Ethical Wireless Hacker Is Innocent
from the phew dept
Last July we ran the story of someone who simply pointed out that a local government wireless network was insecure. Instead of just securing the network (and possibly thanking the person who pointed it out), clueless authorities had him arrested for computer fraud. Luckily, the jury seemed to realize how silly a charge this was and have found the guy innocent of the charge. Hopefully we won't be seeing more cases like this. Now that everyone keeps saying that keeping our networks secure is more important than ever (whether or not you believe that...), it seems a bit ridiculous to have locked up someone kind enough to point out to you where there were holes in your network.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team