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Open WAP = Probable Cause?
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."
Open WAP = Probably Cause?
CmdrTaco = Editor?
Just a reminder to ACCEPT jury duty if you get called. It is one of the best ways to directly affect how things work in the U.S.
Idiot.
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.
This guy gave a conditional guilty plea even though "evidence" linked the yahoo account to his roommate. You don't accept a deal for 4 years in prison if you're not guilty. Clearly, someone is lying here.
Just to clarify before a hundred people comment without understanding this distinction. The court in this case ruled that child pornography tracked to a given open access point was probable cause to search that residence and specifically the rooms belonging to the person who ran the open access point. They did not rule that running the open access point proved that the owner was guilty of transmitting the child pornography, but ruled him guilty because of the stacks of DVDs found in his room.
The identity of the user was only questioned after the fact. They actually found kiddie porn in the IP address registree's room. I'd bet that he'd stand much stronger, legally if they hadn't, but he's trying to get the case thrown out of court because he'd set up an unsecured Wifi, which his lawyer argued made it unlikely enough that it was him that the police should have walked away...
My grammar sucks probably 'cause I have open WAP.
Thats like saying because you wanted to get a hand gun, your going to be a school shooter. There are TONS of open WAPs because people don't know better. It gives me the desire to go from home to home and do child porn searchs and FBI searches from all the homes to force this decision to get overturned. I mean come on.
;))
I don't know whether or not the guy was innocent/guilty but I do think that this "probable cause" thing is complete crap. If I see cops going down the streets with laptops I'll chase em away and sue the city! Mental anguish or something. (luckily, I don't live in texas
If they make openWAP's probable cause, then what about a coffee place where you get free wifi. Will the owner be held responsible for this customers actions? Will you be *REQUIRED* to get a permit for an open WAP. This is complete crap.
Support the source, Open Source! An entire site developed with OSS
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.
"I'm sorry your honor, I'd like to request a brief recess so that I can bone the prosecution behind my assistant DA/girlfriend's back."
"Very well, Mr.McCoy, but I'll remind you that this is a high-profile, ripped-from-the-headlines case that will decide the fate of alleged child pornographers for years to come, and I--Mr.McCoy, could you at least wait until the courtroom has been cleared?"
Yes, it's offtopic, but have you ever WATCHED that show?
The stack of Kiddie Porn DVDs convicted him, not the open access point. The whole thing revolves around the fact that they found an IM of somebody with an IP originating from his residence that contained a child porn picture. This got them a search warrant, and they found additional evidence including a stack of DVDs with child porn images on them (and think HOW MANY images are needed to fill more than one DVD).
The only point where the open access point comes in to it is that he claimed that because it was open, it means that ANYBODY could have used IPs from inside his house, and thus the search should have been thrown out, and the evidence gathered suppressed. But the judge didn't go for it.
In non-technical terms, it's like claiming that your house is always unlocked, thus any evidence they ever find there should never be admissible, since anybody could have put it there. And as I said above, the judge didn't go for it, and rightfully so IMO. So this isn't "police look for open access points, and go fishing wherever they find one" but rather "an open access point doesn't get you out of finding DVDs of illegal material in your house."
If you did what you suggest---go to a bunch of open WAPs and do child porn searches---then none of the people you target will ultimately get in trouble. They might get their homes searched, but the FBI wouldn't find any evidence of child porn, because you're long gone.
Furthermore your second paragraph isn't a fair characterization of what happened here. The cops aren't going around searching for open WAPs. It was the defense that brought this argument, not the cops. The allegedly illegal IM traffic came from the defendant's IP address, and he used the open WAP argument to suggest that since it could have been a drive-by or neighbor, that they didn't have enough evidence to search his house. Well, they may not have had enough evidence to convict, certainly---but you don't need nearly as much to get the search warrant. I frankly agree with that decision. The evidence stated that a crime was committed in the vicinity of that house.
RTFA people. An IM that contained child porn was sent via Yahoo from this guy's IP address. It was reported, the authorities obtained the IP address used to send the IM and obtained a search warrant for this guy's house. Authorities discovered a stack of CD's that contained child porn when they searched his residence.
I don't see the problem here. If someone was using his open WAP to send the IM authorities wouldn't have discovered child porn when they searched his house and/or computer and there would be no prosecution. The guy was on physical possession of the material in question.
An open WiFi network can't be used as an argument against probable cause. It makes perfect sense to me. If illegal activity is occurring from a particular IP you can't even know if there was a WAP involved, let alone if it was open or not, at the time the crime took place. You need a search warrant to further investigate. Sure you couldcheck for an open WAP without a warrant, but all that would tell you is if there is an open or closed WAP there now, not if one was in place or was secured or not when the activity in question took place. To make that determination you'd need more information but at that point you do have probable cause for a search warrant.
The title of this summary is horribly misleading...now I know this is slashdot so no one RTFA, but I happend across it by other means this morning, the ruling was not that having an open WAP is probable cause for kiddy porn, the ruling was that an open WAP was no defense against a finding of probable cause.
In this case they found that kiddy porn had been sent to someone else from this guys IP, they used this fact as probable cause to search his room were they found cd's full of kiddy porn.
So this is not saying that the police can barge into someones house just because the have an open WAP, it is saying that if someone has an open WAP and something illegal is done via that open WAP then the police have probably cause to search the location of the WAP and I think this is perfectly reasonable, we are talking about probably cause here not conviction, I would have a problem if someone was convicted on just the evidence of a IP address period regardless of the presence of an open WAP, but I do not have a problem with this being considered cause.
In a somewhat applicable analogy it is like getting a warrant to search an apartment after witnesses claim a man in that apartment had shot someone on the street, true the man might not be the apartment owner, but the fact that part of the crime did happen in the apartment is certainly probably cause to search the apartment.
'' Anyone else seeing reasonable doubt flying out the window with this crap decision?. The slope just got one HELL of bit more slippery! ''
Absolutely not. There _was_ reasonable doubt whether or not he was guilty. That's why the police got a search warrant. The expected outcome was (a) finding evidence that he was indeed guilty or (b) finding no evidence, which meant a good chance that someone sitting outside his house in his car did the downloading.
A third, less likely but possible outcome is that the police find evidence for a completely different crime. That evidence _can_ be used as long as the original search warrant was justified. Well, that is just tough.