Netstumbling and US Law

[George Toft]

Tony Wasson wrote:
> 
> > CISSP Wannabe asks: As I read the Electronic Communications Privacy Act
> > of 1986, the intentional reception, recording, decoding, and decryption
> > of wired and wireless electronic systems is illegal.  Therefore, typing
> > snoop, tcpdump, or ethereal on a system (for purposes other than
> > troubleshooting) is illegal.  Furthermore, it would appear that
> > netstumbling and wardriving is also illegal.
> 
> I have heard Netstumbling defended as 'mapping local frequencies in use'. If
> you are deploying your own wireless network, you'd want to make sure you do
> not interfere with existing networks.
> 
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Setting up a receiver and getting a signal means find a different
frequency.  Staying on that frequency and evesdropping is another
matter.  That's a pretty weak defense - the last time I set up a
wireless network, I was not driving around with a GPS mapping out all
the WiFi networks.  I think it fails the "reasonable person" test.

George

-- 
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