WiFi Cantennas now "illegal"
posted July 25th 2005 10:00AM
We're a little wary of Inside Bay Area's decidedly alarmist article titled "Hackers prey on unguarded wireless
links," which goes the distance in furthering the meme propagating that hijacked WiFi = super duper bad and teh ev1l
hax0rs will come to get j00. But what's more egregious are the claims made by Lt. Bob Lozito of the Sacramento County
Sheriff's Department's Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force, who says that cantennas (WiFi antennas made of Pringles cans or like
shapes) are "unsophisticated but reliable, and it's illegal to possess them." This, apparently, because a student
caught trying to hack his grades at school posessed a cantenna. Uh, we're not entirely sure whether or not Mr. Lozito's
quoting the law or making it up as he goes (we'll tell you what we think he's doing), but seriously, is the
government going to start making pickup trucks illegal because they can be used to loot houses whose doors are left
unlocked?
[Via TechDirt]
wow... that is retarded... stupid liberals trying to enforce more and more restrictions on us just to "protect" us.
btw, mike, it's not being looked down upon as "liberal misfits"... the liberals are the ones that want the gov. to have that much power, a true conservative believes in a small national government with more freedoms to the states and people... so it's the liberal misfits that fall in line and act retarded just to get the cookie that's awarded to them... you're thinking the 'unpatriotic fascists' that are the ones who pick up books.
really? your mocking tone is quiet refreshing.
i guess the next thing to go will be our right to keep and bear potato crisps.
send your comments here!!
california, sacramento county
sacramento county sheriff's office
jurisdiction: sacramento county california
contact: lt. bob lozito
phone: (916) 874-3030
e-mail: rlozito@sacsheriff.com
yeah, just be aware of power limitations and interference issues. then go make an antenna.
http://www.binarywolf.com/249/
demosthenese: you're thinking "socialist," not "liberal." i think mike is right on the money, and i find your definitions of conservative and liberal to be severely oversimplified, to the point of being flat-out wrong. granted that, in general principle and concept, the left advocates increased government intervention while the right tends to leave it to the people. but that is very, very general and oversimplified view. true that the extreme left - communism - is total government control, but so is the extreme right (fascism.)
i have spent 12 years in spain and 2 in the netherlands, and i can confidently say that the political landscape in the us is not balanced or typical; there are only two political parties and they are both right-wing, just different versions.
where am i going with this? i'm not really sure. all i wanted to say, really, is that is that demosthenese's concept of what liberals are is totally skewed. a liberal is a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties; a person who favors an economic theory of laissez-faire and self-regulating markets. so you see, the only supposed difference between a conservative and a liberal is that the conservative opposes change and seeks to uphold the status quo.
one doesn't have to live in the us for long, however, to realize this is not the issue. the republicans, whatever their supposed philosophy or orientation, are, in reality, a bunch of prudish religious ignoramuses (or ignorami, whatever) who seek to impose their views on the rest of the country(i.e. [blindly] uphold the[ir] status quo.) this is, of course, a broad generalization, and i personally have a few friends who are republicans and are reasonably intelligent and educated (unfathomable, i know,) but just look at the correlation of education and political affiliation! or religious affiliation, for that matter!
anyway, sorry for rambling, i hardly remember what the point of this post originally was. i guess i just wanted to vehemently disagree with demosthenes and show my support for mike, who seems to be that rarest of breed: a clear thinker with the ability to cogently express himself (unlike others, including me.) two quotes and i'm done, i promise. they're from memory and i don't even remember who said them, but they're good nonetheless:
"the problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so sure of themselves while wiser people so full of doubts."
"man can do no evil as when he does it out of religious conviction."
hey i really dont give a rat's ass what the police or the fcc say because theyre all a bunch of dumbasses. if these people didnt want to get theyre wifi bandwidth "stolen" they should have their ssid encrypted. hey is it possible someone could tell me how to make a cantenna? it would be really cool to have one.
(dont crack down on me cops-- im in florida- so its not illegal here [yet])..
to washington with politics, I want a cantenna!
please somebody drop a 20 dollar bill on the ground so i can find it, whats the difference? if you are that carless with all your nice bells and whistels and wana make a big stink out of it then dont waste my tax dollars trying to ban somthing you @#%%ed up on dumb somthin somthiner plus 96% of us out their arnt even tryin to accsess your files so dont go barkiin up the wrong tree, ok! if you people lost somthin because of a haker, then go after the individual not the rest of the bunch! why would you throw away 96 appels if only 4 were bad because you didnt spray them with pesticides?
Because people are judged by what is considered the norm for such a person group as they fall under, they will ban anyone with an IQ above ediot. I say idiot with an E because we know that officers, et al, can not spell have no real IQ. Why would they ban this? If they didn't, then they might look bad and the definition of 'norm' might have to change such that the police and the gov't are excluded.
I have a hi-gain directonal antena. Is that ilegal?