It was one of the first data intrusion arrests related to the use of Wi-Fi. Albeit as a conduit into a network to commit a crime, not in and of itself.
The two hackers in this story went wardriving back in 2003 and found an open Wi-Fi network in a Lowe's store. They went back later and, using the Wi-Fi network, installed a program that would collect credit card numbers, eventually, from all the Lowe's stores.
This Wired news article recounts the incident and tells how one of the hackers, Brian Salcedo, was sentenced to 9 years in prison just for the attempt. They didn't succeed since the FBI was watching the parking lot the night they installed the credit-card-stealing code. Ealier this week an appeals court upheld the sentence saying that the intention to steal a lot of card numbers and sell them was severe enough to warrant the longer sentence, even though they didn't actually see any credit card numbers.
We haven't had a high profile hacker in jail since Kevin Mitnick. I wouldn't be surprised if "Free Brian" stickers should appear on laptops and car bumpers this summer.
Link to story
