Investigators could have taken an extra step before going inside the house and used a laptop or other device outside the home to see whether there was an unsecured signal. That alone wouldn't have exonerated the homeowner, but it would have raised the possibility that someone else was responsible for the downloads.

Too much of a bother.  Besides, it would ruin all the fun of dressing up in paramilitary gear and breaking down someone's door in the middle of the night.

choad wrote:

phreddy wrote:

Too much of a bother.  Besides, it would ruin all the fun of dressing up in paramilitary gear and breaking down someone's door in the middle of the night.

You were in the service, phreddy, do you understand that behavior? I don't.

I spent my time in the Coast Guard saving people, but my general experience tells me there is a certain martial attitude that can infect men and make them gung ho crazy. There's something about mixing guns, power, a uniform and a badge that can bring it on.  The most interesting aspect is that it primarily infects those who aren't really in harm's way.

GooberMcNutly wrote:

How hard would it be for wifi routers to come with security turned on and a unique password printed on a peel-off sticker right on top of the box? 99% of people can just read the short (6-8) characters and use it when connecting. Best would be a concatenation of 4 and 5 character words. Sure, it could be cracked after a few shorts weeks of wardialing, but it's good enough for just about anyone.

It reminds me of a case from around 2003 in northern Virginia of a guy who found some strangers laptop hidden in his crawl space, plugged into an outlet for heat tape that was acting as a porn relay from his wifi. (Back when you had to be within 20 feet of a wifi point to get any speed at all out of it)

Can't these people just download their porn at the library, where the ACLU has ensured your ability to get it?

It's not hard and a lot of new routers come like that.  Newish routers also mostly have a set up button you push which does it for you.  New versions of Windoze also nag you about turning on security.  There's a lot of old stuff and a lot of people who can't get things to work together but if you look around more of them are secure than were a few years ago.  Out of the eight or so I can see from my house only one is open and it's been that way for years.  About half of them are AT&T.  Their routers come set with a 10 digit number for a key that's set up and printed on the case just like you suggest.  I use 63 characters which is a pain when setting up things like printers and game consoles.