I did say 'if'. I think that a WiFi network was never envisioned by the authors of the Act, and a telecoms system was meant to be something like a PSTN - phone to network - phone (except the wires aren't included for some reason).<div>
<br></div><div>Actually, I don't think that the Act covers all data either as it seems to focus on person - to -person communications.<br><br></div><div>So I disagree with myself - not all data is 'communications' and so not covered by the Act.</div>
<div><br></div><div>But, without reading the Privacy Act 1988, this may not be a good enough defence.</div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, May 30, 2010 at 3:46 PM, Scott Howard <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:scott@doc.net.au">scott@doc.net.au</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="im">On Sat, May 29, 2010 at 9:59 PM, phil colbourn <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:philcolbourn@gmail.com" target="_blank">philcolbourn@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
</div><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="im"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex">
I agree that if a WiFi access point is considered a telecommunications system under the Act then intercepting any data that is for another recipient is in breach of the Act.</blockquote></div><div><br>Define "intercepting".<br>
<br>Wifi is a broadcast radio communication mechanism.<br><br>Every client and every AP will receive and interpret every packet sent by every other AP within range.<br><br>If your neighbor has a Wifi base-station running on the same channel as yours (or even possibly on a nearby channel), then your AP, your notebook, and very possibly your mobile phone is receiving, decoding, and acting upon every single packet that it sends.<br>
<br>Is that "intercepting" ?<br><br>Some of these packets from your neighbors AP will be dropped by your client - probably in hardware although not necessarily. But some of the packets from their AP - probably around 100 of them every second - will be pass through to your OS.<br>
<br>Is that "intercepting" ?<br><br>On numerous occasions your OS will then display data from those packets on your screen, or log them to a file. It'll do that whenever you ask is to display any networks that are in range, and possibly at other times as well. Turn on any form of wifi debugging and you're probably going to log a lot of those packets to disk very quickly.<br>
<br>Is that "intercepting" ?<br><br>If Google is to be believed (and I for one don't have any reason to doubt them), they intended only to capture and log the beacon packets. Given that every other computer within range would have also captured and acted upon those packets I really don't see how this could be considered "illegal" - it's a fundamental part of Wifi, somewhat equivalent to the house numbers printed on your letterbox. Perhaps we can also claim invasion of privacy if they were to write down those street numbers as they drove past?<br>
<br>What it seems they did wrong was to skip the filtering stage. Anyone that's ever played with any low-level Wifi diagnostic tools will be able to tell you that it almost always requires _more_ effort to only dump beacon packets rather than all packets.<br>
<br>Ohh.. and I hope nobody has a has ever physically plugged a computer into someone else network that used hubs, because exactly the same thing happens there. Is that "intercepting"?<br><br> Scott.<br><br><br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Phil<br><br><a href="http://philatwarrimoo.blogspot.com">http://philatwarrimoo.blogspot.com</a><br><a href="http://code.google.com/p/snmp2xml">http://code.google.com/p/snmp2xml</a><br>
<br>"Someone has solved it and uploaded it for free."<br><br>"If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to look."<br><br>"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C. Clarke - Who does magic today?<br>
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