* Ignorance of law no excuse with wireless mishaps
Last week, I posed the question as to who should be liable when poachers piggyback on an open wireless LAN connection and perhaps engage in illegal activities that are detected and traced.
A related question is that when networks are left open and users associate with access points other than their own, are they breaking the law, even when they do so unwittingly?
Consider two neighbors (two adjacent houses or two offices in a building) with open networks. Users in one house/office happen to associate with the access point in the house/office next door instead of their own access point because the other’s signal is stronger at a given moment. Can the two Wi-Fi LAN owners sue one another for invasion of privacy? Can they be charged with “unauthorized access to a computer network?”
Quite possibly.
Stan Edwards, a consultant at Data and Voice Design Group, says, “It behooves all users to take the necessary precautions to ensure they are accessing the networks that they should be. All too often, users aren’t aware of the possible ramifications of using the radio spectrum. Unfortunately, ignorance of the law is not an excuse.”
Edwards cautions that one thing Wi-Fi users may not realize is that some of the channels used in the 2.4 GHz band also fall within the Amateur (“ham”) Radio frequency spectrum in which the hams have priority. Some hams, he says, are experimenting using commercial Wi-Fi equipment in their own networking efforts and, because they are able to increase power, achieving reliable distances in the tens of miles.
“These networks fall under Part 97 of the Federal Communications Commission’s Rules and Regulations and cannot be encrypted. Someone who is not an Amateur Radio operator and accesses the Amateur Radio operated networks is in violation of Part 97 and subject to fines of up to $10,000 per violation or per day if the violation continues,” he says.
Typically steps are taken by the Amateur Radio operators to restrict access through MAC address restrictions. “Of course, similar fines are also possible for other Wi-Fi operators who modify their equipment such that it operates outside of the restrictions of Part 15 of the FCC’s Rules and Regulations,” Edwards says.
