Most of us surely on one occasion or another have downloaded a movie, a music disc or a book from the network of networks, being aware that we are committing something illegal, but with the total certainty that nothing can us happen. However, this could change very soon, and it is that the Court of the California Court of Appeals, has convicted an American for a crime of computer hacking.
The strange thing about this whole case is that his crime has not been to download a movie or a song from the Internet, but only to ask a colleague for the WiFi password of the company where he worked. This has been considered an illegal hacking technique, although it may seem like a joke, and this has led us to think about 10 things that many of us do on the Internet that may be illegal.
It is true that the things or activities that we are going to see throughout this article may be illegal and even lead us to prison, although it will largely depend on the country in which we reside. And it is not the same to commit one of these activities in the United States, than to do it from one of the many paradises that give enormous freedom to do and undo in the network of networks.
WiFi without password
This is one of the most common mistakes that a huge number of users make every day and around the world. Leaving a WiFi network unprotected with a password means that anyone can access the Internet through your connection. In many cases this is not a problem, but in other cases it is.
And if not ask good old Barry, whom the police questioned for more than a month for his alleged visits to child pornography websites. Some time later it was discovered that Barry was not the one who watched porn through the network of networks, but that it was his neighbor who was doing it connected to the WiFi network. All this mess ended up solved and with the unpleasant neighbor behind bars, but not having a password made Barry go through a pretty ugly drink.
Offensive posts
All Spaniards know very well that writing, for example, offensive messages on Twitter, can land you in jail. In addition, these days the cataract of complaints that are being carried out against many users who wrote through the network of authentic atrocities about the death of the bullfighter Víctor Barrio is quite current.
Searching the network of networks, we can find cases that border on the absurd, and it is that Leigh Van Bryan, 26, and Emily Bunting, 24, tweeted before traveling to the United States on vacation; "All week off to prepare before I go and destroy America."
The "prize" for these two young men was an interrogation of more than five hours by the US police, in which they managed to explain that the term "destroy" simply meant going to party.
VOIP services
The VOIP services or voice over Internet protocol services, such as Skype or the option offered by applications such as WhatsApp or Viber. Even though it may seem like a totally harmless app, in some countries like Ethiopia its use is prohibited, and the new telecommunications law of the African country condemns all users who make use of this type of service, whatever the purpose.
It is not something common, but if you are going to travel to Ethiopia, be very careful as you can end up in jail without even realizing it and without really knowing why.
Translate Articles
We all more or less know that translating a book, without the permission of its author or the publisher that owns the rights to the book, is a crime, which in a huge number of countries can land you in jail. Translating an article can be just as serious in some countries, such as Thailand, where a citizen was arrested for translating an article on his blog.
The article was considered "offensive to the autocracy" and its translator, not its author, ended up behind bars for a short time.
Gambling or playing at online casinos
In the United States and almost all European countries carry out sports bets online or playing in online casinos is quite common. Nevertheless there are many countries where this is a crime, and it can lead to quite significant jail terms.
If you are going to go on vacation to an unusual country this summer, check first that you will be able to play poker, for example, to avoid being upset.
Exchange files
It has long file sharing has been surrounded by controversy mainly due to copyright laws. Depending on the country we are in, the laws are more or less severe and for example, in some of them, the simple gesture of downloading a torrent may be a crime.
Be very careful before launching to download a movie or a song through torrent and if you do not know the copyright laws of the country where you are, you can easily get into a mess of which later it will be quite a lot. hard to get out.
Share song lyrics
To close this list of illegal things that many of us do daily on the network of networks in a large number of countries, we want to show you a somewhat peculiar one, such as sharing song lyrics. This may seem like a small thing, but nevertheless rapper Cameron D'Ambrosio was arrested not too long ago by United States authorities for posting song lyrics on your profile on the social network Facebook.
Of course, as you are thinking, the arrest was not only due to the publication of the lyrics of the songs, but to their content in which he made different terrorist threats. The prison sentence requested by the US prosecution was nothing more and nothing less than 20 years.
Have you committed some of the activities that we have shown you in recent times?. Bear in mind that some of them, even if you have committed them, in Spain for example are not a crime, at least for now.