Picking up wifi signals is one thing, but I was under the impression that they were locating, connecting and looking at data on these networks.
>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.
"You're still accessing someone's private (albeit 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.
I believe there was a court case that cleared up the ambiguity in the case of telephoto lenses, which I think could be mapped to this case quite nicely. But for the life of me I can't remember the name of it or find it on google.
"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,"
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.
>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.