Posted on 01/07/2008 10:46:22 AM PST by SubGeniusX
It's perfectly legal to sniff packets traveling across your network (regardless of whether unauthorized nodes are connected) just like it's legal to have a guard dog tied up in the yard or hire a security service to monitor your house.
What a load of nonsense. Wifi broadcasts its signal to anyone. It COMES TO YOU; you do not even have to come to it at all.
That is NOT like going into an unlocked house, and that analogy is really tired and stupid.
That's not true. There are plenty of closed 2-meter repeaters that won't allow access unless you have paid a club membership. You can't encrypt it, but like you said, you can restrict access via MAC filtering or other means. THAT is legal.
If I were to go to one of the usenet sites used by illegal porn distributors and dl a few gigs of images or go to a sharing site and collect a dozen or two complete CDs, I’d be safer using someone else’s connection and an external drive. If the feds happened to be tracing IP returns, it would show some poor guy who never encrypted his router.
After the feds came in and take his box and ALL of the digital media in his house (some bad guys put data discs in music CD cases, labels and all, so FBI takes them), and a search of his house thorough enough to find a 16K thumb drive, and make the usual comments like “You are in deep, deep trouble. Just cooperate and we’ll ask the judge for leniency. You know, having over 200 images can get you twenty-four months in Club Fed...”, when they finally let him loose in six months of hearings and interviews, he’ll encrypt his router when he gets it back.
If I request permission from you and you agree, and I come inside to watch a game on a cable channel that I don't subscribe to at my house -- is that stealing?
It's impossible for me to connect to your wi-fi without your wi-fi giving my computer permission to do so.
One of the previous posters was right - the other three connections I get locally are "2wire" "netgear" etc. Folks just plugged in and turned on.
I blame irresponsible salesweasels / techs. Lots of ink gets spilled over patching the OS, but quite frankly, most patches are completely irrelevant with a solid firewall and tight wifi security, IMHO.
“It’s perfectly legal to sniff packets traveling across your network (regardless of whether unauthorized nodes are connected) just like it’s legal to have a guard dog tied up in the yard or hire a security service to monitor your house.”
Is it legally or morally ok, therefore, to send viruses to the computers stealing/sharing the bandwidth?
Can I fish there if you grant me permission to do so? Because it's impossible to connect to a wi-fi without the wi-fi either giving permission when asked or not giving permission and being denied by MAC filtering or password protection.
Close, but not quite.
If you just sat and gathered/watched whatever was broadcast out on your neighbor's Wifi network - then - your assumption is correct.
But, as soon as you ask for an IP and start surfing the web, traffic goes in two directions.
...And broadcasting an invitation to connect. If you don't want people to connect, then turn off the broadcast of your SSID and turn on MAC filtering or password protection. You can't complain about someone using a path through your backyard if you have a sign up inviting people to "use this path". If you put up a sign that says "trespass forbidden" (MAC address filtering or password protection), THEN you can complain.
The Wi-Fi equipment can't "give permission". It is hardware owned by some person or business. You must get permission from the person who owns, controls and pays for that Wi-Fi equipment before using it for your own purposes.
WiFi is *not* the same as tv or radio because as much as their signal goes into your house in either case unlike TV wifi is bidirectional so you with intent connect to a device in their home and leech their bandwidth..
Youre missing the point... An unlocked door does not grant explicit permission to come into my home and plug into my network. An unlocked connection (as dumb as that may be) also does not grant you explicit permission to use my network.
No, it isn't broadcasting an "invitation". That is YOUR misinterpretation. It is broadcasting an identifier. You are free to intercept and read the value of that identifier. That doesn't give you license to pursue a connection to the equipment that did the broadcasting.
If you happen to intercept information while sniffing the packet streams, you are constrained by the Communications Act of 1934 not to divulge anything you might learn without the explicit permission of the parties communicating. You can and will be prosecuted if you use that information. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
we are not arguing about RECEIVING, it's TRANSMITTING over someone else's network that is the problem.
we are not arguing about RECEIVING, it's TRANSMITTING over someone else's network that is the problem.
Your wireless router is also transmitting a signal to my laptop without my permission. Maybe you should go to jail for that.
Do you have a license to transmit that signal onto my property?
It's a problem both ways. Unauthorized interception of communications is illegal. You can't effectively steal bandwidth unless a transmission is involved as the communications protocols demand activity in each direction. Most devices with an integrated Wi-Fi device have a means of disabling it. That is a requirement to operate the device on an aircraft. Enabling the device without prior authorization to connect to a network is an intentional act.
2.4 GHz Wi-Fi operates in an unlicense industrial band. No license is required as long as the emissions meet the FCC requirements for frequency, modulation and power. The FCC specifically requires you to tolerate any interference from other users of that frequency band. You don't have legal recourse.
Your wireless router is also transmitting a signal to my laptop without my permission. Maybe you should go to jail for that.
Again, you have no recourse given the laws on the books regarding transmissions from the device certified by the FCC. Cordless phones and microwave ovens also emit those frequencies. They are exempt under the same legal statutes.
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