Just a quick follow-up to Batz excellent points. I recall reading that the Attorney General of Massachusetts made the statement that if any officer spotting someone walking are driving around with a laptop and an antenna, the officer should call him and that he would be able to get a probable cause search warrant issued in no time. Sorry I can;t find the article right now but I think it was in the Boston Globe. ----- Original Message ----- From: "batz" <batsyat_private> To: "Bill Pennington" <billpat_private> Cc: <vuln-devat_private>; "Russell Handorf" <rhandorfat_private-world.com> Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2002 9:00 AM Subject: Re: Wireless Legality- Netstumbler and kin > On Fri, 15 Mar 2002, Bill Pennington wrote: > > :1. For Netstumbler to detect the WLAN in question the WLAN must be > :configured in "open" mode. So the WLAN (Access Point more specifically) must > :respond to 802.11b probe packets with a packet that says, hey I am here and > :available. > > There is also a big issue with "illegal" vs. "successfully prosecutable", > which is; On networks, No Policy = No Crime. Without explicit warnings > to all users on the network about acceptable use and the ownership of > the network, it is quite possible that charges would not stick because > of this very issue. > > IANAL, however, there are laws in Canada that may apply to war driving, > which have to do with the unlawful interception of data. Whether something > is legal or not is actually a much more abstract question than many people > tend to realize. > > If you are worried about whether something is illegal, err on the side of > caution, and stop doing it, and find out from a professional. Free advice > is seldom worth what you pay for it. > > Illegal can mean anything from being probable cause for search, to cause > for arrest, to being charged, to being convicted and the weight of the > sentence you recieve. It is a question of whether you are provoking > someone into interprating the law as a means of recourse, and whether > you are willing to risk the consequences of that provocation. > > -- > batz >
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