Security News > 2002 > August > FC: More on FBI advisory on 802.11-spotting "wardriving"
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 01:00:01 -0400 From: Declan McCullagh To: politech () politechbot com Subject: FC: More on FBI advisory on 802.11-spotting "wardriving" I heard back from the FBI's Bill Shore, who wrote the advisory (http://www.politechbot.com/p-03884.html). He said that "Theft of services is not a federal violation per se. Check my comments a little more closely." Perhaps he means that it could be a violation of state law? (A quick skim of state laws shows that they often use language like accessing a resource to which you're not "entitled.") See also Pennsylvania criminal law (http://members.aol.com/StatutesP7/18PA910.html). A quick read suggests that it bans the possession of a "telecommunication device" that can receive or transmit in any manner, including on a wireless network, "without the consent of the telecommunication service provider." Any criminal lawyers want to think this through? (The definition includes computer software, BTW.) Bill also said that his message forwarded to Politech was "just a release I made to the Pittsburgh InfraGard Chapter, so it is not really an FBI Warning, advisory, or anything like that from NIPC. I just thought it would be relevant and interesting to our local chapter." Also, from a few weeks ago: "Notes on federal indictment for 'war dialing' offense" http://www.politechbot.com/p-03827.html -Declan --- Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 13:54:36 -0500 (CDT) From: "Robert A. Hayden" To: Declan McCullagh Subject: Re: FC: FBI releases advisory about 802.11-spotting "wardriving" The only concern about this is that this is a case of using a hammer (federal law) to solve a problem that could be fixed with a tiny screwdriver (ie, enabling even minimal security on the access point). Of course, given the state of things this past year, this is hardly surprising. --- Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 14:07:13 -0700 From: Tim Pozar To: billshore () fbi gov, declan () well com Subject: Re: FC: FBI releases advisory about 802.11-spotting "wardriving" Always our (BAWUG) and Peter Shipley's claim too. If you sniff the ether and identify a network being out there that is one thing. If you start to use the network then you are stealing service. This comes to one of the problems we are trying to work out. When is an unencrypted AP an "open-AP"? Can you just have "OPEN_AP" as an SSID? Tim --- Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 20:13:33 -0600 To: Declan McCullagh From: "Richard Johnson" Subject: Re: FC: FBI releases advisory about 802.11-spotting "wardriving" Cc: rdump () river com, billshore () fbi gov Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 15:18 -0400 on 13/08/2002, Declan McCullagh wrote: