Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Open WAP & Legal Issues

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 17:24:09 -0400

-------- Original Message --------
From: Kevin Arima <[email-masked]>
Subject:  Open WAP & Legal Issues

I was researching the legality of accessing open APs whose owners did
not
expressly consent to "sharing" access (unlike NYCWireless node owners
who
do)  when I came across a posting on Usenet by a lawyer who invested
quite
a bit of time in researching the actual laws pertaining to such access.
The conclusion was that it probably is illegal, but on a very limited
scale, and my understanding on his post was that his research was only
on
criminal law, so it is still possible to be sued under a civil suit.

The post (which I encourage people to read) is:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=HQLR9.566142%24P31.195544%40rwcrnsc53

He spent quite a lot of time in investigating the issue and wrote a very
detailed post, and it is probably very accurate (he is a lawyer after
all).  I posted a question to him because he did not addressed _listing_
of information which has recently come on the list.  I basically asked
him
if there would be legal issues if someone were to create a list of open
APs without the AP owner's consent, and this was his reply.  Please note
his copyright restriction on the post, and I don't suggest that we start
e-mailing him with legal questions (unless you want to pay him his
hourly
rate to do the research, etc. =)

For those who don't want to read, he believes that such list would be
protected under the First Amendment as long as software such as
NetStumbler is used (he doesn't say anything about checking for DHCP,
checking for live access, etc.)  However, as posted by others in the
list,
I also believe that creating such lists would be counterproductive,
especially given the security climate of the country in general.

Kevin "Starfox" Arima

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---

From: Rick Parrish <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 21:59:45 -0500

[email-masked] wrote:

>I basically asked him if there would be legal issues if someone were to create a list of open APs without the AP owner's consent, and this was his reply.  <snip>
>
It could make handling frequency coordination very difficult otherwise 
... I suspect publishing a list of *closed* APs is equally protected - 
IANAL - bah!

-rick

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