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Court Declares Google Must Face Wiretap Charges For Wi-Fi Snooping
New submitter Maser_24 writes with news about continued action against Google for snooping on unsecured Wi-Fi networks when collecting data for Street View. From the article: "A federal appeals court this week ruled that Google could be held liable for civil damages for the company's 2011 scandal involving the company's collection of Wi-Fi data from unsecured hotspots using their Street View vehicles. To come to that conclusion, the court followed a rather unique logic path; according to the court, unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots are not 'radio communications' that are 'readily accessible' to the general public and therefore Google violated the Wiretap Act."
This despite being cleared of wrongdoing by the FCC.
Now charge the NSA for requesting that they do that.
Federal government wiretaps Google, no problem. Google "wiretaps", federal government throws a hissyfit.
You can't do that - that's the govern... no. You know what? I'm better than that. Somebody else can take the low hanging fruit.
Bad logic that is favorable to your agenda is still bad logic.
Twisting logic is what I get mad at the "other guy" for. Don't tolerate it.
Unencrypted RF communications should be fair game for anyone to receive and record. The fact that it's digital seems to be what swayed the judges in this case. I can't for the life of me understand how this could have happened. I'm not in favor Google's actions, but they were not illegal. Now the law has been twisted and there will be unintended consequences.
Only when it lets us, meaning, when hell freezes over.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
That's exactly what this is... In no uncertain terms!
Fuck... Pot, meet Kettle...
WiFi is explicitly radio... and it's readily accessible without any intervention on the users behalf...
I regularly connect to unsecured hotspots without even meaning to...
Blah...
I can't even express how utterly exasperated I am with our government...and the people that keep them in office...
God damn...
Well, there's one thing our government is good at, learning from past mistakes... Those gladiatorial games were great inspiration for our current raft of "populace pacification techniques"... TV, sports, and (to a lesser extent) religion...
When will we wake up... When will the common man stand his ground and tell those in power to go fuck themselves? When?
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
"unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots are not 'radio communications' that are 'readily accessible' to the general public
Every single apartment complex I've lived in/visited would say otherwise.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
wifi is radio. I could tune into them using a reciever in the 2.4 ghz range easily. I can even use a dsp to decode it via soft radio, and respond to the messages. anything that uses the radio spectrum is radio. Morse code is the same thing as wifi, just 1000x slower.
Maybe I'm a little off on my law but civil damages are when people sue each other. So it makes sense if Google used the information in some way that hurt you then you have the right to sue Google for damages. In Canada, for a while when cellphone calls were not encrypted, it was perfectly legal to listen to the calls provided you did not use the information gleamed off that to benefit in any way. Google to the best of our knowledge deleted this information or no longer has it so what exactly would you be suing Google for? How did Google collecting this information harm you or how in the world are you ever going to prove that?
the more of a target you become..
I like how there is a story on slashdot about Google making high level encryption that the NSA cannot penetrate. Then a few stories later is the government taking Google to court for something serious. Don't mess with the government.
How in the hell are WiFi networks not "radio communications" which are "readily accessible"? What fucked up, distorted logic led to this?
I hope I don't have to explain how they are radio communications, if that's not obvious to anyone please go play with crayons in the corner.
As for readily accessible, when the vast majority of WiFi-equipped PCs and most mobile devices need nothing more than software which simply asks the wireless card to pass through what it sees, uh yes, it is readily accessible.
It's like arguing that since FRS radios typically default to channels 1 or 14 when turned on, channel 6 is not readily accessible. Sure you don't get it without asking, but its about as easy as it could possibly be.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
And rake in the profits citing this case!
Disagreeing with you does not make me a troll.
...according to the court, unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots are not 'radio communications' that are 'readily accessible' ...
What the court seems to be thinking is that:
- We will examine the INTENT of the law rather than restrict ourselves to the technical words ...Apparently....
- We believe that the intent was that someone who made an open radio transmission would know that it could be intercepted, so cannot expect privacy, since any radio set can pick it up. It's akin to shouting across the street.
- However, someone who is using a wi-fi connection would not necessarily be aware that they were exposing information.
- Therefore, persons who intercept that information using specialist equipment are not 'just overhearing information'. They are acting in a bad faith manner, and are doing something nearer to wiretapping than innocently listening.
Unencrypted RF comms *are* fair game for anyone to receive, though recording them is often illegal (notably, recording cell phone calls off the air is, quite reasonably, prohibited). This ruling results from judges being experts in the law but ignorant of the facts of modern radio technology. I rather expect this to be appealed to the Nine In Black, who may or may not have a clue, but who are at least much better briefed than some appeals judges. Perverse and head-banging court rulings are unavoidable in even the best judicial systems, alas.
That said, I do expect this ruling to be overturned, as it is plainly dumber than chocolate pants. WiFi IS radio communications, and an open WiFi hotspot can be trivially snooped with standard commercial gear, so it IS readily accessible. If you wanted a reasonable expectation of privacy, you'd turn on encryption, also available as standard equipment, or at least use a secured connection protocol. Using an open hotspot with unencrypted HTTP is no more private than conversing over an FRS walkie-talkie.
Absent gods, but I miss Groklaw just about now...
Countries legal systems had to find their way around the computer intrusion cases back in the 1980's. ...
The full force of legal protection was directed at privacy vs some 'damage' case that could be reduced if the network was just 'looked' at.
If only it was just one 'test' in 'one' country
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Any companies watching this episode will be highly discouraged from ever being honest in reporting their own errors. No harm had been done. Google engineers re-used some code that had some extra functionality they didn't know about, and it collected sporadic data they didn't care about or intend to gather. When they realized it was happening, instead of just deleting the data, they informed the authorities and asked for permission to delete it. The result? The authorities read the data and put the company through a never ending legal battle that's cost millions.
Who on earth is going to do the right thing after seeing this?
Is Google getting hit with this because they asked for an open, public hearing with another court so that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court could be publicly debated? Seems like the deck is stacked against them.
How an unencrypted, largely unregulated band transmissions cannot be considered 'radio communications' that are 'readily accessible' simply makes no sense. If I have a wireless network that is blasting out huge wattage, the FCC would get involved. So it is radio communications, which can be accessed with a $20 wireless card and a generic PC. Not only are our politicians out of touch with technology, but so are the judges they appoint.
So the NSA is performing actual wiretaps and widescale data collection which violates the Constitution and they are facing absolutely no penalties or even pressure from any other branch of government to stop this behavior yet Google is being punished for "wiretapping" by collecting information that was voluntarily broadcasted on public airwaves. At first this didn't make any sense until I remembered Google's recent efforts to encrypt users' data to make it tougher to be collected by government agencies. I guess that's the price they're going to pay for trying to force the government to obey its own Constitution.
"We were acting on orders from the NSA. But we can't share that information with you."
What damages did someone transmitting their information in plaintext suffer when Google picked up what they were transmitting?
If they want to sue someone, sue the Wifi equipment manufacturers that used to make open networks the default setting.
A wifi hotspot isn't "radio communications"?
Per Wikipedia (which is NEVER wrong):
Wi-Fi, also spelled Wifi or WiFi, is a popular technology that allows an electronic device to exchange data or connect to the internet wirelessly using radio waves.
“Wi-Fi transmissions are not 'readily accessible' to the 'general public' because most of the general public lacks the expertise to intercept and decode payload data transmitted over a Wi-Fi network"?
Any idiot with a laptop or wifi-capable cellphone can easily connect to an unsecured WAP by clicking on it, or even automatically as many wireless adapters have been configured to do so. Plus, there's the fact that 802.11 wifi operates on the ISM radio band for unlicensed use. Not to mention if I'm sitting in my home and the radio waves from my neighbor's wifi are entering my home, and I choose to see what they say, this is no different than the neighbor blasting his shitty hiphop music so loud that I can hear the lyrics.
I should also mention that the ISM frequency range is also home to cordless telephones and microwave ovens. So if cooking leftover pizza using an unlicensed radio frequency isn't considered "readily accessible," I don't know what is!
In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
Until wireless cards are "readily accessible" open WiFi still requires some effort, and intention, to access.
Practically every cell phone and laptop are WiFi capable, as are quite a number of tablets, cameras, printers, and televisions. Heck, there's even exercise equipment with WiFi. Accessing open WiFi takes no more effort than tuning in a shortwave broadcast does.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Analog cellular phone calls are covered by a separate law (The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986). It not only makes it illegal to record them, it makes it illegal to sell a radio that can receive them (or be easily modified to receive them). Thankfully all mobile phones are digital now. Unfortunately that law is still on the books.
Another court case conflicts with the Google ruling. Back when they were in popular use, the police sometimes recorded wireless phone calls from 46/49 MHz cordless phones (without a warrant). The police used these recordings in court to convict a drug dealer and the drug dealer argued that the communications were private. The courts ruled that they were not. Here is the court ruling from this case:
Common sense logic as used by non-geeks who are not fixated on literal interpretations.
Kind of hard to have a just law where you don't apply a reasonably literal interpretation.
while the non-geek would say that "communications" requires two living entities talking to each other
So by that logic if two people do anything other than talk to each other face to face then they are not communicating?
You say yourself that you need a WiFi equipped PC and some software - that's not "readily available".
What color is the sky on your planet where wifi equipped PCs and related software are not readily available? I have at least 100 wifi equipped devices (including PCs) within 50 meters of me as I type this. Heck I carry such a device with me pretty much everywhere I go.
...this is not addressed through the basics of contract law.
When a wireless router broadcasts a SSID on an unencrypted wireless network, it is effectively an invitation to use that network.
So your computer asks that router for an IP address, and lo and behold the router gives you an IP address. By making a request for an IP Address and the router giving you one, it has effectively given you permission to join the network.
All this is different on a secure network, since you either have to have the key or pick the lock (even a simple lock like WEP). Picking the lock to use a service without authorisation can easily be seen as an offence.
So what has Google done that is radically different from walking around looking for an open connection so you can send an email? (Apart from scale that is).
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
- We believe that the intent was that someone who made an open radio transmission would know that it could be intercepted, so cannot expect privacy, since any radio set can pick it up. It's akin to shouting across the street. However, someone who is using a wi-fi connection would not necessarily be aware that they were exposing information.
And where the court erred is in thinking there is a difference between these two situations. An unsecured wifi base station IS making open radio transmissions. It is hardly a secret that wifi needs to be secured intentionally. EVERY wifi base station includes instructions on how to secure the base station transmissions. If the owner of the base station cannot be bothered to read those instructions then I cannot fathom how that is anyone else's fault. If you are making a radio transmission of any kind then common logic dictates that it may be intercepted by anyone with the right equipment and it is up to the person transmitting to make reasonable efforts to secure that transmission.
Now if Google was actively cracking secured wifi networks in some manner or using those open wifi connections to transmit their own data then we have a different discussion.
I know Google has a lot of computational prowess when it comes to user data, so I say with some hesitation that this ruling makes no sense.
Isn't readily accessible? In five minutes, any member of the "public" can get a laptop, find an open hotspot and run Wireshark in promiscuous mode. Sounds "readily" to me.
Morse code is the same thing as wifi, just 1000x slower.
Your analogy is wrong. Morse code is the communication protocol, WiFi (802.11a/b/g/n) is a specification.
802.11 is roughly equivalent to FCC Part 97
Morse code is roughly equivalent to TCP/IP
Wifi uses radio, just like CB, Amatuer Radio, FRS
You mean "readily accessible" as in "I can understand it by hearing an audio facsimile" (as the Judge implied) or "readily accessible" as in anyone with a smart phone can access without even pressing a single button - you walk near the transmitter and magical pages of information come up on my phone at my whim. Would Morse Code be not "readily accessible" since few people today use Morse Code, because it's an unencrypted digital (trinary) transmission, but would have certainly been considered fair game back when the law was written?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Yes, if you are running special software that doesn't just connect, but does so in a promiscuous mode where it intercepts traffic not addressed to it and records it. Thanks for the opportunity to clear things up.
I wonder if the Judge would have considered Morse Code a readily accessible transmission at the time of the law's writing. Because Morse is just a digital code (trinary, but digital) transmitted over radio waves. I wonder if Chinese radio transmissions in the US fall outside of "readily accessible," since most Americans don't have the expertise to decode Chinese?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I don't like that this line of reasoning encourages people to demonstrably unsafe things on the theory that they can sue or prosecute people later, and that that might deter people from sniffing their traffic. Much better to just tell everyone to secure their communications. The alternative is much like saying the neighbors can go shout their secrets in the street and you are obligated not to listen. Yes, listening in on someone else's unsecured WiFi is harder than listening to a neighbor shout in the streets...but not by much.
It gets worse, if your computing device remembers access points it has encountered before, under this interpretation, you're committing a crime.
I believe the difference they are pointing out is that FM / AM, police, fire, etc. are broadcasting out and are 'readily available', whereas with WiFi is broadcasting but is not readily available to the general public, most of the time it is encrypted and meant just for yourself. This ruling is saying people who want to sue Google, are allowed to, because they were not broadcasting for the same purpose as the other technologies mentioned above.
From the actual summary of the court ruling:
Wiretap Act
The panel affirmed the district court's order denying a
motion to dismiss claims that Google, Inc., violated the
Wiretap Act when, in the course of capturing its Street View
photographs, it collected data from unencrypted Wi-Fi
networks.
The panel held that Google's data collection did not fall
within a Wiretap exemption set forth in 18 U.S.C.
? 2511(2)(g)(i) because data transmitted over a Wi-Fi
network is not an "electronic communication" that is "readily
accessible to the general public." Under 18 U.S.C.
? 2510(16)(A), a "radio communication" is by definition
"readily accessible to the general public" so long as it is not
scrambled or encrypted. The panel held that the Wi-Fi
network data collected by Google was not a radio
communication, and thus was not by definition readily
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
news at 11
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A brilliant bit of pilpul: the statute is supposed to be read using the "ordinary meaning" of terms like radio. As radio can be distinguished from television in ordinary usage, radio waves therefor do not include television waves, do not include wifi waves, etc. Therefor wifi is not radio, and doesn't have the radio exception, even though it uses radio frequency electromagnetic waves.
The counter-argument is that in common usage and in the language used in the statute, the term "radio" includes "radio waves". The waves cannot be distinguished from one another in the same way, and the argument that "radio communication" does not include "television communication", etc fails. All electromagnetic communication in the radio wavelengths is radio communication.
Poor legal draftsmanship, plus a real desire to draw exceedingly fine distinctions about extremely broad language yields a decision that makes the judges feel proud, but dumps all over what is, IMHO, rather obvious legislative intent.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
If you leave your wi-fi open, its public. It's commonly accepted practice. I expect Google to win this easily.
Obviously the judge lacks a Pringels can. I can't imagine a signal that is not more accessible by the public.
Judge made the mistake of trying to interpret the motive of the person setting up the unencrypted hotspot instead of the intent of the people who designed the WiFi standard. He also doesn't understand how WiFi and networking work.
He decided that in general, someone setting up a hotspot doesn't intend for the traffic to be snooped, therefore it "isn't publically broadcast". The law should be based on the design of the technology, not the intent and misunderstanding, of the person who turns it on.
WiFi doesn't work if every computer listening in on the hotspot doesn't examine every packet, at least as far enough to see if it was intended for it or not. It doesn't take a special $600 adapter for someone to snoop, or packet capture, the network traffic. That may be the easiest way for an untrained person to do it, but it isn't the only way.
We need special judges, who are trained technologists, to rule on technology cases.
How about for copyright infringement? Even non-commercial copyright infringement is illegal.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
Don't become a huge company, and piss off the feds.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Any idiot with a laptop or wifi-capable cellphone can easily connect to an unsecured WAP by clicking on it, or even automatically as many wireless adapters have been configured to do so.
True. But my laptop will not display or record any network traffic that isn't intended for it. Without any special software, I can make use of the network for my own purposes, but I cannot see what anyone else is doing on that unsecured network.
Unencrypted RF comms *are* fair game for anyone to receive, though recording them is often illegal (notably, recording cell phone calls off the air is, quite reasonably, prohibited). This ruling results from judges being experts in the law but ignorant of the facts of modern radio technology. I rather expect this to be appealed to the Nine In Black, who may or may not have a clue, but who are at least much better briefed than some appeals judges. Perverse and head-banging court rulings are unavoidable in even the best judicial systems, alas.
So, let's draw an analogy. And, disclaimer: I'm not advocating one side or the other.
I own a field that doesn't have a fence around it. Does that make it legal for people to come and play in that field? Do I have to fence it off and post no trespassing signs to make it illegal? IANAL, but I think the answer is no. How about if my front door has a welcome mat and is wide open. Can you come in and use my bathroom?
The FCC long held that you could legally receive RF comms, but WI-FI connections are not simply a reception...you handshake, and establish a connection. So, using an open one isn't the same thing (yes, this isn't what Google did).
I don't think the laws and courts have kept up with the technologies, and this all needs clarification. I've personally always assumed that an open wifi was fair game for use.
Just another day in Paradise