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One response to “Is Open Wi-Fi a crime?”

1. I decided to look up Comcast’s policy on running an “Open” Wi-Fi. Sorry if I missed anything pertinent on their site. I found nothing in their policies stating that running an “Open” Wi-Fi is prohibited. Here is their policy on Acceptable Use for High-Speed Internet. Scroll down to the “Conduct and information restrictions” section located below the “Network and usage restrictions” heading.

   You are restricted from:
   resell the Service or otherwise make available to anyone outside the Premises the ability to use the Service (for example, through wi-fi or other methods of networking), in whole or in part, directly or indirectly. The Service is for personal and non-commercial residential use only and you agree not to use the Service for operation as an Internet service provider or for any business enterprise or purpose (whether or not for profit);

   Key areas to note:
   1. Not to “resell” or otherwise make available outside the residence.
   2. It is for personal and non-commercial use
   3. You cannot act as an ISP
   4. You cannot use the Internet service for any business enterprise (even not-for-profit)

   As most home wireless routers only transmit enough power to cover a small residence, running it open does constitute “making it available to those outside the residence.” If taken in context of the entire paragraph, you can see that Comcast doesn’t want you to make money off their residential service. If you want to do that, they will gladly charge you more.

   Nothing in it states that it has to be a closed network. Now look at the following Comcast pages that only “Suggest” you secure your wireless access point. Time to show the Trolls, the Merriam-Webster page for “Suggest.”

   Comcast Page titled “What you should do to help protect your home or wireless network”:

   Take these simple steps to protect your home wireless network from intruders.
   • Make sure to install anti-virus, and firewall software on your computers and access point. Use automatic updates to keep your security software current.
   • Secure your network and access point by following a few quick and easy steps. There are a wide variety of access points so consult your hardware’s instruction manual to learn how to enable the security features on your specific device.
   • Consider placing the wireless access point in a central location in your house. Avoid placing it by exterior walls and windows to help decrease the signal strength outside of the intended coverage area.
   • Avoid storing sensitive materials on your computer. This includes credit card numbers, social security numbers, information about family members or other personal information.

   Comcast page titled “How can I secure my wireless home network?”

   Nothing in this Comcast “how-to” page requires you to do this. Suggestion number 4 is that you enable WEP (Wireless Equivalent Privacy). I laughed when I saw this. WEP is so easy to break. Here is a 2007 entry on Bruce Schneier’s Security Blog talking about breaking WEP in under a minute – View Here. Here is the conclusion from the Paper the Blog entry was based on”

   The number of packets needed for our attack is so low that opportunistic attacks on this security protocol will be most probable. Although it has been known to be insecure and has been broken by a key-recovery attack for almost 6 years, WEP is still seeing widespread use at the time of writing this paper. While arguably still providing a weak deterrent against casual attackers in the past, the attack presented in this paper greatly improves the ease with which the security measure can be broken and will likely define a watershed moment in the arena of practical attacks on wireless networks.

   All I have to say is “More Troll Lies are shown for what they are. 😉

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