The latest news from our boys in blue, the South African Police Service is that they are now prosecuting people who steal ADSL caps.
Getting an ADSL cap is relatively easy. You get an IP scanner that will check to see if any IP has a web login. This web login is almost always your ADSL routers control panel. Most users don’t change their username and password so it’s easy to log in based on the default password which is easy to find in online manuals. Once into the router, the ADSL login details can be recovered and then used for ones own evil machinations.
The thing is, each ADSL connection should have a unique identifier as each ADSL customer is assigned a port in a box somewhere along the side of the road. Any ISP should technically be able to track where a login occured by linking the user with their phone number. If the usual phone number is not used, it’s obviously not the actual user.
Until now, it’s been a moral and legal grey area as to what ramifications exist when you have your bandwidth stolen. Lesson one, always change your router login details and lesson two, change your ISP password if you feel something is awry.
The point of this post however is to point out how ridiculous it is that the Police have to get involved in dealing with something as ridiculous as bandwidth theft. In our country where rape, murder and insitutionalised corruption are commonplace is this really something we should task to the Police? I guess it’s pretty impressive that our legal system has provisions for online theft but this seems a little excessive.
There should be a Telkom complaints line or something similar where people could complain and seek greivance but I’m still convinced that the Police should be used for policing ANC members or something useful.
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