Unsecured Wi-Fi to Become Illegal?

echucker writes "News.com is carrying a story for a draft proposal for law in Westchester County in New York state that would outlaw unsecured wi-fi connections. Public internet access would require a network gateway server with a firewall and also require home/business office users to install firewalls to protect personal info, even if their connection is encrypted. Violations would carry fines of $250-$500."

Comments

Wardriving Police Cars

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see it now :)

This is absurd

[TFGeditor]

It is like fining somebody for leaving their door unlocked and they get burglarized.

This is the epitome of a YRO violation. Interesting it was posted under the Hardware banner.

Re:This is absurd

[remahl]

No, it's like fining somebody for leaving their door unlocked and _not_ getting burglarized.

Re:This is absurd

[Gulthek]

You might not think that when you discover that your mortgage office, which stores an obscene amount of personal info, has all of that personal information on desktop computers on an unsecured wireless network.

Yes, I have worked as a mortgage loan officer for such a place. Yes, I insisted on that being changed (to extremely computer clueless management). Yes, I eventually quit for these and other questionable practices.

Re:This is absurd

[roystgnr]

No, it's like fining somebody for leaving their door unlocked and _not_ getting burglarized.

No, it's like fining somebody for not having a fence around their property and not getting burglarized.

A locked door isn't like a firewall, it's like a secure password-protected service. Firewalls easily let you limit access to "all or nothing" - but hell, if that's as "fine-grained" as you need your security to be, you can get the same effect on a good OS just by turning off the services you want inaccessible. You can use a firewall to limit access by IP, but you could do that without a separate firewall by having clients do IP (or better, asymmetric encryption key) checks themselves. What you can't do is use a firewall to forward outside connections to an inside service and expect that service to become any more secure.

Does this have something to do with the push behind SP2? I can't imagine Microsoft wanting to widely advertise, "You need to upgrade for security reasons because pre-SP2 versions of our programs are swiss cheese!" but they did need to get the "You need to upgrade for security reasons" message out there - perhaps what got across to consumers and lawmakers was "You need to upgrade for security reasons because SP2 has the all-important magic of Firewall!"

Re:This is absurd

[ThaFooz]

It is like fining somebody for leaving their door unlocked and they get burglarized.

I'm not sure I agree with your analogy. If someone owns something which is both desirable & dangerous (ie handguns, swimming pools, etc) they are required by either laws or insurance premiums to secure it.

I belive the same argument can be made for the internet. Sure the concequences aren't as severe (children having access to unfiltered content & computer virii instead of, well, death and injury), but neither are the punishments under this law with just a fine comparable to that of a speeding ticket.

Negligence is a crime, and negligent computer users are quite responsible for the botnets/internet congestion/virus outbreaks which affect us all in some way (though some, but certainly not all, of that blame can be directed at vendors). We won't see any changes until we hold users responsible for their (in)actions.

Re:This is absurd

[WalterSobchak]

This is entirely absurd. While there are people who don't know better, some chose to have their WiFi open.

And "some people" include such ignorant folks as Intel Corp., who operate a free-for-all access point on San Francisco's Union Square. Would the law outlaw this kind of marketing, too?

Oh, and a hint: Put your phone no. or eMail in your SSID and I will personally thank you when I use your AP.

Alex

Re:This is absurd

[dthrall]

In this case, the company storing this information is basically being criminally negligent.

There are laws that address the practices of institutions & business that house these types of personal information. I currently work in IT at a large insurance company, and each company wireless router is specifically configured in a secure fashion.

Businesses have an obligation to secure confidential information.

The problem is that we're talking about the impact on individuals.

Re:This is absurd

[Chris Burke]

Is this really about protecting private information or stopping computer crime?

It seems to me this would mostly benefit ISPs who don't want people sharing their broadband connections with everyone on their block. Won't someone think of the lost monthly fees?! Not that this would necessarily prevent connection sharing; but a mere firewall won't do much to prevent information stealing either.

I'll admit my main reason for thinking this is cynicism.

Re:This is absurd

[Pendersempai]

This is why we need strict liability for having your customers' personal information stolen. This is not an argument for arresting/fining people with an unprotected WiFi.

Re:This is absurd

[GuyverDH]

"Negligence is a crime, and negligent computer users are quite responsible for the botnets/internet congestion/virus outbreaks which affect us all in some way (though some, but certainly not all, of that blame can be directed at vendors). We won't see any changes until we hold users responsible for their (in)actions."

BULLSHIT.

The writers of bots and viruses are responsible for those outbreaks!

The writers of the host operating systems that were *shipped* with obscene numbers of security holes are responsible for those outbreaks!

The users who are uninformed (ie - the box/manual doesn't say the software comes with security holes) are NOT responsible for the spread of malicious activity.

That's like saying the people who ride public transportation are responsible for the negligent amounts of polutants that city buses put into the air.

Let's start enforcing the laws we have.

Jail time for those who write viruses and bots.

Every time a new virus or bot hits the net, fine the company that sold the bug filled software that enabled the bot to run. Make the manufacturer responsible for the problems their incompetance (or negligence) caused.

If a car manufacturer sells vehicles that crash all the time, they are forced to do a recall.

If a hardware manufacturer sells computers / laptops that have a material defect that can cause harm or property damage, they are forced to recall.

If a software company releases software that causes (through bugs, incompetence, negligence) damage, financial harm, or physical harm (ie bad software controls for automatic equipment) they are somehow held NOT responsible?

If I write a piece of software designed to do a specific task, then state in the EULA that it may not be suitable for that purpose, and that in the end, it's the users responsibility to determine suitable (and in some cases, safe) functionality in that task, I get off with no responsibility or accountability?

I believe that any member of government who says that people in general should be fined because they take a product and use it by just plugging it in and running it as it was shipped by the manufacturer is, to put it bluntly, bull shit. It's just another ploy by less than intelligent, power hungry law makers blindly trying to find a culprit (in all the wrong places - as usual) and make some money off of it.

Re:This is absurd

[pimpin apollo]

So the consumer who buys the linksys box, comes home, and sets it up is liable to protect themselves... but the company that produces software that lacks these purportedly basic protections is under no similar obligation?

It just is more evidence that the legislature should be regulation of last resort. Anybody who's been on their work network or a campus resnet knows that bureaucratic rule making is the least efficient kind out there. That's why we delegate power as much as possible. This doesn't work though when legislatures (even county legislatures) start trying to write network policies for everyone.

There's a myriad of paranoia over anything that happens with a computer -- people could send anonymous emails this way! -- that conveniently forget there are always much more dangerous real world alternatives (do you show id at a mailbox?).

What's more, the only dangers to innovation aren't just patents and copyrights (although these are significant). There's also danger in over-regulating technology simply because most people don't understand it - again, conveniently forgetting that most people don't understand most things and yet this does little to engender a rash of absurd regulation.

New York State should pass a pre-emption statute so that local municipalities can't arbitrarily run over much more important things in pursuit of some meaningless 'security'.

Re:This is absurd

[Viper168]

You're way off buddy, it's more like your forcefield fails, a cat sneaks onto your ship while you're making a sandwich, then you forget about the sandwich and still don't feed the cat. When the cat finally gets upset and leaves, you take a shower and then take a nap.

I don't see how you could have missed this from the start.

Re:This is absurd

[bhtooefr]

It's like being fined for parking your (locked) car in your driveway, instead of in your garage.

There, car analogy.

Re:This is absurd

[ultranova]

Now I go to Amazon.com and order a book over https; the packets are encrypted, nobody can get my credit card number, so what's the issue?

The issue is that your Corporate Overlords and their Political Henchmen want to keep an eye on you, and that is easier if all the data from and to your computer goes through a single wire. In a world full of public anonymous Wi-Fi access points, anyone could connect to anything from anywhere without giving away their own identity, allowing free exchange of information without fear of legal consequences, and making things impossible to censor (since it might be impossible to find the servers the data resides in, especially if the servers are running a P2P network like Freenet); it is Big Brothers and Big Businesses worst nightmare.

Freedom is the worst enemy of Power, so of course powers-that-be try to crush it. This law is just another attempt of forces of darkness to crush all opposition and bring about a Digital Dark Age.

Firewall? Nahh..

[JoostSchuttelaar]

I can imagine the requirement for encryption and perhaps for some form of logging, but a firewall? Isn't that the responsibility of the users who connect?

Is this because of the telco's?

[koan]

Is this a response to the Google plans and various other implimentations of free wireless?
These legislators have gotten downright dangerous, I also wonder, how uesful is an open network for hacking?
If you were up to no good is an open AP the way to do it?

Re:Is this because of the telco's?

[rkcallaghan]

If you were up to no good is an open AP the way to do it?

The short answer, YES.

The long answer, if its not a honeypot and you can evade physical detection, YES. The former may be harder to detect on the fly, but the latter is as simple as hiding in plain sight in the parking lot of an apartment complex or frat house.

~Rebecca

Luckily it is just a proposal.

[Nichotin]

This law would be impossible to enforce anyway. You would have to send a task around to track down all unsecured access points, then bust in the doors of a whole lot of white middle class people.

Re:Luckily it is just a proposal.

[l3prador]

Actually, from the article it seems to only apply to businesses, or home offices, not just any homeowner. Their intention seems to be to prevent theft of credit card information from customers of the business.

Make Unsecured OS Illegal too!!!

[Tuqui]

Make Unsecured OS Illegal too!!!

Speeding also illegal, as is cheating on taxes

[Gothmolly]

Um, just making something illegal doesn't stop it. Try doing the speed limit, in Westchester county of all places.
To me, this sounds like one of those "I'm protecting your children from Teh Internets" moves that politicians do periodically when they have to remind the masses that its time to vote.
How about holding someone responsible (gasp) for any malicious activity that originates FROM their network?

In related news...

[M555]

Leaving you front door unlocked is now illegal

Right. That'll work.

[Morky]

If being an idiot were illegal, most of my company would be in prison.

Will they also require we lock our front doors?

[tinrobot]

What ever happened to personal choice?

If I want to leave my data connection open for any number of reasons, that's my business. If I want to leave my front door open or not lock my car, that's my business too...

Ridiculous.

stupid stupid stupid

[Matey-O]

We've got a public access wifi point in the building for visiting salsefolks and people from other government departments.

Open you laptop and you'll get 'do you want to attach to PublicWifi?'

It's firewalled off, URL filtered, and aside from http(s), DHCP, DNS, SSH and VPN, nothing else can get through. Further, those ports will only attach to outside IPs. All traffic is monitored, and there are notices in all meeting rooms that Your security is Your problem.

This is a solution that protects OUR network, has zero admin overhead, and still permits the resource...So that's now illegal?

So who gets to enforce it?

[mrmaster]

When I read this article I was thinking that I wouldn't mind having the job of enforcing this. Then I realized I would have to have the mindset of a parking enforcer to do something like this. Hell, let the parking enforcers take care of this as well. They love a good power trip. Parking enforcer: "Ma'am, your wireless access point is not running a firewall." Some old lady: "My what isn't on fire?" Parking enforcer: "your internet. It is against the law to allow others to use your internet for free" Some Old lady: "Oh, my 10 yr old grandson got that internet thing to work? Isn't he wonderful? He is so smart." Parking enforcer: "Ma'am, here is a ticket for running an unsecure access point. Don't let it happen again." Some Old lady: "How dare you come to my house and threaten me with this! I've been living here for 30 years and have never been treated like this! Parking enforcer: "Ma'am, have a nice day" Slow day at work. I apologize

Here's the Big Brother part...

[Anonymous Coward]

any business or home office that stores personal information also must install such a firewall-outfitted server even if its wireless connection is encrypted and not open to the public. All such businesses would be required to register with the county within 90 days.

I wonder who is really behind creating THAT database?

As if it isn't enough already?

[saskboy]

As if it isn't enough that using someone's open Wireless Access Point without permission is illegal, now they're making it illegal to own current wireless technologies? That's like bank robbing being illegal, but they're banning banks just in case. And I'm not saying connecting to open wireless is like robbing a bank, it's just an extreme analogy to show what the law is outlawing.

Ok.. I just turned on WPA....

[cowmix]

The passkey is 'passkey'. Am I legal now?

Do they have standing?

[redelm]

A legislative body can pass whatever they want, but it might not withstand legal challenge. In this case, I don't see how the county can show an interest. This is clearly interstate, and the FCC has jurisdiction.

Yep and then they will tell you what crypto to use

[dindi]

O.K.
1st step: let's force a broken security model (WEP) on all users.
2nd : limit the allowed encryption so all government agencies can come and look into your house ....

it's like telling someone how to run their servers ...

wha if I like all my access points running without any crypto and just have a tunnel inbetween my machines, and not ruoute any packets into the net that does not come from that "internal net" or VPN ?

What if i want to see wardrivers trying to mess with my access points?

What if I run Linux or BSD as an access point with my own security measures ?

What if I just hate big brother telling me how to run my home network ?

It's like the safety belt issue : I wear it as once it saved my whole family's life in a nasty crash, however I know people who are scared of it as they were stuck in a car in a rollower accident and they choose to crush their head instead of burning in a car upside down tangled in a seatbelt .....

Re:allowing an unlocked house & meth lab

[Angostura]

So let's be clear. You are in favour of strict penalties for anyone who leaves their house with a door unlocked on the grounds that the premises may be used for illegal behaviour?

In that case, I would like to propose compulsory content analysis and blocking on all backbone routers. Because you never know when someone somewhere might use the Internet for something distasteful.

I suspect that the proposed legislation has zero chance of getting anywhere.

Where does the FCC fit in here?

[rayd75]

I certainly hope this fails as I don't think legislation is the solution to wireless security... at least not in this form. Perhaps it should just be illegal to ship an access point that is open by default. I realize that manufacturers want their products to be easy to use but I don't think it's unreasonable for buyers to jump through a hoop or two before getting a completely open access point if that's what they want. On the other hand, maybe the FCC will get involved. Obviously, they have no jurisdiction over network design and such but any requirement to register an access point sounds a lot like a requirement to register a radio transmitter. It has been long since been established that local governments generally cannot regulate radio devices operating in accordance with the applicable FCC rules.

No it wouldn't

[FluffyWithTeeth]

It would not outlaw unsecured wireless connections.

It's allowed to be unencrypted, it just has to be running a firewall. Which is stupid. Really stupid.

I don't live in America, so this won't effect me. I just still think it's stupid. I run my own connection free of firewalls anywhere in the chain. Sure, if someone can be bothered, they could get into my files, as long as they spent long enough with a bruteforce. Hell, I even allow root connections via ssh. Unless someone's seriously personally interested in cracking my machine, I don't need one, I only run MacOS, Linux and BeOS on the net, I'm not worred about malware or viruses. My wireless data is encrypted, but it won't keep anyone out, the encryption key is exactly the same as the SSID

The only reason I have that is so the (computer illiterate) people a few houses over don't connect accidentally, and use my bandwidth for no reason. Hell, I've connected to their router and changed its channel and such to produce the minimum interference between them.

I don't care if a guy nearby has lost his net for a bit, and so uses mine for a backup. I don't care if someone driving through switches to my connection.

If someone is using too much of my bandwidth, I'll just block their MAC address for a bit. Sure, they can crack that. If they do, I'll just change my WEP password. They're bored enough to crack that as well? Fine, I'll just stop my router from giving anymore DHCP leases than I use. Meanwhile, I'll track down where they are, using the many machines and people I can pull up to pinpoint where wireless traffic is. Then, I'll go over and kick the shit out of them.

So far, no one's ever done anything with my connection that's pissed me off. I've had people talk to me on rendezvous with iChat (Or whatever it's called now, the LAN chat thing) and thank me for letting people connect.

I like sharing my internet. I once set up a directional antenna so that a friend some ways over could use it when his cable company had screwed things up.

Industry Regulation

[jpl166]

While it sounds like this particular proposal was written by people who just don't understand, maybe it will give people with a bit more clue (and authority) an idea.
People were talking about this being like getting fined for leaving your door unlocked. How about fining a landlord who doesn't provide locks on the doors? With the prevalence of wireless "internet router" units, many of which include basic firewall functionality, it wouldn't take much of an upgrade to make this work well. Anything that provides 802.11[bg...] should have a firewall built in and come with a VPN client - anything on the airwaves is then firewalled AND encrypted. How much would this really cost the industry? How much would it benefit the public?

Simple solution.

[polyp2000]

Enable encryption on the access point and then make the encryption key publically available.

Which might be a good reason to leave it open

[SuperKendall]

All those nice things that if done from their own isp connection would get them kicked off by their ISP or have the police visit. Guess who gets the blame? All traces stop with the person who owns the internet connection.

So when the P2P police come calling if I'd had an open wireless connection it provides an element of doubt that I am guiltiy, which is pretty handy (if you're into P2P). If I used P2P a lot I'd do it from a box that operated only through my wireless connection - then any records don't even show the MAC address of your primary computer and you could ditch the box quickly if you got The Letter.

Re:Great idea!

[h4rm0ny]

Although depending on the wording of the law, this could be used to hinder anonymous internet access. Example - if you are providing a public internet access then unsecured could be interpreted as allowing access without identity verification.

And another bit of privacy is lost.

Re:Great idea!

[hector_uk]

well seeing as their will be no evidence on any of my macs/pc's and their will be on my neighbors pc's it's a moot point, my neighbor may borrow my cork screw and stab someone with it, should the lending or cork screws be illegal? hell no.

Except...

[msauve]

for this little thing called the US Constitution, which provides free speech guarantees, and which this law certainly infringes. IP is just another form of communications.