[AusNOG] Google creepier than Conroy?

[Craig Askings]

Why do I get the feeling that Dale Clapperton is lurking on this list  
and just shaking his head as we all play Telco Solictor..... Badly



On 30/05/2010, at 4:04 PM, phil colbourn <philcolbourn at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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).
>
> Actually, I don't think that the Act covers all data either as it  
> seems to focus on person - to -person communications.
>
> So I disagree with myself - not all data is 'communications' and so  
> not covered by the Act.
>
> But, without reading the Privacy Act 1988, this may not be a good  
> enough defence.
>
> On Sun, May 30, 2010 at 3:46 PM, Scott Howard <scott at doc.net.au>  
> wrote:
> On Sat, May 29, 2010 at 9:59 PM, phil colbourn  
> <philcolbourn at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
>
> Define "intercepting".
>
> Wifi is a broadcast radio communication mechanism.
>
> Every client and every AP will receive and interpret every packet  
> sent by every other AP within range.
>
> 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.
>
> Is that "intercepting" ?
>
> 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.
>
> Is that "intercepting" ?
>
> 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.
>
> Is that "intercepting" ?
>
> 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?
>
> 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.
>
> 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"?
>
>   Scott.
>
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Phil
>
> http://philatwarrimoo.blogspot.com
> http://code.google.com/p/snmp2xml
>
> "Someone has solved it and uploaded it for free."
>
> "If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to look."
>
> "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from  
> magic." Arthur C. Clarke - Who does magic today?
>
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