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Possession of Cantenna Now Illegal?
Mad-Mage1 writes "The recent arrests in Florida and the UK of men who were accessing unsecured wireless hotspots has created a flood of articles that contain panic inducing rhetoric. "A small subset of computer-savvy hackers has the know-how and gadgets for more nefarious activities," claims the Sacramento Bee (via Techdirt). "They're (Pringles cans fashioned into antennas) unsophisticated but reliable, and it's illegal to possess them," quips Sacramento County Sheriff's Lt. Bob Lozito of the Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force." I hope they tell Fry's about all the illegal antennas they're stocking, too.
I'm sorry, but how can an antenna possibly be illegal? If that were true, then a long piece of wire would now be illegal too.
Hrm, no, we're talking 2.4GHz, I guess that would actually be a *short* piece of wire, my bad.
But regardless, it's like saying owning a screwdriver is illegal because it could be used to take the hinges off an insecure door. Dumb.
As everyone knows, "Use a can of Pringles, go to jail".
All joking aside, the FCC has always mainted, "That the air waves are free". Recieving data is one thing, but transmitting back is quite another. And just because my front door is open, doesn't mean anyone has permission to enter. The good guys can do everything the bad guys can do. The difference between the good guys, and the bad guys is that the good guys choose not to do it.
(You as an experimenter could design and build such a device without any special permission. If a company were to do it and sell it commercially, I think they'd still need FCC certification.)
And of course, ham radio operators are licenced, and can use transmitters in the 2.4 gHz band, up to 1500 watts (or 1 or 100 watts if it's spread spectrum like WiFi), if they follow all the ham radio rules.
But anybody can listen to anything they want, and can make antennas for receiving of any sort. In fact, as long as you're only receiving and not transmitting, I don't see how wardriving could ever be illegal.
(I believe this even applies to listening to analog cell phone calls, though it is illegal to make or sell equipment that can listen to those bands. But I do believe it's still legal to listen to the calls, as long as you don't tell anybody else what you've heard. (The law is a bit more complicated than that, but I won't get into that right now.))
Oh really? I guess you've never heard of charges like `posession of drug paraphernalia' or anything like that? Similar things often apply to lock picks, crowbars and wire cutters as well. I agree that these laws are stupid (as there's already laws against having drugs and committing burglarly) but the are the law.But in this case, the police are nuts, and the FCC is likely to smack them down. Only the FCC gets to police the airwaves -- they've made this quite clear in the past.
However, for normal users, using normal power WiFi equipment, transmitting with one of these cantennas is illegal. Possession isn't, but transmitting is. The FCC regulations limit the amount of power you can transmit with, and it's based either on effective radiated power or volts/meter. Either way, any sort of directional antenna (like a cantenna) increases these figures without increasing the total power, and therefore exceed the FCC permitted power (unless they reduce their transmitter power by a similar amount, of course. Which they probably don't do.)
Exactly my thought: street cops have no business or legal standing to decide which antennas or transmitters are legal or not.
That is solely up to the FCC. This issue has been proven in court before. For example, vehicle operators in NY charged with assorted violations for having equipment in the vehicle capable of receiving police radio calls. Courts have repeatedly found that the local police have no jurisdiction to regulate a federally licensed use, i.e. ham radios that happen to be capable of receiving police radio. The cops don't like that, of course. They want to have jurisdiction over everything. I know of cases where aircraft have had to make emergency landings on roads and been issued traffic tickets for things like illegal parking, etc. The cops justify their own existance by how many tickets they write. (See how many tickets I wrote? Of COURSE we need more cops and more laws!)
In this case, the 2.4gHz ISM band is unregulated and you certainly CAN own and use any receive-only antenna and operate any approved transmit antenna. Hams can operate any 2.4gHz antenna they want and at higher power levels to boot.
Any dispute over someone's right to operate in that band is up to the FCC, who has their own invesigative and enforcement officers (a small outfit called the FBI, perhaps you've heard of them?), thank you very much local copper.
My main question is why they are even bringing up this issue. If the guy was accessing the wifi network without authorization, bust him for that. There's no need to go chasing after "illegal" antennas. Unless they haven't got any other solid evidence. Hmmm.
Sig for hire.
This alone deserves a standing ovation.
qntm.org
IAANG.
Yes, you are correct that in most cases, your computer would be set for DHCP when you open up and look for a new wireless network. It sees a SSID, associates and asks "Can I get in (get an IP?) "
The AP that's BROADCASTING it's beacon (not that it HAS to!) says "Sure, have an IP... "
You get your IP, you're permitted in (as opposed to refused) and then you go about your merry way.
There are multiple instances along the way where you could have been refused entry.
As if people can't tell, I support your position of being given permission by being given an IP. There was a conversation there.... and nobody said no.
To move the door analogy into the mix, it would be like having a doorman standing by the open door. You ask the doorman "Can I have a room?" He says "Sure, take room 42, it's open." and you walk in and go up to the fourth floor. The doorman could have stopped you. He could have told someone you were there. He could have carded you. He could have asked what your business was. But no, he told you "Use room 42, it's not taken" and let you in. Sure, you perambulated in on your own, but he certainly made no move to stop you.
$.02. FWIW
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
And just because my front door is open, doesn't mean anyone has permission to enter.
It is NOT the same! First, a wireless router is broadcasting it's self and if unsecured implies an open INVITATION! Not to mention, that a computer REQUESTS an IP only to be GRANTED, implicitly, by nature of the router ISSUING an IP address. Posting a sign outside your house reading, 'Open House' (at least in America) is an invitation for passerbys to just walk inside. Doing so, and you can't cry about people coming into your home. The police will tell you to take down the sign.
Don't be an ass. Your door doesn't send out signals that scream "Please come in and use me" to every person that passes by either. This isn't like breaking and entering, and assuming no protections are enabled, it is perfectly legal and SHOULD be perfectly legal to access the network. It's like operating a web server on port 80, but not telling anybody. If I connect to your site, and it serves me a page, I am not breaking into your network. If you run an open access point, I connect, and it gives me an IP address, I am not breaking into anything and I went to no effort to get connected.
I think it goes too far when they feel it's OK to arrest Joe Public for walking by the front of my house while it's unlocked though. :-)
Actually, he's being arrested for being in possession of a hand with which he could, conceivable, open your unlocked door
sigs are hazardous to your health