A court in the Netherlands ruled that hacking into Wi-Fi connections is not a crime providing any connected computers remain untouched. Meantime, the guidance does not imply that piggy-backing (or leeching) open wireless networks is not a crime.

The ruling came as a student threatened a shooting rampage against staff at students at Maerlant College in The Hague. The student posted the threat on 4chan, the notoriously anarchic internet image board, after he broke into a secure Wi-Fi connection. While he was caught and convicted of posting the message the hacking charge was lifted.

A Dutch court based its decision on a computer hacking law which defines a computer as a machine involved in the "storage, processing and transmission of data". Since a router is not used to store data, a judge reasoned, it fails to qualify as a computer – and thus the computer hacking law isn't applicable. Meantime, freeloaders will still be prosecuted under the law.