[TriLUG] Wireless at Lowes

[Greg Brown]

I've actually been looking into this and I don't have a clear answer 
however the law is fairly clear that if you DO attach to a network in 
any way, shape, or form and you cause damage or otherwise use that 
connection for malicious activity you are in violation of many laws.

Now, there is a big difference between using a program like netstumbler 
which listens for ESSID broadcasts and actually hopping on a wireless 
network (yeah, yeah, NS does some broadcasting to initiate responses 
but let's keep the argument simple).  I've done the latter several 
times by accident but since I wasn't doing anything malicious, and I 
changed my network when I discovered my error, I don't see how a jury 
could convict me if I did break the law (assuming that I could get a 
jury that could understand networks and such).

The neighbor kid was dumb enough to try to crack my wep keys.  The 
first time it happened I walked over to his house and had a sit-down 
with him and his parents.  I made it clear the next time he tried it I 
would be contacting law enforcement.  There hasn't been a second time 
though I am moving to IPSec over OpenBSD to combat such activity in the 
future.

Greg

On Sunday, Nov 30, 2003, at 21:45 US/Eastern, Mike Johnson wrote:

> z [zzd at contentdb.net] wrote:
>
>> Curious, is it legal to attach to any wireless network that does not 
>> have
>> security provisions in place? e.g Attaching to your neighbors access 
>> point
>> for faster than modem downloads, or sitting in the parking lot 
>> outside an
>> office block?
>
> Is it legal to use a scanner to listen in on your neighbor's cordless
> phone?  Were it not explicitly illegal, would you still do it?  Would 
> it
> still be okay?
>
> The question is: just because you can, should you?
>
> Mike
> -- 
> "If life hands you lemons, YOU BLOW THOSE LEMONS TO BITS WITH
>  YOUR LASER CANNONS!" -- Brak
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