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Open WAP = Probable Cause?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the summon-sam-waterston dept.

RockoTDF writes "A court in texas has ruled that an open WAP is not a sufficient defense against child pornography charges, a ruling which could carry over to p2p users. In addition, it appears that an open WAP could be seen as probable cause by law enforcement."

2 of 466 comments (clear)

  1. solution. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have secured my wap.

    I hope nobody finds out that the passphrase is 0x01020304050607080910111213

    I also hope others do not do the same and we all create open accesspoints that are actually secure :-)

    Now we can claim we were hacked! problem solved and stupid lawyers and police are end run for at least a few more years.

  2. No suprise here by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm not surprised. I'm sure one of the things the court considered is that someone who knows enough about wireless to raise the "open access point" defense also knows enough to know the risks of an open WAP and to do something about it if only to protect themselves from exactly this sort of problem. And with the amount of publicity, even the average Joe by this point knows the risks of open WAPs. So I'm not surprised the judge essentially said "You knew it was open, you knew what the risks were, you didn't do anything about them. You're responsible for it.". Can you say "attractive nuisance"? Similar deal with probable cause, if the abuse of open WAPs is wide-spread enough for defendant's argument to be even someone probable then it's wide-spread enough that police can treat open WAPs as a known problem.

    And of course, if someone were using the WAP then the CDs wouldn't have been in his room. He might be able to make the argument that, given the IM name especially, the CDs belong to his roommate, but it looks like his attempt to get fancy scuttled that option.