As reported by PC World, a Dutch court has ruled that breaking into a wireless router in order to use an Internet connection is not a criminal offense. The ruling came about after a student was charged with making use of a Wi-Fi connection that he broke into to post threats on an Internet message board--the student eventually got off with a light sentence involving just 20 hours of community service. Acquitting the student of the Wi-Fi hacking aspect of the charge, the judge used the reasoning that no computers were actually broken into.

As expected, the case has generated some controversy in The Netherlands, though the judge's reasoning appears to be based on existing legal frameworks. For while the Dutch forbid the act of breaking into a computer; a computer in the Netherlands is defined as having three components--data storage, data processing and transmission of data. The logic is that since a wireless router is only used to facilitate the transmission of data, it is not, strictly speaking, a computer. Do note however that accessing Wi-Fi networks without permission is not permissible in many places, while breaking into a wireless network is illegal in practically every country that I'm aware of. For now, the Dutch attorney general has decided to appeal the verdict.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at PCWorld

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