Internet crimes seemingly happen all the time, and part of that can be attributed to people not taking some simple precautions to protect themselves.

Thursday night Peace Officer Rusty Davis with the Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force went war driving in Folsom and El Dorado Hills to demonstrate how easy it is for criminals to tap into people's wireless Internet connections they have set up in their homes.

War driving is a pretty simple process. It's what criminals do when they want to gain access to someone's personal computer network that can give them access to a person's computer or looking for gateway to the Internet.

All that is really needed is a car, a laptop computer, an antenna, and the right kind of software that can be downloaded for free from the Internet. From there, the hacking and identify theft can begin.
 

In one Folsom neighborhood, 190 wireless users were surveyed though war driving, but only 49 percent of them took security precautions to guard their systems from intruders.

In Serrano in El Dorado Hills, behind gated access walls, 138 houses were surveyed in one area, and 56 percent of home users used their systems unsecured.

Davis attributed the slightly higher number of security cautious users in Folsom, an Intel city, to working in the hi-tech computer field and being more aware of the threats that exist.

Finding unsecured systems didn't take long, and the information that could be stolen could cause serious damage to a person's credit, bank accounts and more.

"What they can get access to are people's Quicken or TurboTax files," Davis said, noting that it is tax season.

Quicken is a financial program many people use to manage their personal finances. Credit card numbers can be stored in the program, and with many people doing their own taxes, a TurboTax file can yield other personal information, such as a social security number.

With permission from one of his friends, Davis demonstrated how easy it was to log onto his system remotely, look at his files, surf the Internet, and if his friend had not disabled the permissions, Davis could have taken documents right from his friend's computer and onto his.

While war driving in Folsom and El Dorado Hills, Davis did not hop onto anybody's computer. That would have been illegal, but it wasn't illegal just to see who is and isn't secure.

Besides stealing information from a person's computer, other legal dangers exist too that could have criminal implications for the innocent user that was unknowingly hi-jacked.

Davis said members of the Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force have investigated cases where WI/FI systems owned by an innocent party were used by a suspect to commit a crime via the Internet leaving the finger pointing at the innocent victim and being very difficult to trace back to the real culprit.

Besides child pornography, the same can be done with stolen credit card numbers where the perpetrator piggybacks on some else's system, uses their Internet access, which can also be easily traced back to the innocent computer user, but not the real criminal.

There is one way to make tracing easier, and that is to click on a feature within the WI/FI system that enables logging, where the program logs who has accessed the Internet through someone's system.

"It's a good thing to turn it on," Davis said.

Security issues weren't just found in neighborhoods.

In the Best Buy parking lot off Iron Point Road, six out of seven businesses were detected that were not using their wireless computer communications systems with any security.

The solution to the security breaches are pretty easy, Davis said.

While no system is foolproof, he said all people need to do is enable the encryption feature available with the WI/FI technology, change their password from the default setting that comes with the system, and also change the default service set identifiers, but not to change it to something that identifies the location a person's name or identity.

Some people were found to be using their own names, which could be great for a hacker if they were looking to find that person again.

El Dorado County resident Bob Johnson who was at Borders Books & Music in Folsom, uses a wireless connection in his home, said he also employs the security techniques for his computer.

Borders in Folsom allows WI/FI Internet access from their book store, but Johnson, who was working on his laptop computer, said he hasn't used a wireless hookup out of his house for several years.

When he was initially setting up his wireless system in his home, Johnson said he caught people trying to access his computer with an anti-virus program.

"A good anti-virus program will catch them," Johnson said.

Symantec offers an Internet security software suite that offers firewall and antivirus protection. So does McAfee.

Johnson is a network security instructor at Heald College, and wasn't surprised when he heard the numbers of the amount of people who weren't protecting their systems.

Davis said most don't know about the security issues associated with hooking up a wireless system in their home, but Johnson's experience was different.

"I have a neighbor who doesn't have it turned on," he said. Johnson discovered his neighbor didn't have it turned on when he set up his system and could sit in his home and see who in his immediate area was and wasn't protected.

Even after Johnson alerted his neighbor to the dangers, he chose not to alter his system.

At Best Buy, sales clerks said most people, when being asked about what system is the best and can do the most for them, the customers rarely ask about security.

While war driving Thursday night, the Borders hot spot main page was accessed from the parking lot, but a login and password were required to go any further.

Borders is a hot spot that is run by T-Mobile, a WI/FI provider for businesses. T-Mobile is also active in the four Starbucks in Folsom and the one in El Dorado Hills.

Ricardo DeCarlo, who works at the T-Mobile shop in Folsom, said subscribers of their system need an access code and can't go any further without it to get use their service, and said their system is safe.

Sutter Street in Historic Folsom has WI/FI hot spots which are free and do not require a logon ID or a password, so users run the risk of intrusion if they don't take the proper security precautions to protect themselves.