Could That Be The Wireless Police Knocking?

netbuzz writes "Should private-property owners be required to practice safe wireless? Are the wireless police about to come a-knockin' on the front door of your castle? Network World reports on a condo complex in Arizona that will monitor your wireless signal for security. Is this the way all condos and apartment complexes should go?" From the article: "'We just kind of kicked it around the table and everybody said that's a helluva good idea, (mandatory encryption) ought to go in the declarations,' says Welch. However, a lawyer warned that wireless technology could quickly overrun any specific covenants they put to paper, 'so we decided that instead of recording (declarations) at the county that we would leave it up to the hotel manager to put it in their rules and regulations.' Why bother at all? 'We just don't want to see anybody hurt with their wireless system,' says Welch. 'If someone (unauthorized) were accessing it and an owner's information, there could be damage and a potential lawsuit.'"

no thanks

[eliot1785]

Could it be that maybe, just maybe, somebody wants to actually SHARE? Sacrilege, I know.

Overall, I am worried that people these days consistently seem to say "I'm not in favor of too much regulation, but this specific piece seems pretty good."

Uh huh. You know the slippery slope has started to apply when people say that about such inane proposals as this one.

Re:Why single out wireless protection?

[MichaelSmith]

They don't require you to lock your car door when you park in your parking space. How is this any different?

It was on dumblaws.com (I can't find the link now) and its true that here in Victoria, Australia it is illegal to leave your car unattended with the keys in the ignition. I have an friend with OCD who loves to point that out to people.

Its stupid but it keeps the stupid people happy and gives them something to talk about.

Re:Ludicrous

[NotQuiteReal]

I used my neighbor's DSL for over a year... - With his permission? But probably against his TOS.

There is no reason every house on a block should purchase their own Internet connection... Yeah, and maybe you should all share one cable TV hookup too.

The reason is because the providers of those services are selling them for use by one household per subscription.

Sharing your wireless connection

[Snowtide]

I would just like to continue the idea that some of us deliberately leave our wireless networks open to share. I do live in an apartment building, I also pay a fair amount of money to have multiple static IP's, I don't use all that bandwidth all the time so I leave my wireless network open. It costs me nothing and benefits people around me in a small way. I've met a few more of my neighbors who came by by to thank me for leaving my connection open. That last behavior is rare I know but it is nice to meet people in my building I might not normally. I am curious though, what if you limit access to your wireless network by MAC address recognition instead of encryption, are the wireless police still supposed to come knocking on your door? Getting wireless hardware from different manufacturers to cooperate while using encryption can be a hassle. Yes I am sure there are spelling and other errors in this post, and I should know better, but I am leaving them in because it is past my bed time and I am providing a public service by giving the grammar police an outlet. :)

Re:Why single out wireless protection?

[ewireless]

I'm actually OK with making it illegal to leave your keys in the car ignition because kids could get ahold of it too easily and hurt others. In the extreme, it's probably illegal to leave a loaded gun in your driveway for similar reasons. But I don't see how wireless protection falls into this category. This sounds purely like they're just trying to make you lock the door to your network when it's your own business whether you want to share or not. Of course, if it's against the law or contract to share your wireless connection with your neighbors (something that is true with some DSL contracts), then I can see how an apartment complex might want to try to keep their tenant community from stealing shared service and this whole thing might actually make some sense.

Won't anybody think of the users?

[raju1kabir]

My first reaction was "Good Lord, how stupid can people get?" - I mean, does this mean that if you set up a wireless network in accordance with their regulations, and it still gets abused (through WEP weaknesses or whatever), they have implicitly invited you to sue them?

But then I thought back to ohhh, yesterday, when I was wrapping up a work trip to Thailand. When I arrived I had bought a SIM card at a dusty little family shop and the cashier who installed it into my phone signed me up for a bunch of promo offers including the loathsome Calling Melody (which I never figured out how to disable) and 50 free hours of GPRS (pretty good considering the card cost me US$7.50).

My hotels had free wifi so I didn't end up using that much of the GPRS time. Yesterday, at the airport, I figured I might as well use some more of it up, so I popped open the trusty iBook and turned on internet sharing with SSID name "Free Internet!"

Within 15 minutes I had 5 or 6 people on it (must have been painfully slow for them). I was too tired to do anything useful, but just for the heck of it I started up ethereal to see to what ends my largesse was being used. It was remarkable how trusting (or probably ignorant) people were - as well as how many unencrypted port-80 webmail servers and office intranets there are out there.

So maybe the real value of the rule in TFA is to protect the users from themselves, rather than protecting the AP owners. When you connect to an unknown AP you never really know what could be going on with your traffic unless you encrypt and authenticate it.

Re:Rediculous...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a waste of time and money. People should secure their own networks.

Even this is absurd. People should *SHARE* their own networks.

Having the police protect the profits of the DSL/Phone companies is an absurd waste of tax resources. There's no reason why my whole apartment block shouldn't share my network so long as my QOS features don't let them interfere with my browsing.

Yes, my network is open on purpose. I cover the coffee shop on one corner of our apartment block, and a friend covers the coffee shop on the other.

And Yes, my firewall protects my computer from other people on my wireless network.

Re:Potential lawsuit?

[karmatic]

You know, this goes both ways.

The RIAA may be able to sue you for what someone else does; however, it does provide a certain level of plausable deniability when _you_ are the one doing it in the first place.

multi-million dollar condo without wireless?

[Doppler00]

Okay, who builds a multimillion dollar condo and doesn't provide free wireless and internet connections to all it's tennets? I mean come on, it's 2006 already. Why on earth did they not build the networking infrastructure into the building in the first place? Ironically, I bet you they are getting paid quite a bit to put cellphone tranceivers on the building though by a cellphone carrier. So instead of building their own network infrastructure, they are going to waste their time policing you if you provide a service they failed to offer? Maybe they should have 900MHz scanners to make sure you're not using an unencrypted cordless phone too.

And how are they going to actually figure out which tennet is running a wireless AP? With just laptop, it's almost impossible to locate an AP without sophisticated antennas and equipment. I've scanned apartment complexes with my cellphone and I often find about 8 secured, and a couple unsecured nodes from the parking lot. Good luck trying locate them physically.

Also, you are not violating any laws according to the FCC. In fact, you could totally violate the IEEE802.11 protocol on the 2.4 GHz band to create as much interferance as possible as long as you are within the FCC gidelines for power.

I fear the government will try to step in and regulate these protocols, thus freezing them and preventing any future inovation.

Focussing on the wrong avenues

[grrowl]

Instead of making it illegal to have an unsecured network, why not just encourage the writers of the next wireless protocol to not support insecure or open configurations, or rather: By all defaults, you must set a password/WEP key, unless you specifically set it to run under a completely different status as an open, accessable network (such as one used in McDonalds, Starbucks, Universities etc.) Sometimes the lawmakers get much too overzealous with thier power.

This is a key point...

[msauve]

...Internet access is provided by the condo complex.

First, for the pedants, I recognize that open wireless does not necessarily imply that it's connected to the Internet.

Based on the assumption (valid for the vast majority of cases) that someone who has an open wireless network is effectively providing open Internet access through the condo-provided Internet access, then they are correct and fully within their rights in implementing rules to prevent this.

Fully open, public access = a simple entry point for spammers and others up to no good, and the IP owner (the complex) should be responsibile for preventing that. It is a good thing that they are taking on that responsibility.

While a simple "no unprotected wireless networks" rule provides the necessary protections, it does not accomodate an informed resident, who may wish to provide open, but reasonably limited, access (i.e. access only to the local LAN, only to ports 80/110/443 of the Internet, etc.). That's the only issue I have with what they're trying to do.

Re:Ludicrous

[hackstraw]

As a potential hacker I launched 4 viruses and downloaded 4 gigs of MP3's using your network.
All traceable back to you.
I spoofed my mac address

So?

I did the same thing from the coffee shop that had a big sign out front that said "Free Wireless Internet!"

And I spoofed your mac address.

Wireless modems should offer dual chanels...

[duden]

One for private use that could be encrypted and one 'public' that the parasite neighbours and mobile laptop users could enjoy. Bring an end to the telco's overpriced WiFi zones. Encourage and support free information access - reject enforced 'secure' WiFi!

Free Access

[potat0man]

Along with allowing you to put a cap on the public access. I have open wifi for my neighbors (mostly university students in cheap apartments). Some neighbors have thanked me, brought me an occasional baked good and I've never experienced a problem with network slow down. If they are downloading ISO's or movies they're doing it when I'm not home, which is fine with me. I've paid for it, they may as well use it. But as far as I know they're checking email and reading cnn.com.

But it'd be great to have a router with firmware that allows you to put a cap, I'd set it at about 200/100k for public users and maximum of course for my own machines. I know it can be done right now but it requires multiple routers and probably a linux box. Why not make it all-in-one? I'd happily pay an extra $20-30 for a router with those capabilities.

While we're at it make it so when it detects my wired desktop or wireless laptop aren't connected it lifts the cap so my neighbors can make full use of my connection when I'm not. Then, when I turn on the desktop or connect with the laptop it automagicly reduces the public access back down to my preset level.

And create a log of when all connected MAC addresses were on so you can print it out and show it to the police to help catch, in at least a little way, those who deserve to be caught.

Before the grannie's start hemming and hawing: I use speakeasy, they encourage sharing (I suppose because it reduces the profits of their competitors).

My workstations are behind firewalls.

And if a kiddie-porn-downloadin', copyright-infringin' terrorist happens to use my access point well I'd happily stand up to the court to help set a precedent. I'm a student, I have no assets for them to take/freeze. I'll forever be self-employed so I don't have to worry about a record. I'm through with any political careers. If they take my computers I'll just use the library's for a semester. Meanwhile I'll get a lesson in civics and help set a precedent for supporters of open access points. And it's the tiniest of risks anyway and the rewards (being neighborly, helping people, sticking it to telcos, feeling-good) far outweigh it.

So bring it on.

Is life so precious or peace so sweet that we should pay for it with the price of chains and slavery?