Would YOU give up your children for Wi-Fi? Parents accidentally agree to swap a child for internet access in experiment that shows none of us read the T&Cs

Home »Would YOU give up your children for Wi-Fi? Parents accidentally agree to swap a child for internet access in experiment that shows none of us read the T&Cs

Would YOU give up your children for Wi-Fi? Parents accidentally agree to swap a child for internet access in experiment that shows none of us read the T&Cs

Posted by sciencetech-blog on Tuesday, September 30, 2014 Label:

comments

Several parents unwittingly agreed to give up their eldest child in return for the use of free Wi-Fi, a study has revealed.

Thankfully, the deal was not binding but an experiment designed to highlight the dangers of using the public Wi-Fi internet.

Londoners were asked to agree to terms and conditions as they logged on to use free Wi-Fi in a cafe located in a busy financial district and at a site close to the Houses of Parliament.

Several Britons have unwittingly agreed to give up their eldest child in return for the use of free Wi-Fi (illustrated with a stock image). Londoners were asked to agree to terms and conditions as they logged on to use free Wi-Fi in a cafe located in a busy financial district and at a site close to the houses of parliament

The terms of access included a 'Herod clause', under which the Wi-Fi was provided only if 'the recipient agreed to assign their first born child to us for the duration of eternity'.

In the short period the terms and conditions were live, six people signed up.

'As this is an experiment, we will be returning the children to their parents,' joked F-Secure, the technology security firm that ran the experiment.

More...

The experiment aimed to highlight 'the total disregard for computer security by people when they are mobile,' according to the firm's report.

The Wi-Fi hotspot used in the test was small enough to be stashed in a handbag and was built by German ethical hacking company, SySS for €200 (£157 or $254).

The terms of access included a 'Herod clause', under which the Wi-Fi was provided only if 'the recipient agreed to assign their first born child to us for the duration of eternity'. A stock image is pictured

GOOGLE UNVEILS HACKING SQUAD

Last month Google unveiled an elite squad of hackers tasked with scouring the internet for security holes and defending the public against cyberattacks.

'Project Zero' will hunt for bugs in the world's most popular software, such as Google Chrome and Internet Explorer.

'You should be able to use the web without fear that a criminal or state-sponsored actor is exploiting software bugs to infect your computer, steal secrets or monitor your communications,' Google security researcher Chris Evans said in a blog post.

Yet he said sophisticated attacks continue to target, for instance, human rights activists and businesses.

'This needs to stop. We think more can be done to tackle this problem.

'We're hiring the best practically-minded security researchers and contributing 100 per cent of their time toward improving security across the internet.'

In just 30 minutes, 250 devices connected to the hotspot - some of them doing so automatically due to their settings.

The company was able to collect the text of emails they sent, the email addresses of the sender and recipient as well as the password of the sender.

The head of Europol's European Cybercrime Centre told the experts that criminals are already starting to offer free Wi-Fi hotspots in order to steal personal data.

Sean Sullivan, an F-Secure Security Adviser said: 'At best, your device is only leaking information about you and at worst, your passwords are being spilled into a publicly accessible space...anybody on the network can see your information.'

The report said: 'Our results illustrate the very real problem of the modern world which is that while massively dependent on the technology the population is unaware of its capabilities for surveillance and intrusion into their lives.

'The problem is that people implicitly trust their technology and are not aware of the implications of that trust.

'There is an insatiable pursuit of bandwidth, driven mainly by the desire to have video, data-rich apps and super-fast website performance on the move.

'This appetite for bandwidth ... has blinded consumers to the risks that they are taking. In pursuit of free bandwidth, people are prepared to do anything as our experiment showed with its draconian terms and conditions.'

Put the internet to work for you.

Turn off or edit this Recipe

sciencetech-blog