Would You Give Up Your Child for Free Wi-Fi?
In a strange prank experiment, security firm F- Secure in London offered parents free wi-fi in exchange for their children.
This experiment was designed to highlight the trust that people put into public hotspots, with the security form not only succeeding in getting their children, but also their credit card details and their passwords.
In order to gain access to the hotspot in London’s Canary Wharf neighbourhood the users had to agree to the firms terms and conditions, one of which was to “render up their eldest child for the duration of eternity”. In half an hour, 33 people tried to use the hotspot and 18% of them had agreed to the mentioned term above.
The hotspot has since been disabled and F- Secure will not attempt to enforce the “Herod Clause”. Sean Sullivan, the Security adviser, explained that the purpose of this experiment was to cement the fact to the consumers that free wi-fi is unsecure.
“It wasn’t designed for the 21st century and it’s leaking information about us to people that we don’t have any knowledge of and they’re collecting data on us that we’re not consenting to,” he continued.
The experiment really highlighted that people trust their technology without any regard of the implications in order to get free bandwidth. People are prepared to do anything in order to get that wi-fi, even completely disregarding the draconian terms and conditions.
