On Wed, May 29, 2002 at 09:13:08AM -0400, Jim Graves wrote:
> I think you're trying to reverse-engineer FCC rules a bit too much.
> 
> When it comes to wireless scanning, I think the Electronic Communications 
> Privacy Act (ECPA) has much more relevance.  That's the law that provides 
> Federal penalties to anyone who "intentionally intercepts, endeavors to 
> intercept, or procures any other person to intercept or endeavor to 
> intercept, any wire, oral, or electronic communication."   In other words, 
> the ECPA is the anti-eavesdropping law.
> 
> I don't know if this has been tested with wardriving, and I'm no lawyer.  I 
> also think there's a big logical difference between scanning for networks 
> and capturing packets -- but I don't know if the law sees a difference.
> 
> In any event, if it ever came to trial, I doubt an argument about FCC part 
> 15 would hold water.  There's a big difference between "accepting" 
> interference and decoding transmissions.
> 

What about walking/driving around with an X-10 camera in your RV hooked up to
the TV, or with one of those FRS radios.. or a CB radio.. when you've got 
pc's (on any OS) that automacially associate to the nearest access point
regardless of SSID, acquire an IP, and sign onto AIM/ICQ/whatever along
with checking their mail (all the things a typical box does upon detecting
a network connection) it becomes very hard to distinguish between what's
legal and what isn't.

To add more to that mix, you've got people (like myself) who have no problem
with people driving up and using my access point (I've got WEP disabled,
and DHCP running, this is how I let people know they're welcome to use it)

Personally, I'd say that anyone without even the most basic security or
'keep out' sign (anything that requires user intervention to access)
is open to the public. 

> ----
> Jim Graves
> Alphabet Soup: CCIE #7524, CISSP, CWNA, MCSE, BFD
> Senior Network Systems Consultant
> Lucent Worldwide Services
> Alpha Pager: 1-800-467-1467
> 

-- 
Matthew S. Hallacy                            FUBAR, LART, BOFH Certified
http://techmonkeys.org/~poptix                  GPG public key 0x01938203