BUFFALO, N.Y. — Lying on his family-room floor with assault weapons trained on him, shouts of "pedophile!" and "pornographer!" stinging like his fresh cuts and bruises, the Buffalo homeowner didn't need long to figure out the reason for the early-morning wake-up call from a swarm of federal agents.
That new wireless router. He had gotten fed up trying to set a password. Someone must have used his Internet connection, he thought.
"We know who you are! You downloaded thousands of images at 11:30 last night," the man's lawyer, Barry Covert, recounted the agents saying. They referred to a screen name, "Doldrum."
"No, I didn't," the homeowner insisted. "Somebody else could have, but I didn't do anything like that."
"You're a creep. . . . Just admit it," they said.
One of my friends posted their FB status the other day, "Sorry I wasn't on FB. My Internet was down for a few days, but then my neighbor got his wi-fi fixed."