Thanks to Cory Doctorow in this Boing Boing item for flagging something in a Sacramento Bee article that is just out-and-out not right.
The article, published on Sunday, covered a student hacker who broke into his school’s computer system to change his grades. When the police went to the student’s home, they found a “cantenna,” a device for extending the range of Wi-Fi networks, which a a cop from the Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force said is illegal. The article further went on to state that accessing any wireless networks that aren’t public is also illegal.
Cory’s catch:
Huh? I’m not sure which law-book these two are reading, but this is simply not true. If there are cops from a “Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force” in Sacramento who think that making your own WiFi antenna is illegal, I think the Bee and other papers should be covering it, to be sure, but not because it’s true: because it’s a shockingly stupid and dangerous thing for a cop to believe, especially one who is billed as some kind of high-tech specialist. Likewise, I’m not sure who told this reporter that accessing an open wireless network is illegal, but again, it’s not true. There are certainly circumstances where doing so is illegal, and others where it’s perfectly legal (for an unambiguous example of the latter, consider what happens if both you and your neighbor have a network called “linksys.” When you’re in the front of your house, you’re closer to your AP than his, so your laptop connects to your AP. When you go to the back bedroom, your computer seamlessly and transparently flips to your neighbor’s network. This isn’t lawbreaking: it’s standards-compliant behavior.)
Update: Cory spoke to Lt Lozito of the Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force who said he doesn’t remember whether he said cantennas are illegal and affirmed that they are, in fact, not illegal. Lozito also said he will post a statement about all this.
Cynthia Brumfield at 8:53 AM|Comments(1)
I spoke to the cop and he's recanted. He can't remember whether he said the cantenna thing to the reporter, but he says he knows that they're not illegal, and I urged him to put up a statement on his department's website to this effect.
Posted by: Cory Doctorow at July 26, 2005 2:21 PM
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