Re: Honeyd Censorship

[Marcel <Marcelrf () bellsouth net>]

"illegally intercept"????

Looks like someone in Mich bumped their head. Obviously the person who wrote the
law did not read ECPA and does not know that 2.4Ghz is also a Ham Freq. and can
not be restricted by a  law/ Ordinance.

Not knowing  the specifics of the law / Ordinance it is hard to say what effect
it will have however Federal Law pre-empts local ordinances and may make the
law/ Ordinance invalid. One thing for sure is 2.4Ghz is an Unlicensed band
(Licensed for Hams) and the local municipalities can not regulate it.

A similar situation occurs daily when Wireless carriers  want to install towers
in residential neighbourhoods.  The town creates and ordinance restricting
antenna placement the carriers take the towns to court and win using  the
telecom act of 1996........

The only prohibited "Interceptions"  are clearly outlined in ECPA TITLE 18 /PART
I / CHAPTER 119 / Sec. 2511.
Amateur radio operators use 2.4Ghz for Video data transmissions all the time.
These freqs are available to the general public.

> Snip>

It shall NOT be unlawful under this chapter or chapter 121 of this title for any
person -

(i)

to intercept or access an electronic communication made through an electronic
communication system that is configured so that such electronic communication
is readily accessible to the general public;

(ii)

to intercept any radio communication which is transmitted -

(I)

by any station for the use of the general public, or that relates to ships,
aircraft, vehicles, or persons in distress;

(II)

by any governmental, law enforcement, civil defense, private land mobile, or
public safety communications system, including police and fire, readily
accessible to the general public;

(III)

by a station operating on an authorized frequency within the bands
allocated to the amateur, citizens band, or general mobile radio services; or

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2511.html







"Tiffany St.Claire" wrote:

> Disclaimer: I have not analyzed the new Michigan legislation. Having said
> that, the problem with quoting the intent of legislation is that while
> courts do sometimes consider legislative intent when applying laws, courts
> look to the plain language first before considering legislative intent.  If
> the law says "doing X to Y in Z fashion is a crime punishable by A, B, or C
> depending on the amount of M" and a person is proved to have done X to Y in
> Z fashion causing M amount of damage, the court will, in most cases, impose
> the indicated punishment.
>
> This becomes a really big problem when laws are poorly written and include
> behavior in the plain meaning definitions that the legislature didn't
> "intend" to include.  A lot of this seems to go on in the U.S. in the area
> of information technology law. What does it mean to "illegally intercept" a
> signal? What is the difference between legally and illegaly intercepting the
> same signal? When a law leaves the question so unanswerable that the law
> might be unconstitutionally void for vagueness, the penalties for breaking
> the law are often so harsh that it is not worth the risk to challege the
> law.
>
> Maybe the new Michigan legislature didn't intend to criminalize the use of
> security software features that monitor and log activity on one's own
> system/server, but unless they made that clear and provided exemption
> language, it may violate Michigan law.  Again, I haven't analyzed the
> Michigan law but it wouldn't be the first time that sloppy drafting of a law
> led to unintended and undesireable results.
>
> Sorry if I sound a little cynical.
>
> Tiffany
>
> > From: "Byrne Ghavalas" <security () nscs uk com>
> > To: <honeypots () securityfocus com>
> > Subject: Re: Honeyd Censorship
> > Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 17:46:11 +0100
> >
> > I took a quick look at the links provided on his page, but I'm afraid I
> > can't really see how this impacts honeyd.
> >
> > Admittedly I am no lawyer, but from what I understand reading through
> > the amendments, the aim is to prevent someone from illegally
> > intercepting or monitoring 'signals' through a telecommunications
> > device, or avoid paying for a service. (Amongst other things.)
> >
> > One is allowed to receive these 'signals' if one has been authorised to
> > do so by the service provider.
> >
> > I cannot see how honeyd would contravene these laws... Perhaps someone
> > could explain?
> >
> > Honeyd is merely responding to 'signals' sent down the wire that are
> > destined for that network, in the same way a web server would respond to
> > 'signals' it received...
> >
> > Have I missed something?
> >
> > Byrne G
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "John Lyons" <john.lyons () heanet ie>
> > To: <honeypots () securityfocus com>
> > Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2003 4:40 PM
> > Subject: Honeyd Censorship
> >
> >
> > > Surprised it hasn't been mentioned here before but currently
> > > there's a disclaimer at the top of Neils Provos' page which
> > > restricts U.S. citizens from downloading a lot of his software
> > > /research including honeyd :/
> > >
> > > Apparently new law passed in michigan (and proposed in many states)
> > > restricts access to certain crypto/steganography/honeypot
> > technologies.
> > > How will this affect progress on honeyd Neils?
> > >
> > > Sad times indeed.
> > >
> > > John
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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