Free internet is more important than your first born child

Not having free Wi-Fi at a resort or hotel can be considered to be a First World Problem, and in a public experiment which was conducted in London not too long ago, you might be surprised at the lengths of what some people would go to in order to obtain free Wi-Fi. Basically, there was an Internet cafe that required its patrons to sign a made-up “Herod clause” if they wanted to make use of free Wi-Fi. Sounds normal, but when one were to take a closer look at the terms of the clause, part of it reads, “the recipient agree to assign their first born child to us for the duration of eternity.”

Several Britons agreed to give up their eldest child in return for the use of free Wi-Fi, in an experiment to highlight the dangers of public Internet, published on Monday. Londoners were asked to agree to terms and conditions as they logged on to use free Wi-Fi in a cafe in a busy financial district and at a site close to the houses of parliament. The terms included a “Herod clause”, under which the Wi-Fi was provided only if “the recipient agreed to assign their first born child to us for the duration of eternity”. In the short period the terms and conditions were live, six people signed up. “As this is an experiment, we will be returning the children to their parents,” said the tech security firm that ran the experiment, F-Secure. The experiment was aimed to highlight “the total disregard for computer security by people when they are mobile” the report said. Germany ethical hacking company SySS built the device used in the study: a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot small enough to be carried in a handbag for around 200 euros ($254).