According to the writer, a Hague based court acquitted a student who was charged with hacking of a router. As the judge said, breaking Wi-Fi or piggybacking on an open Wi-Fi network does not contravene the constitution of the Netherlands. The judge, on the basis of the constitutional provisions, acquitted the student. He argued that according to the Netherlands’ constitution, hacking a computer, and not a router, is an offense. The decision, which did not go down well with some legal minds, attracted the opposition with the country’s attorney determined to appeal the verdict within two years.
While a computer stores and transmits data, a router conforms to the internet protocols, interfaces to packet networks, receives and forwards data, and provides the internet management, as well as support facility (Lowe, 2011). In my opinion, the line between a computer and a router is thin and faded. They are used together to access the Internet, and, as such, violating the laws that govern the usage of a computer should imply to the router. The student used a router to access data via a computer, hence violated the laws, governing computer hacking. The judge did not consider the impact of his ruling on the Internet security in the Netherlands. As long as hacking a router is not an offense, an upsurge of similar scenarios should be anticipated. Operations security is a process that aids in identification the critical data to determine, whether adversary intelligence systems can observe friendly actions, \whether the information that the adversary obtains is useful and executes selective measures to reduce the adversary exploitation of information (Morrison, 2009). The ruling that the judge made does not impact proper OPSEC. In conclusion, the law makers in the Netherlands should redefine hacking to protect the Internet security. This ruling should be a wakeup call.
