Internet Banking Fraud

ucsd_ucla_dad
Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:07:53 +0000

It’s a good heads-up and I’m glad it all worked out.

Just last week I noticed (from my house) that a neighbor’s wireless router was unsecured. Luckily they had their name on it as the identifier so I called him up and then went over to his house and secured it for him. Coincidentally, the day before ‘Cops’ was on TV and they came across a guy sitting in his car in a neighborhood with his laptop accessing people’s wireless connections. He also had lists of SS numbers, DL numbers, etc. and was doing some identity theft. Thankfully, the cops arrested him while he was commiting the act.

If you ever search for wireless connections in an apartment building it’s amazing how many are unsecured.

I guess people don’t secure them because while buying and hooking up a wireless router is very easy, many people just don’t understand the terms ‘encryption’, ‘wep’, etc. and so avoid configuring it even though it’s also usually easy to do.