[MLB-WIRELESS] Legal question

[Daniel Woods]

On 30 May 2004, at 13:05, Jason X wrote:

> Say you are on your laptop and suddenly your laptop connects to an AP 
> gets
> an IP address and this AP is bridged to the Internet and you are able 
> to
> surf the Internet. Is this illegal? as you are accessing someone elses
> network, even though they issued you the IP Address and allow you onto 
> their
> network?
>
> I'd assume cracking a WEP key and gaining entry into the network would 
> come
> under hacking or intrusion of some sort but what about in this case, 
> with an
> open AP?
>
> Do you need express permission to gain access to any network?

IANAL, but…

It could be argued that by leaving an AP open, and unsecured, you are 
basically giving permission to anyone to use the AP, and any services 
that are connected to it.
A better solution would be to have Public and Private networks, 
determined by .public or .private in the network name of the AP. A 
network called FredsNet.public would be a Public AP for anonymous 
public access, while FredsNet.private would be for a Closed Personal 
Network, where he can keep his Network Printer, Private Documents and 
Pr0n collection. If his Broadband bill is getting too high, he could 
remove access to the FredNet.public AP, or disconnect it from the 
Internet, but still be able to have access to the Internet through his 
.Private network.

Certain WarChalking software, like iStumbler (for MacOS X) support a 
preference to only detect/monitor networks with the .public suffix.

Connecting to an unsecured network with .private or cracking a Secure 
WEP network would be considered AntiSocial/Illegal, while an unsecured 
network with a .public suffix would be perfectly reasonable.

I consider that all private and closed community APs should have WEP, 
and have the .private or .community suffix, while public APs should be 
unsecured and have .public suffix. If you have an unsecured network 
without any suffix, it could be considered an open public network too.

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