ASK any home user 'Why lock your Wi-Fi?' and the answer will inevitably be to keep out the crooks.
The most convenient method - possibly the only way the masses know - is to use a password.
Just two years ago, open connections at malls and residential estates were difficult to miss. Today, it's hard to get on any wireless network without a password.
A media frenzy following Singapore's first Wi-Fi theft conviction in January last year and a second conviction a month later could have caused the knee-jerk reaction among Wi-Fi owners here.
The first case involved a video game addict and the second, a bomb hoax.
But it's time to throw out the password and go open - with your Wi-Fi, that is.
Bizarre as the idea may sound, you're not any safer behind those passwords than you are without them.
Do you really think criminals bent on stealing your identity will be thwarted by flimsy passwords? A simple programming script is all it takes to crack them.
What's incredulous is that it's the people using the default usernames and passwords of their routers who are congratulating themselves for locking out bandwidth thieves.
Little do they know that the default settings of wireless routers or access points are openly available on the Web. Anyone keen to break in can simply look them up. Such passwords offer no protection at all.
The number of networks retaining their default names is also jaw-dropping. The many generic names like 'wireless', 'netgear' and 'linksys' only go to show how little people know about security.
Still, Wi-Fi owners think they're safe.
Well, they could be right - they are safe. Safe from the harmless passer-by who needs just a few minutes of access to check his e-mail or find directions from online street maps. Safe from the neighbour's kid who struggles with school work on a hand-me- down computer.
The malicious hacker who steals credit card information isn't going to be put off by a mere password. So is the paedophile who exploits the anonymity offered by wireless signals to commit a raft of crimes.
There are more effective ways to deter criminals. The answer doesn't lie in passwords but in firewall and encryption programs. Firewall logs show you the Internet protocol addresses of intruders. Encrypted data is hard to make out without the software to decode them.
If people secure their PCs - with encryption, anti-virus and firewall tools, for instance - they shouldn't be too worried about opening their networks.
This is renowned security guru Bruce Schneier's rationale for running an open Wi-Fi at his home in Britain.
'If I configure my computer to be secure regardless of the network it's on, then it (securing my Wi-Fi) simply doesn't matter,' he wrote in a column in Wired magazine early this year.
'If my computer isn't secure on a public network, securing my own network isn't going to reduce my risk very much,' wrote the chief technology officer of BT Counterpane and author of Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security In An Uncertain World.
More importantly, he likens giving his neighbour free Wi-Fi to offering them a hot cup of tea. 'Similarly, I appreciate an open network when I am otherwise without bandwidth...Pay it forward, I say.'
