]> It may be illegal in some places, it may not. Depends on how good your ]> lawyer is and how wasteful of taxpayer money our prosecutor is.
Your quote of the FBI agent: ] Identifying the presence of a wireless network may not be a ]criminal violation, however, there may be criminal violations if the ]network is actually accessed including theft of services, interception ]of communications, misuse of computing resources, up to and including ]violations of the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Statute, Theft of ]Trade Secrets, and other federal violations. At this point, I am not ]aware of any malicious activity that has been reported to the FBI here ]in Pittsburgh, however, you are cautioned regarding this activity if ]you have implemented a wireless network in your business. The things they are naming hare like fraud, theft of trade secrets, etc, wouldn't apply if you just downloaded your e-mail. This is also someone just pointing out every law they might be able to use. This is also the FBI who will laugh in your face if you can't prove $5000 in damages in cases of CLEAR violations of law. The FBI also pursues many cases where the juries laugh in their face like the Dimitry case and the Justice department even pursues cases like those against Susan McDougal where the jury holds a press conference calling the prosecution itself not only a waste of time but in itself a miscarrage of justice. We have jury trials precisely to hold back evil and/or idotic and/or corrupt prosecutors and judges. But really the odds of getting caught up with one of those kinds bozos is near nil if you don't do any harm. Despite appearances neither the FBI nor the Justice department wants to make the keystone cops look so professional. But I'll point out, like I have before, that NYCWireless discourages using other people's AP's that are not explicitly marked as gratis. I you don't you'll be doing something criminals like Bill Gates do, and want you to do. This is almost certainly not illegal but can definately make you feel as luserish as using Microsoft Windows in public. -- Daniel BTW This FBI press release was in response to a astroturfed media story. Sort of lowers the agents credibility if he falls for that kind of kid stuff, no? -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
