Re:FCC Fines Smart City $750K for Blocking Wi-Fi
by notacoward on Tuesday August 18, 2015 @03:10PM
(#10081435)
Speaking of strawmen, I am not arguing that rogue AP containment is always illegal. Nor am I arguing that it's always legal. I believe this is a matter of consent. If you enter a space where wifi hotspots are forbidden, then your proprietor can de-auth you to hell and the FCC should have nothing to say about it. It's not interference any more; it's an agreed-to limitation on use.
Your Cisco quote is a complete non sequitur because you're assuming a very particular definition of "legitimate AP" when none is present or implied by law. A "legitimate AP" is one that is not itself being operated in violation of the law, and a "neighboring WLAN" is one that you do not own or have consent to manage. With correct or reasonable definitions, that quote doesn't support your position at all.
> Rogue AP-connected clients, or rogue ad hoc connected clients, may be contained by sending 802.11 de-authentication packets from local APs. This should be done only after steps have been taken to ensure that the AP is truly a rogue AP, because it is illegal to do this to a legitimate AP in a neighboring WLAN. This is the reason why Cisco removed the automatic rogue AP containment feature from this solution.
You're arguing that it is illegal in all circumstances, Cisco disagrees. The FCC also has not brought a single enforcement action against anyone utilising rogue AP containment the way it was designed, they have only brought it against businesses using it to shut down third party WiFi (that wasn't pretending to belong to the same network).
[0] https://supportforums.cisco.com/document/143301/rogue-access...