Broadband ISP TalkTalk ( The Carphone Warehouse ), which has consistently opposed Lord Mandelson’s plan to tackle illegal file sharing, recently sent one of its Internet security experts to visit The Highway, a residential road in Stanmore, Middlesex. The expert managed to identify networks that would be vulnerable to unauthorised file sharing and could potentially lead to the owners being accused of an offence that they never committed.

Within a couple of hours he had identified 23 wireless connections on the street – more than one-third of the total – which are vulnerable to Wi-Fi hijacking. These connections are either completely unsecured (6%) or use WEP encryption technology (28%), which has long since been broken and is easily hacked. In fact many broadband routers supplied by UK ISPs still ship with WEP enabled by default or as the only option.

From a total of 68 Wi-Fi connections on the road only one used the strongest available security (WPA2). The majority (65%) used WPA security which, while reasonably secure, can still be hacked by more experienced abusers; especially if the wireless routers firmware hasn't been updated with the latest security fixes in awhile.


This issue is just one of many that we ourselves have highlighted countless times before. It is simply wrong to place a presumption of guilt upon individuals without giving them a fair trial. IP addresses are clearly not a reliable way to identify specific individuals. They can easily be abuse in many other ways too.

The risk of innocent people being disconnected or unfairly fined is not hypothetical and, according to past studies from Which?, has already happened on quite a few occasions. Instead TalkTalk, which agrees the problem must be tackled but not that customers should be cut-off based on a suspicion, has called on the content industry to develop new business models and become more affordable.

TalkTalk recently confirmed that it was gearing up to launch a new form of 'Parental Control' for broadband ISP customers. This would allow parents to restrict Internet access via cinema-style classifications (U, 14, 18), which will include the blocking of file sharing sites that host illegal torrent downloads (e.g. The PirateBay).