arstechnica.com
By Nate Anderson | 6/30/2011
When a homeowner runs an open, unencrypted wireless network and Google sniffs the packets from that network, has wiretapping taken place? Or did the openness of the network remove the user’s reasonable expectation of privacy?
Google’s Street View project has enmeshed the company in litigation around the world, most notably over the company’s data collection from WiFi networks its camera cars passed while doing their work. (Google has claimed that this was a mistake.) In the US, a host of class-action lawsuits over the practice have been consolidated into a single case, and the California federal judge overseeing it has just refused Google’s motion to completely dismiss the case. Sniffing even open WiFi packets might indeed be wiretapping, he ruled.[...]
Everyone knows that the neighbor’s automobile – parked on a public road does not mean anyone can drive it away simply because it is in public space. It is in public space but it retains it private ownership. It is an object. It is a physical object. Ownership of physical objects – even in public space – is within the range of man’s common senses. But owning “radiation” in public space takes some getting used to. Being responsible for placing radiation in public space is a thinkable thought – but the idea that the radiation belongs to someone is new.
Do you need permission from the flashlight’s source to use a prism on the light beam from the flashlight? Not at this time.
Not long ago an American President claimed outer space. What if someone claimed the sun – would sun rays be the private property of the owner of the sun.
If you are the source of electromagnetic radiation, are you also the owner of the radiated “waves”? The idea that you are responsible for the radiated waves fits the intellect of many if not most human beings. But the idea that someone in the path of the radiated waves is restricted from interacting with the radiated waves unless permission is granted by the “wave owner” is new.
Radio and TV stations likely would never have gotten off the ground under the private ownership of electromagnetic radiation theory. And in some households, those private waves may even have been forbidden by the owner of the house.
The idea of privately owned waves in public space takes some special thought. And that idea is about as welcome as the results of the recent Walmart class action law suit suit, the “dog fighting case” and the recent game violence case.
One can consider the telephone as an instrument for private conversation. That is the nature of telephones. Long ago, when one shared a “party-line” one still wanted one’s telephone conversation to be private.
The telephone does indeed share some of the “characterics” of all things electro-magnetic. But it silly to talk about telephone attributes when the focus is on something else. Giving WiFi the privacy attribute of the telephone is really weird. But then we just had a class of females working for a single employer who did not qualify as a class. And we just had dog fighting elevated. And we just had violent games elevated. And we just had the “speed limit” of business to politics money highway raised.
Tags: privately owned radio waves, sniffing open wifi networks, wiretapping
