[ale] Putting wifi in the house

Geoffrey esoteric at 3times25.net
Mon Jan 30 23:18:33 EST 2006


Geoffrey wrote:
> James Sumners wrote:
> 
>>Show me the Georgia law, or even federal law, that makes an open WAP illegal.
>>
>>Attempting to break into a "secured" network, however, is indeed illegal.

There are other issues here as well.  I don't know that trespassing on 
an open network would not be considered illegal.

If I leave the door to my house unlocked and you walk in, you are still 
trespassing.

I'm not saying that it's illegal, but with all the laws and acts that 
have been instituted of late to protect us against the 'terrorists' I 
don't know that I would go looking for trouble.

There's a difference between the coffee shop that has the open network 
and advertises it as such and the two idiots in my neighborhood who are 
running open networks on devices that have the default configuration. 
I'm pretty sure they don't want you rummaging around on their network, 
or even using their bandwidth.  Others are more gracious, as we've seen 
on the list, but I wouldn't count on it.

Say you happened to wardrive into an open military network.  Do you 
think that's illegal?  I suspect that you'll be doing a lot of talking, 
regardless of whether there are laws on the books that say it is.

Do I think there is an open military network?  I would hope not, but 
technology doesn't always work and people make mistakes.  Two recent 
shuttle disasters are very sad examples.

-- 
Until later, Geoffrey



More information about the Ale mailing list