If you have an unsecured wireless access point and somebody is grabbing your data it’s your fault. Wireless data is broadcast out for all to hear. Treat it like yelling, if you and your significant other get into a yelling argument you can’t blame your neighbors for hearing what you two were screaming at each other. Wireless data is the same way. If your wireless signal enters my property then I have every right to eavesdrop on it.They're polluting the public radio spectrum, at least where the roadway is. Turn on the crypto, or quit yer bitchin'. And you think it's bad when the Googlemobile drives by, just wait until someone hacks your Access Point.
Friday, July 23, 2010
How dare you listen in on my unencrypted WiFi!
Seems some State Attorneys General are upset that Google's StreetView™ cars are recording some data from unencrypted WiFi stations. Um, dude, that's only possible because the owner didn't turn encryption on. A Geek With Guns 'splains it so even a State AG can understand:
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6 comments:
like complaining that someone looks in your windows from the street because you failed to close the curtains.
While encryption is the wise thing to do, and I do it on my WiFi, there's a good argument that scooping up data is in fact wire tapping.
Before 1986 it was common for some people to monitor both cellular and cordless phone conversations. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act made that illegal, but that only became effective when both cordless and cellular became digital and unmonitorable by police type scanners.
Whether that's why the Attorney Generals are going after Google or not, I don't know. For that matter, why don't they go after every website that uses tracking cookies to target advertising? To me that's far more intrusive.
I have to agree with TOTWTYTR.
Your analogy about hearing an argument isn't applicable. You don't have to activate a connection in order to hear something shouted (or even spoken) within your range of hearing. You have no responsibility to take active measures to AVOID eavesdropping, but listening in on a wifi connection takes an overt act on your part to establish the connection.
Basically, what you're saying is that if I fail to lock my doors and some thief steals my car, it's my fault.
Nope. It's still theft and if they're caught, they will still go to jail for it...even if I may not have chosen the wisest action in failing to lock the car.
The analogy of somebody stealing your car doesn't fit this. In order to listen to Wi-Fi traffic I don't have to enter your property to get it. Your car isn't sitting in my garage, but your wireless traffic is entering my property.
Also you don't have to establish a connection to listen to Wi-Fi traffic. Truth be told your wireless card is reading all Wi-Fi traffic within range it just choses to ignore any traffic not addressed to it. It works the same way as Ethernet in this regard.
All I have to do to listen to your traffic is turn my Wi-Fi card on. Then using any number of various software I can tell my Wi-Fi card to simply save everything that is sent to it as opposed to only data addressed to it. The access point is yelling the data and the surrounding devices simply pretend they didn't hear anything they overheard.
Good points.
I was looking at it from the perspective of the way my computer reacts to a newly discovered wi-fi connection:
It asks me if I want to connect. I have to take action to do so.
I can see your point, but I believe, as TOTWTYTR pointed out, the courts have pretty consistently held differently.
My shootin' buddy "X" worked on the first Google car-cameras. He's kinda in their skunkworks section doing weird shit. The first ones were built from cheap, kluged-up, Kodak digital cameras (bought in bulk I suppose) and out-of focus. He used an optical collimator from his gunsmithing/machinist shop to align and optically center the CCD plates correctly at 90-degrees with the lens-array. He shoots High Master. I suck.
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