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.

Comments

How about parts?

[fembots]

What if the Pringles Antenna is not assembled, but all the necessary parts are in your possession?

Re:How about parts?

[Surt]

It becomes illegal magically when used in the commission of a crime. The same way a kitchen knife becomes possession of a deadly weapon as a lesser included offense after you stab someone with it.

Re:How about parts?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are wrong.

plain 802.11 is a FHSS (Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum) system.

802.11b is a DSSS (Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum) system.

802.11a and g are OFDM (Orthagonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) systems. (also spread spectrum)

If they didn't use spread spectrum, the power they would need to make a single carrier acheive a resonable cir would be immense. It would take a 20W radio to reach across your house. Spread spectrum is good.

You are sort of right about the directional power thing, though. It's more complicated than simply being able to transmit more power, you have to reduce your transmit power to allow for more antenna gain. Google for "3 to 1 rule".

Re:How about parts?

[Dun Malg]

It has been sugested to me by some of my coworkers not to go in front of it if I want to keep from going blind as the eyetissue is fairly sensitive to RF radiation.

I'd like to offer a minor correction on the above: eyes are specifically sensitive to microwave heating, rather than the much larger category of "RF radiation". Blindness in the form of cataracts can happen at much lower powers than would be necessary to cause general bodily injury from burns. Like cooking an egg, the clear parts of the eye turn opaque.

Re:How about parts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically illegal? You're full of shit. Cite please? Oh yeah.. there isn't one!

Wardriving is an exclusively male crime

[Anonymous Coward]

or are there any women wardrivers ?
seems everyday like hacking is strictly a sausage party

Stupid Title but a good point.....

[rolfwind]

The title is the typical stupid panic inducing kind "Hackers prey on unguarded wireless links" but it contains a good point: That with unsecured wireless routers and unencrypted transmissions, anybody near you place can use view your activities and use your internet connection and either steal your identity or abuse the connection and have it traced back to you.

It's not hard to understand, but when I go to a friends' house who has wireless, 2 times out of 3 my notebook can use their internet w/o a problem. Then I end up telling them to admin their router and set it up for encrypted transmission + letting only certain wireless MAC addresses through.

Any other suggestion on security?

Open Access

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually leave my wireless network unsecured on purpose.
It's virtually never the case that I need the full bandwidth from my ISP, so if anyone else wants to use it, they're welcome.

Yeah, there's always the (very faint) possibility that someone's going to use my wireless network to access kiddie-porn or bomb-making articles or some such.
But I'm willing to take the risk in order to share the wealth a bit.

Re:Open Access

[tricore]

I agree. The spying issues are only relevant if your not already paranoid. You should already be using ssh and other encryption for anything useful for identity theft etc. (what do you trust your Internet provider for some reason?). These war driving spammers are the only real issue (how many are there anyway?). This seems like allot of work for a spammer or kiddie-pornographer to go through when they can so easily hijack several thousand windoze boxen with ad-aware and spam through those instead. Or more likely pay someone in another country to do it for them so their not traceable as the source.

I like the idea of open AP's all over town, call me a communist I guess. I'm not letting some stupid alarmist government who arrests innocent Internet connection owners from stopping me. It's kind of like arresting the post-office for accidentally shipping a bomb someone else put in the mail.

by the way, sense when is it illegal to distribute e bomb-making articles anyway?

Well just called LT. Bob...

[kinkadius]

saw the number up there, so i called. apparently his time has been taken up all day today repsonding to nerds like me, but he was able to clarify on the comment he made about cantennas being illegal to paraphrase, he stated that while he knows that cantennas are NOT illegal he said that tools that burglars use ARE illegal and are illegal to possess, and this should apply to the tools used to break into networks as well. He seemed really irritated about this whole fiasco talking to him, and apparently has had a lot of calls and emails about his quote. poor guy.

Re:Possesion is fine, use often illegal

[daVinci1980]

You really should check the facts. Our system of laws is based as heavily on precedent as it is on the letter of the law, and the precedent in this case is pretty clear: the FCC has the power to govern the airwaves in all 50 states, and several other places.

Don't get me wrong, I think that's total crap. But I think it's total crap for a different reason then you. I think it's crap because I don't think the goverment should have the right to regulate speech on the airwaves through the back door--which is exaclty what they did in the 70's with the "Seven Dirty Words".

Re:Hmmmm...

[DanielNS84]

Fantastic point...I was drifting into my dream world again where management knew more than the employees...

National TURN IN YOUR: Pringles cans?

[infonography]

If we as a tech geek worldwide nation were to send Sacramento County Sheriff's by mail our used empty and UNCONTAMINATED cans to 'Prevent them from being used for' "illegal purposes" it may just get some notice and hoist the fools on their own petards.

Sacramento County Sheriff Department
3341 Power Inn Rd Ste 313
Sacramento, CA 95826-3835

mail them empty and uncapped, just slap the mailing label on it and seal the end with clear tape. we don't want them treated as possible 'other things' it matters not if the get there crushed. We can keep screaming at them that they are fools, but unless the world notices the won't either.

Re:Only the FCC can answer this...

[dgatwood]

IIRC, that was the pre-9/11 FCC, which was basically Clinton's FCC. Bush's FCC will say that cantennas are a tool of terrorists (because after all, why would anyone use a cantenna to use a wireless network that they're authorized to use when they can drive a few miles and use it from there?) and therefore anyone seen with one will be shot on sight.

Suddenly makes me wish I'd set up that "legitimate use" cantenna link to my employer a couple of years ago. I figure if I can see our base stations for half a mile without a cantenna, I could probably see them from my house at five or six miles.... :-)

Re:Email reply from the officer

[Dun Malg]

bani: Er, what exact law makes cantennas illegal? I'd seriously like to know.
bob_lozito: Bad quote.

bani: is there an accurate transcript or recording available?
bob_lozito: Not sure. Either way, it is not illegal and if I inferred it, I was wrong.

Hah! First he says "Bad quote", but immediately allows for the possibility that he implied it upon request for a transcript.

He admitted he was wrong, maybe we can cut him some slack?

Man, he ain't admitted squat! He's giving us the classic liar's line: "I didn't do it, and if it's shown that I did, I'm sorry." He a typical political appointee with more experience in PR than the technology he's ostensibly policing. I say rather than giving him slack, we keep pulling on the rope.