Re: Legality of WEP Cracking

[Carl Livitt <carllivitt@yahoo.com>]

>
> On May 18, 2007, at 7:47 PM, Morning Wood wrote:
>
>>> The UK law is clear, I quote from the UK Computer Misuse Act 1990
>>> (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts1990/Ukpga_19900018_en_2.htm):
>>>
>>
>> from what I understand here in the US...
>>
>> "sniffing the air"        is legal
>> "connecting to an AP you do not have explicit permission"       is
>> illegal
>> "possession of an access restriction device" eg: WEP key
>> that you are not explicitly allowed
>> permission                           is illegal
>>
>> capturing airborne packets "may" be legal, but the moment you begin to
>> "try" to "crack" a WEP key, you would be entering access restriction
>> device
>> realm instantly. ( do not pass GO! ) , as well, simply connecting to
>> your
>> target AP is illegal from the get-go ( gimme your dice! )
>>
>> but my understanding is only a perspective, which may or not be
>> completely
>> askew...
>>
>
>  How about this scenario.
>
> I am sitting in a Starbuck$ and am connected to the T-Mobile Wireless
> service.
> I start Wireshark and capture all the packets I am seeing from the WAP.
> Is this legal or illegal?

There are 2 answers:

1) Legal, because your wifi card has already captured the packets
regardless of whether you're using software to save/process/display
them. This applies to all wifi transmissions, encrypted or otherwise.
It's the firmware/drivers/software that decide what happens to traffic
that you have already intercepted whether you intended to or not. If you
think about it, wifi networks couldn't work without this 'receive all
frames/traffic by default' behaviour!

2) Illegal, for the exact same reasons as (1), above!

Tricky ground, eh? Does anyone know of case law regarding this?

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