Security on the Internet: to trust or not? (Part Two)

Singapore has begun coming up with cyber laws since 1993. In general, Most of the provisions of the Computer Misuse Act carry a maximum fine up to $10,000 Singaporean dollars and/or imprisonment up to three years for a first offense. For the second and subsequent offenses, the penalty is a fine up to $20,000 Singaporean dollars and/or imprisonment up to five years. If there was damage caused as a result of the crime, the penalty is a fine up to $50,000 and/or imprisonment up to seven years. If the crime involved a threat to Singapore’s security, or to the banking or other financial, communications, or transportation industries, or to public services including utilities, safety, police, civil defense, or medicine, the penalty is a fine up to $100,000 Singaporean dollars and/or imprisonment up to 20 years.

A continuation of the previous post where i talked about the misuse of internet on social internet tools like msn messenger, facebook etc. The focus is now brought to a commonly made offense that has been undermined, that is unauthorised access to computer material.

A different kind of unauthorised access to computer networks is involved in the activity of “mooching” or “piggybacking” on an unsecured wireless network. Although prosecutions for this kind of activity are rare in Asia and indeed globally, Singapore already has a reported case. In March 2007, it was reported that a 17-year-old who piggybacked on his neighbour’s wireless Internet connection in order to engage in online chatting was sentenced to 18 months’ probation in the District Court.

Mooching does not seem like a harmful act but it does, infringes people's rights and is a form of cheating because basically you are using somebody's connection without paying nor permission. Such act do not appear to be serious and is an inevitable offence by the offender. This comes to a question of how serious should the punishment be should a older person be convicted of such crime? After reading this article, i must be more careful when my laptop is connected to a WLAN network, whether its mine, or has my laptop accidentally been 'mooching' on other networks.

Food for thought: Are you one of those who are sub-consciously committing this offence?