I see this more analogous to walking into an unlocked house.
While the doors are all unlocked, it's still illegal to open, enter and search.
While the doors are all unlocked, it's still illegal to open, enter and search.
>Legal scholar Orin Kerr disagrees with Judge Holderman's reasoning. "No one suggests that unsecured wireless networks are set up with the goal that everyone on the network would be free to read the private communications of others," he wrote. "In my view, that ends the matter: the exception doesn’t apply, and the interception of the contents of wireless communications is covered by the Wiretap Act."
And I don't see how automating the process makes it any better. You're still accessing someone's private (albeit unsecured) network.
However, I take my analogy back if this doesn't include actual analyzing of data packets within the unsecured network.
I guess that's the whole issue right there - Is something that is being broadcast, possibly 40m outside my house, still private? At what point does a signal become so large that it defaults to a public broadcast? To me it makes sense that if I access your wifi, but can only get that signal by standing in your house, by all reasoning that is a private network. However if I can stand on a street corner and still access your signal, it's public. Of course I guess with strong enough hardware you could access both regardless, so I really don't know.
Talk about begging the question. Kerr often makes that kind of argument, and it's a crappy one. I assume at least some unsecured networks are set up with exactly that goal, and that one has no expectation of privacy for the communications one conducts across such a channel.
You are a student at a university somewhere in the United States. You live at said University. You have the right to use internet there, but it only available through unsecured wireless. Would it be ethical for someone/some company to packet sniff the wireless traffic, without your consent (or knowledge)? Would it be ethical for the University to packet sniff the wireless traffic without your consent (or knowledge)?
Even assuming its unethical though, given the current ruling both situations would still be legal. How do you feel about the above?