of us (some 3.5 million) have piggy-backed at least once in the last twelve months, perhaps hardly surprising when one in six of us do not bother with password protection! It’s not just a quick e-mail session either, with one in eight piggy-backers regularly downloading films and music.
If the idea of your neighbour taking advantage of you is not sufficient incentive to make you use a password, then perhaps you should give thought to the fact that you (or they to be more precise) could well be exceeding your monthly download usage limit, having your bank details stolen or having your computer used for illegal activities.
According to moneysupermarket.com we should all be making sure that we have a WPA encryption device rather than a WPE one and of course it makes sense to take a good look at the bill when it comes in, to check that it is in line with what you were expecting. When setting a password, use a mixture of letters and numbers and think of a word that does not appear in a dictionary. Everyone is trying these days to save money but this is not the way to do it!
