[AusNOG] OT: Police Wardriving. Where else but QLD!

[James Andrewartha]

On Sat, 24 Mar 2012, Skeeve Stevens wrote:

> Unauthorised access carriers the burden that there is sufficient 
> understanding or attempt to make obvious that the access is forbidden. 
> For example... most people put banners on their routers saying that the 
> device should not be accessed and often quotes some penalty.
> 
> It would be like walking past a field... with no fences, no signs... 
> there would be no reasonable assumption that the land would be private 
> property and unauthorised access would not trigger.
> 
> I suspect that connecting to any open access point, on purpose, 
> or accidentally would easily be argued that there was no obvious 'Do not 
> enter' notification - hence burden of proof would be extremely hard to 
> establish.

WA's criminal code[1] says refers to restricted-access computer systems, 
of which "(a) the use of a password is necessary in order to obtain access 
to information stored in the system or to operate the system in some other 
way; and"

So it's not a WA state crime to access open WiFi. It may be a federal 
crime however, due to the expansive power of s51(v) in respect to computer 
networks.

[1] Chapter XLIVA 
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/wa/consol_act/ccaca1913252/notes.html

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