Wi-fi piggybacker escapes jail

24 May 2007 | 07:24 BST

By Nick Farrell

Could have gone down for five years

A MICHIGAN MAN who used a coffee shop's unsecured Wi-Fi to check his e-mail from his car has managed to avoid going to prison.

Sam Peterson faced a jail term of five years for piggybacking on the coffee shop connection.

According to News.com, no-one in the village of Sparta, Michigan, knew that using an unsecured Wi-Fi connection without the owner's permission was a felony.

Peterson used to drive to the Union Street Cafe, park his car and, without actually entering the coffee shop, check his e-mail and surf the Net.

Police Chief Andrew Milanowski asked him what he was up to and Peterson, not being aware that what he was doing might be wrong, told him.

At the time he wasn't arrested, but Milanowski believed that Peterson was guilty of something, because most people are. The copper did some research and found that Peterson had broken Michigan's 1979 hacking laws.

The coffee shop owner Donna May, said she didn't know it was illegal. If Peterson had come into the coffee shop it would have been fine.

Peterson will have to pay a $400 fine, do 40 hours of community service and enrol in the county's diversion programme. We don't know what a diversion programme is, but we guess it is where you learn that the cops can get you for doing anything.

More here. µ

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