NATO strike kills Gadhafi's son but leader escapes

TRIPOLI, Libya – Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi escaped a NATO missile strike in Tripoli on Saturday, but his youngest son and three grandchildren under the age of 12 were killed, a government spokesman said.

The strike, which came hours after Gadhafi called for a cease-fire and negotiations in what rebels called a publicity stunt, marked an escalation of international efforts to prevent the Libyan regime from regaining momentum.

Rebels honked horns and chanted "Allahu Akbar" or "God is great" while speeding through the western city of Misrata, which Gadhafi's forces have besieged and subjected to random shelling for two months, killing hundreds. Fireworks were set off in front of the central Hikma hospital, causing a brief panic that the light would draw fire from Gadhafi's forces.

The attack struck the house of Gadhafi's youngest son, Seif al-Arab, when the Libyan leader and his wife were inside. White House spokesman Shin Inouye declined to comment on the developments in Libya, referring questions to NATO.

The alliance acknowledged that it had struck a "command and control building in the Bab al-Azizya neighborhood" Saturday evening, but it could not confirm the death of Gadhafi's son and insisted all its targets are military in nature and linked to Gadhafi's systematic attacks on the population.

The commander of the NATO operation, Canadian Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, said he was aware of unconfirmed reports that some Gadhafi family members may have been killed and he regretted "all loss of life, specially the innocent civilians being harmed as a result of the ongoing conflict."

Seif al-Arab Gadhafi, 29, was the youngest son of Gadhafi and brother of the better known Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, who had been touted as a reformist before the uprising began in mid-February. The younger Gadhafi had spent much of his time in Germany in recent years.

Gadhafi's children had been increasingly engaged in covering up scandals fit for a "Libyan soap opera," including negative publicity from extravagant displays of wealth such as a million-dollar private concert by pop diva Beyonce, according to a batch of diplomatic cables released by the secret-spilling WikiLeaks website.

But Seif al-Arab remained largely in the shadows, although he had a penchant for fast cars and partying when outside Libya.

Moammar Gadhafi and his wife were in the Tripoli house of his 29-year-old son when it was hit by at least one bomb dropped from a NATO warplane, according to Libyan spokesman Moussa Ibrahim.

"The leader himself is in good health," Ibrahim said. "He was not harmed. The wife is also in good health."

Ibrahim would not give the names of the three children killed, except to say they were nieces and nephews of Seif al-Arab and that they were younger than 12. He said they are not releasing the names yet to protect the privacy of the family.

He said the compound that was hit was in the Garghour neighborhood.

"It seems there was intelligence that was leaked. They knew about something. They expected him for some reason. But the target was very clear, very, very clear. And the neighborhood, yes of course, because the leader family has a place there, you could expect of course it would be guarded, but it is a normal neighborhood. Normal Libyans live there," he said.

NATO warplanes have been carrying out airstrikes in Libya for the past month as part of a U.N. mandate to protect Libyan civilians. Saturday's strike marked the first time Gadhafi's family was being targeted directly.

Armed rebels have been battling Gadhafi loyalists for more than two months in an attempt to oust Libya's ruler of nearly 42 years. Standing outside an improvised triage unit in a tent in the parking lot, rebel fighter Abdel-Aziz Bilhaj, 22, welcomed the attack, saying it would make Gadhafi think twice about how he dealt with his people.

"It could make him more willing to back down on certain parts of his plan," Bilhaj said.

Medic Abdel-Monem Ibsheir considered the strike a form of justice.

"Gadhafi was not far away, meaning he's not safe," he said as occasional explosions could be heard throughout the city. "It's just like our children getting hit here. Now his children are getting hit there."

Eleven dead had reached the hospital morgue by midnight, including two brothers, ages 11 and 16. Two more had arrived by 1:30 a.m., and four more at another hospital.

On Tuesday, British Defense Minister Liam Fox and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters at the Pentagon that NATO planes were not targeting Gadhafi specifically but would continue to attack his command centers.

Ibrahim said Seif al-Arab had studied at a German university but had not yet completed his studies.

Seif al-Arab "was playing and talking with his father and mother and his nieces and nephews and other visitors when he was attacked for no crimes committed," Ibrahim said.

Journalists taken to the walled complex of one-story buildings in a residential Tripoli neighborhood saw heavy bomb damage. The blast had torn down the ceiling of one building and left a huge pile of rubble and twisted metal on the ground.

Dust and smoke rose from the rubble, which included household items including smashed toilet bowls, bathroom sinks and furniture among the broken walls and demolished floors. The mirror of a dressing table remained intact in the middle of a bedroom although the walls around it were demolished.

Libyans called in to a late-night television talk show to proclaim Seif al-Arab a martyr. A live shot from Gadhafi's compound Bab al-Aziziya showed dozens dancing, chanting pro-Gadhafi slogans, waving green flags and clapping in unison.

The government spokesman said the airstrike was an attempt to "assassinate the leader of this country," which he said violated international law.

Heavy bursts of gunfire were heard in Tripoli after the attack.

Gadhafi had seven sons and one daughter. The Libyan leader also had an adopted daughter who was killed in a 1986 U.S. airstrike on his Bab al-Aziziya residential compound, which was retaliation for the bombing attack on a German disco in which two U.S. servicemen were killed. The U.S. at the time blamed Libya for the disco blast.

Seif's mother is Safiya Farkash, Gadhafi's second wife and a former nurse.

The fatal airstrike came just hours after Gadhafi called for a mutual cease-fire and negotiations with NATO powers to end a six-week bombing campaign.

In a rambling pre-dawn speech Saturday, Gadhafi said "the door to peace is open."

"You are the aggressors. We will negotiate with you. Come, France, Italy, U.K., America, come to negotiate with us. Why are you attacking us?" he asked.

He also railed against foreign intervention, saying Libyans have the right to choose their own political system, but not under the threat of NATO bombings.

In Brussels, a NATO official said before Saturday's fatal strike that the alliance needed "to see not words but actions," and vowed the alliance would keep up the pressure until the U.N. Security Council mandate on Libya is fulfilled. NATO has promised to continue operations until all attacks and threats against civilians have ceased, all of Gadhafi's forces have returned to bases and full humanitarian access is granted.

Rebel leaders have said they will only lay down their arms and begin talks after Gadhafi and his sons step aside. Gadhafi has repeatedly refused to resign.

"We don't believe that there is a solution that includes him or any member of his family. So it is well past any discussions. The only solution is for him to depart," rebel spokesman Jalal al-Galal said.

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Associated Press writers Ben Hubbard in Misrata, Libya, Hadeel al-Shalchi in Cairo and Slobodan Lekic in Brussels contributed to this report.

Storms kill 72 around South, including 58 in Ala.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – A wave of tornado-spawning storms strafed the South on Wednesday, splintering buildings across hard-hit Alabama and killing 72 people in four states.

At least 58 people died in Alabama alone, including 15 or more when a massive tornado devastated Tuscaloosa. The mayor said sections of the city that's home to the University of Alabama have been destroyed, and the city's infrastructure is devastated.

Eleven deaths were reported in Mississippi, two in Georgia and one in Tennessee.

News footage showed paramedics lifting a child out of a flattened Tuscaloosa home, with many neighboring buildings in the city of more than 83,000 also reduced to rubble. A hospital there said its emergency room had admitted at least 100 people.

"What we faced today was massive damage on a scale we have not seen in Tuscaloosa in quite some time," Mayor Walter Maddox told reporters, adding that he expected his city's death toll to rise.

The storm system spread destruction Tuesday night and Wednesday from Texas to Georgia, and it was forecast to hit the Carolinas next before moving further northeast.

President Barack Obama said he had spoken with Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and approved his request for emergency federal assistance, including search and rescue assets.

"Our hearts go out to all those who have been affected by this devastation, and we commend the heroic efforts of those who have been working tirelessly to respond to this disaster," Obama said in a statement.

Around Tuscaloosa, traffic was snarled Wednesday night by downed trees and power lines, and some drivers abandoned their cars in medians. University officials said there didn't appear to be significant damage on campus, and dozens students and locals were staying at a 125-bed shelter in the campus recreation center.

Volunteers and staff were providing food and water to people like 29-year-old civil engineering graduate student Kenyona Pierce.

"I really don't know if I have a home to go to," she said

Maddox said authorities were having trouble communicating, and 1,400 National Guard soldiers were being deployed around the state. The flashing lights of emergency vehicles could be seen on darkened streets all over town, and some were using winches to remove flipped vehicles from the roadside.

Brian Sanders, the manager of an oil change shop, brought his daughters to DCH Regional Medical Center because he felt they'd be safe there. He said his business had been leveled.

"I can't believe we walked away," he said.

Storms struck Birmingham earlier in the day, felling numerous trees that impeded emergency responders and those trying to leave hard-hit areas. Surrounding Jefferson County reported 11 deaths by late Wednesday; another hard-hit area was Walker County with eight deaths. The rest of the deaths were scattered around the state, emergency officials said.

Austin Ransdell and a friend had to hike out of their neighborhood south of Birmingham after the house where he was living was crushed by four trees. No one was hurt.

As he walked away from the wreckage, trees and power lines crisscrossed residential streets, and police cars and utility trucks blocked a main highway.

"The house was destroyed. We couldn't stay in it. Water pipes broke; it was flooding the basement," he said. "We had people coming in telling us another storm was coming in about four or five hours, so we just packed up."

Not far away, Craig Branch was stunned by the damage.

"Every street to get into our general subdivision was blocked off. Power lines are down; trees are all over the road. I've never seen anything like that before," he said

In Huntsville, meteorologists found themselves in the path of tornado and had to evacuate the National Weather Service office.

In Choctaw County, Miss., a Louisiana police officer was killed Wednesday morning when a towering sweetgum tree fell onto his tent as he shielded his young daughter with his body, said Kim Korthuis, a supervisory ranger with the National Park Service. The girl wasn't hurt.

The 9-year-old girl was brought to a motorhome about 100 feet away where campsite volunteer Greg Maier was staying with his wife, Maier said. He went back to check on the father and found him dead.

"She wasn't hurt, just scared and soaking wet," Maier said.

Her father, Lt. Wade Sharp, had been with the Covington Police Department for 19 years.

"He was a hell of an investigator," said Capt. Jack West, his colleague in Louisiana.

By late Wednesday, the state's death toll had increased to 11 for the day, said Mississippi Emergency Management Association spokesman Jeff Rent. The governor also made an emergency declaration for much of the state.

Storms also killed two people in Georgia and one in Tennessee on Wednesday.

In eastern Tennessee, a woman was killed by falling trees in her trailer in Chattanooga. Just outside the city in Tiftonia, what appeared to be a tornado also struck at the base of the tourist peak Lookout Mountain.

Tops were snapped off trees and insulation and metal roof panels littered the ground. Police officers walked down the street, spray-painting symbols on houses they had checked for people who might be inside.

Mary Ann Bowman, 42, stood watching from her driveway as huge tractors moved downed trees in the street. She had rushed home from work to find windows shattered at her house, and her grandmother's house next door shredded. The 91-year-old woman wasn't home at the time.

"When I pulled up I just started crying," Bowman said.

Many around the region were happy to survive unscathed even if their houses didn't. In Choctaw County, Miss., 31-year-old Melanie Cade patched holes in her roof after it was heavily damaged overnight.

Cade was in bed with her three children when the storm hit.

"The room lit up, even though the power was out. Stuff was blowing into the house, like leaves and bark. Rain was coming in sideways," she said, adding that they managed to scurry into a bathroom.

"I didn't care what happened to the house," Cade said. "I was just glad we got out of there."

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Mohr reported from Choctaw County, Miss. Associated Press writers Jamie Stengle in Edom, Texas, Andrew DeMillo and Nomaan Merchant in Vilonia, Ark., Jack Elliott Jr. in Jackson, Miss., Bill Fuller and Alan Sayre in New Orleans, Dorie Turner in Atlanta, Bill Poovey in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Terry Wallace in Dallas contributed to this report.

Shrinking funds pull plug on alien search devices

SAN FRANCISCO – In the mountains of Northern California, a field of radio dishes that look like giant dinner plates waited for years for the first call from intelligent life among the stars.

But they're not listening anymore.

Cash-strapped governments, it seems, can no longer pay the interstellar phone bill.

Astronomers at the SETI Institute said a steep drop in state and federal funds has forced the shutdown of the Allen Telescope Array, a powerful tool in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, an effort scientists refer to as SETI.

"There's plenty of cosmic real estate that looks promising," Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the institute, said Tuesday. "We've lost the instrument that's best for zeroing in on these better targets."

The shutdown came just as researchers were preparing to point the radio dishes at a batch of new planets.

About 50 or 60 of those planets appear to be about the right distance from stars to have temperatures that could make them habitable, Shostak said.

The 42 radio dishes had scanned deep space since 2007 for signals from alien civilizations while also conducting research into the structure and origin of the universe.

SETI Institute chief executive Tom Pierson said in an email to donors last week that the University of California, Berkeley, has run out of money for day-to-day operation of the dishes.

"Unfortunately, today's government budgetary environment is very difficult, and new solutions must be found," Pierson wrote.

The $50 million array was built by SETI and UC Berkeley with the help of a $30 million donation from Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen. Operating the dishes cost about $1.5 million a year, mostly to pay for the staff of eight to 10 researchers and technicians to operate the facility.

An additional $1 million a year was needed to collect and sift the data from the dishes.

The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, the billionaire's philanthropic venture, had no immediate plans to provide more funding to the facility, said David Postman, a foundation spokesman.

The institute, however, was hopeful the U.S. Air Force might find the dishes useful as part of its mission to track space debris and provide funding to keep the equipment operating.

The SETI Institute was founded in 1984 and has received funding from NASA, the National Science Foundation and several other federal programs and private foundations. Other projects that will continue include the development of software and tools to be used in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Despite the shutdown of the Allen Telescope Array, the search for E.T. will go on using other telescopes such as a dish at Arecibo in Puerto Rico, the largest radio telescope in the world, Shostak said.

The difference, he said, was that SETI researchers can point the Arecibo telescope at selected sites in space for only about two weeks a year.

While the telescope in Northern California is not as powerful, it could be devoted to the search year-round.

"It has the advantage that you can point it where you want to point it and you can keep pointing it in that direction for as long as we want it to," Shostak said.

The dishes also are unique in the ability to probe for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations while gathering more general scientific data.

"That made the telescope a double-barreled threat," said Leo Blitz, a professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley and former director of the observatory that includes the Allen Telescope Array.

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Online:

seti.org

Iran says it has uncovered second cyber attack

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran has been hit by a second computer virus, a senior military official said Monday, suggesting it was part of a concerted campaign to undermine the country's disputed nuclear program.

Gholam Reza Jalali, the head of an Iranian military unit in charge of combatting sabotage, said that experts discovered the "espionage virus," which he called "Stars."

"The Stars virus has been presented to the laboratory but is still being investigated," Jalali said in a report posted Monday on his organization's website, paydarymelli.ir. "No definite and final conclusions have been reached."

He did not say what equipment or facilities the virus targeted, or when experts first detected it.

"Stars" is the second serious computer worm to hit Iran in the past eight months. Late last year, a powerful virus known as Stuxnet targeted the country's nuclear facilities and other industrial sites.

Iran has acknowledged that Stuxnet affected a limited number of centrifuges — a key component in the production of nuclear fuel — at its main uranium enrichment facility in the central city of Natanz. But Tehran has said its scientists discovered and neutralized the malware before it could cause serious damage.

Jalali downplayed the impact of Stars, but said it is "harmonious" with computer systems and "inflicts minor damage in the initial stage and might be mistaken for executive files of governmental organizations."

Jalali heads a military unit called Passive Defense that primarily deals with countering sabotage. The unit was set up on the orders of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

A separate unit has also been set up by Iran's Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications to decode incoming computer viruses and neutralize them, Jalali said.

Last week, Jalali said Stuxnet could have caused large-scale accidents and loss of life and claimed that Iranian experts have determined that the United States and Israel were behind the malware, which can take over the control systems of industrial sites like power plants.

The U.S. and its allies suspect Iran's nuclear program aims to develop atomic weapons. Iran denies the charges, and says the program is only for peaceful purposes.

Strike on Gadhafi compound badly damages buildings

TRIPOLI, Libya – NATO airstrikes targeted the center of Moammar Gadhafi's seat of power early Monday, destroying a multi-story library and office and badly damaging a reception hall for visiting dignitaries.

Gadhafi's whereabouts at the time of the attack on his sprawling Bab al-Azizya compound were unclear. A security official at the scene said four people were lightly hurt.

Monday's strike came after Gadhafi's forces unleashed a barrage of shells and rockets at the besieged rebel city of Misrata, in an especially bloody weekend that left at least 32 dead and dozens wounded.

The battle for Misrata, which has claimed hundreds of lives in the past two months, has become the focal point of Libya's armed rebellion against Gadhafi since fighting elsewhere is deadlocked.

Video of Misrata civilians being killed and wounded by Gadhafi's heavy weapons, including Grad rockets and tank shells, have spurred calls for more forceful international intervention to stop the bloodshed in the rebel-held city.

In Washington on Sunday, three members of the Senate Armed Services Committee said that more should be done to drive Gadhafi out of power, including targeting his inner circle with air strikes. Gadhafi "needs to wake up every day wondering, `Will this be my last?'" Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican on the committee, told CNN's "State of the Union."

Early in the campaign of airstrikes against Gadhafi, a cruise missile blasted an administration building in Bab al-Azizya last month, knocking down half the three-story building. The compound was also targeted in a U.S. bombing in April 1986, after Washington held Libya responsible for a blast at a Berlin disco that killed two U.S. servicemen.

At least two missiles struck Bab al-Azizya early Monday, and the booms could be heard miles (kilometers) away.

A multi-story building that guards said served as Gadhafi's library and office was turned into a pile of twisted metal and broken concrete slabs. Dozens of Gadhafi supporters climbed atop the ruins, raising Libya's green flag and chanting in support of their leader.

A second building, where Gadhafi received visiting dignitaries, suffered blast damage. The main door was blown open, glass shards were scattered across the ground and picture frames were knocked down.

Just two weeks ago, Gadhafi had received an African Union delegation led by South African President Jacob Zuma in the ceremonial building, which was furnished with sofas and chandeliers. The delegation had called for an immediate cease-fire and dialogue between the rebels and the government.

NATO's mandate from the U.N. is to try to protect civilians in Libya, split into a rebel-run east and a western area that remains largely under Gadhafi's control. While the coalition's airstrikes have delivered heavy blows to Gadhafi's army, they have not halted attacks on Misrata, a city of 300,000 people besieged by Gadhafi loyalists for two months.

Still, in recent days, the rebels' drive to push Gadhafi's men out of the city center gained momentum.

Late last week, they forced government snipers out of high-rise buildings. On Sunday, rebels took control of the main hospital, the last position of Libyan troops in the center of Misrata, said a city resident, who only gave his first name, Abdel Salam, for fear of reprisals. Throughout the day, government forces fired more than 70 rockets at the city, he said.

"Now Gadhafi's troops are on the outskirts of Misrata, using rocket launchers," Abdel Salam said.

A Misrata rebel, 37-year-old Lutfi, said there had been 300-400 Gadhafi fighters in the main hospital and in the surrounding area that were trying to melt into the local population.

"They are trying to run way," Lutfi said of the soldiers, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. "They are pretending to be civilians. They are putting on sportswear."

Ali Misbah, a captured Libyan soldier who had been wounded in the leg, was held under guard in a tent in the parking lot of the Al Hikmeh Hospital, one of the city's smaller medical centers.

Misbah, 25, said morale was low among Gadhafi's troops. "Recently, our spirit has collapsed and the forces that were in front of us escaped and left us alone," he said.

Misbah said he and his fellow soldiers were told that they were fighting against al-Qaida militants, not ordinary Libyans who took up arms against Gadhafi.

"They misled us," Misbah said of the government.

A senior Libyan government official has said the military is withdrawing from the fighting in Misrata, ostensibly to give a chance to tribal chiefs in the area to negotiate with the rebels. The official, Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim, said the tribal chiefs were ready to send armed supporters to fight the rebels unless they lay down their weapons.

Kaim also claimed that the army has been holding its fire since Friday.

Asked about the continued shelling on Misrata, Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said the army was responding to attacks by rebels. He insisted that most of Misrata was still under government control.

Rebels on Sunday dismissed government claims that tribes in the area were siding with Gadhafi and that troops were redeploying voluntarily.

"It's not a withdrawal. It's a defeat that they want to turn into propaganda," said Dr. Abdel-Basit Abu Mzirig, head of the Misrata medical committee. "They were besieging the city and then they had to leave."

In addition to the casualties, thousands of people, many of them foreign workers, have been stranded in Misrata. Hundreds of migrants, along with wounded Libyans, have been evacuated in aid vessels through the port in recent days.

One of those wounded, Misrata resident Osama al-Shahmi, said Gadhafi's forces have been attacking the city with rockets. "They have no mercy. They are pounding the city hard," said al-Shahmi after being rescued from Misrata.

"Everyone in Misrata is convinced that the dictator must go," said al-Shahmi, 36, a construction company administrator who was wounded by shrapnel. His right leg wrapped in bandages, al-Shahmi flashed a victory sign as he was put into a waiting ambulance upon arrival in Benghazi.

In Rome, Pope Benedict XVI offered an Easter prayer for Libya. He told a crowd of more than 100,000 Easter pilgrims in St. Peter's Square that he hopes "diplomacy and dialogue replace arms" in Libya and that humanitarian aid will get through to those in need.

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Hadid reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Ben Hubbard in Benghazi, Libya, Sebastian Abbot in Ajdabiya, Libya, and Frances D'Emilio in Rome contributed to this story.

NY case underscores Wi-Fi privacy dangers

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'd 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," he insisted. "Somebody else could have but I didn't do anything like that."

"You're a creep ... just admit it," they said.

Law enforcement officials say the case is a cautionary tale. Their advice: Password-protect your wireless router.

Plenty of others would agree. The Sarasota, Fla. man, for example, who got a similar visit from the FBI last year after someone on a boat docked in a marina outside his building used a potato chip can as an antenna to boost his wireless signal and download an astounding 10 million images of child porn, or the North Syracuse, N.Y., man who in December 2009 opened his door to police who'd been following an electronic trail of illegal videos and images. The man's neighbor pleaded guilty April 12.

For two hours that March morning in Buffalo, agents tapped away at the homeowner's desktop computer, eventually taking it with them, along with his and his wife's iPads and iPhones.

Within three days, investigators determined the homeowner had been telling the truth: If someone was downloading child pornography through his wireless signal, it wasn't him. About a week later, agents arrested a 25-year-old neighbor and charged him with distribution of child pornography. The case is pending in federal court.

It's unknown how often unsecured routers have brought legal trouble for subscribers. Besides the criminal investigations, the Internet is full of anecdotal accounts of people who've had to fight accusations of illegally downloading music or movies.

Whether you're guilty or not, "you look like the suspect," said Orin Kerr, a professor at George Washington University Law School, who said that's just one of many reasons to secure home routers.

Experts say the more savvy hackers can go beyond just connecting to the Internet on the host's dime and monitor Internet activity and steal passwords or other sensitive information.

A study released in February provides a sense of how often computer users rely on the generosity — or technological shortcomings — of their neighbors to gain Internet access.

The poll conducted for the Wi-Fi Alliance, the industry group that promotes wireless technology standards, found that among 1,054 Americans age 18 and older, 32 percent acknowledged trying to access a Wi-Fi network that wasn't theirs. An estimated 201 million households worldwide use Wi-Fi networks, according to the alliance.

The same study, conducted by Wakefield Research, found that 40 percent said they would be more likely to trust someone with their house key than with their Wi-Fi network password.

For some, though, leaving their wireless router open to outside use is a philosophical decision, a way of returning the favor for the times they've hopped on to someone else's network to check e-mail or download directions while away from home .

"I think it's convenient and polite to have an open Wi-Fi network," said Rebecca Jeschke, whose home signal is accessible to anyone within range.

"Public Wi-Fi is for the common good and I'm happy to participate in that — and lots of people are," said Jeschke, a spokeswoman for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that takes on cyberspace civil liberties issues.

Experts say wireless routers come with encryption software, but setting it up means a trip to the manual.

The government's Computer Emergency Readiness Team recommends home users make their networks invisible to others by disabling the identifier broadcasting function that allows wireless access points to announce their presence. It also advises users to replace any default network names or passwords, since those are widely known, and to keep an eye on the manufacturer's website for security patches or updates.

People who keep an open wireless router won't necessarily know when someone else is piggybacking on the signal, which usually reaches 300-400 feet, though a slower connection may be a clue.

For the Buffalo homeowner, who didn't want to be identified, the tip-off wasn't nearly as subtle.

It was 6:20 a.m. March 7 when he and his wife were awakened by the sound of someone breaking down their rear door. He threw a robe on and walked to the top of the stairs, looking down to see seven armed people with jackets bearing the initials I-C-E, which he didn't immediately know stood for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"They are screaming at him, 'Get down! Get down on the ground!' He's saying, 'Who are you? Who are you?'" Covert said.

"One of the agents runs up and basically throws him down the stairs, and he's got the cuts and bruises to show for it," said Covert, who said the homeowner plans no lawsuit. When he was allowed to get up, agents escorted him and watched as he used the bathroom and dressed.

The homeowner later got an apology from U.S. Attorney William Hochul and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent in Charge Lev Kubiak.

But this wasn't a case of officers rushing into the wrong house. Court filings show exactly what led them there and why.

On Feb. 11, an investigator with the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees cybersecurity enforcement, signed in to a peer-to-peer file sharing program from his office. After connecting with someone by the name of "Doldrum," the agent browsed through his shared files for videos and images and found images and videos depicting children engaged in sexual acts.

The agent identified the IP address, or unique identification number, of the router, then got the service provider to identify the subscriber.

Investigators could have taken an extra step before going inside the house and used a laptop or other device outside the home to see whether there was an unsecured signal. That alone wouldn't have exonerated the homeowner, but it would have raised the possibility that someone else was responsible for the downloads.

After a search of his devices proved the homeowner's innocence, investigators went back to the peer-to-peer software and looked at logs that showed what other IP addresses Doldrum had connected from. Two were associated with the State University of New York at Buffalo and accessed using a secure token that UB said was assigned to a student living in an apartment adjacent to the homeowner. Agents arrested John Luchetti March 17. He has pleaded not guilty to distribution of child pornography.

Luchetti is not charged with using his neighbor's Wi-Fi without permission. Whether it was illegal is up for debate.

"The question," said Kerr, "is whether it's unauthorized access and so you have to say, 'Is an open wireless point implicitly authorizing users or not?'

"We don't know," Kerr said. "The law prohibits unauthorized access and it's just not clear what's authorized with an open unsecured wireless."

In Germany, the country's top criminal court ruled last year that Internet users must secure their wireless connections to prevent others from illegally downloading data. The court said Internet users could be fined up to $126 if a third party takes advantage of their unprotected line, though it stopped short of holding the users responsible for illegal content downloaded by the third party.

The ruling came after a musician sued an Internet user whose wireless connection was used to download a song, which was then offered on an online file sharing network. The user was on vacation when the song was downloaded.

Famed Hindu guru Sathya Sai Baba dies at 86

PUTTAPARTI, India – Hindu holy man Sathya Sai Baba, considered a living god by millions of followers worldwide, died Sunday in a hospital near his southern Indian ashram, a doctor said. He was 86.

Sai Baba had spent more than three weeks on breathing support and dialysis while struggling with multiple-organ failure at the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, near his ashram in Puttaparti village in southern Andhra Pradesh state. He died Sunday morning, hospital director Dr. A.N. Safaya said.

Women selling marigold garlands broke down in tears outside ashram when the news was announced.

The saffron-robed Sathya Sai Baba had a huge following with ashrams in more than 126 countries. He was said to perform miracles — conjuring rings and watches and "vibhuti," a sacred ash that his followers applied on their foreheads — from his overgrown and unkempt Afro-style hair.

Followers gathered to mourn in small groups in alleys and streets surrounding the ashram, while some began trickling into the temple complex where the holy man's body will be brought to lie in state until Tuesday.

Hundreds of thousands of devotees are expected in Puttaparti for Sathya Sai Baba's funeral.

A heavy police deployment, in place for weeks as the guru's condition worsened, was manning barricades on the roads to restrict traffic in the village. Shopkeepers were told to close to control the number of people near the ashram.

Born Nov. 23, 1926, in Puttaparti, the guru was first named Sathyanarayana Raju.

In 1940, he declared himself an "avatar," or reincarnation, of another Hindu holy man called the Sai Baba of Shirdi, a town in the western Indian state of Maharashtra who had died in 1918.

The Sathya Sai Baba was also mired in several controversies, with several news reports about allegations of sexual abuse and fake miracles.

In 2004, a television program by the British Broadcasting Corporation called the "Secret Swami," interviewed at least two American male devotees who claimed the guru had fondled their genitals and exposed himself to them, claiming it was part of a healing ritual.

The guru and his ashram have always denied all reports of any wrongdoing and he was never charged or convicted of any crime.

The holy man was never married and has no children.