Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Consumers borrow Wi-Fi

Although it is illegal in some parts of the world, 12 percent of U.S. and U.K. respondents to an Accenture survey have logged on to someone else’s unsecured Wi-Fi connection. Data that is sent via unsecured wireless routers is unencrypted and could theoretically be read by anyone who had the right network sniffing tools, but many people have tried logging on to unsecure Wi-Fi.

Logging on to open Wi-Fi signals is most popular with 18- to 34-year-olds, Accenture said. Nearly a third of them said they had done this at some point. The practice is apparently more common in the U.S., where one in seven have piggybacked on free Wi-Fi networks, than in the U.K., where Accenture found that it was attempted by one in 11.

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