Hotel industry seeks right to terminate Wi-Fi connections

[Bennett Kobb]

This is mostly of interest to users of devices like LibraryBox in the USA.

If you had not heard, the hotel industry has petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to permit hotels to send false de-authentication commands to Wi-Fi devices that are not part of the hotel's networks. The FCC has assigned this petition number RM-11737.

One hotel chain was recently fined $600,000 for sending these false packets, but now the industry wants the FCC to authorize this practice.

Google and Microsoft, among others, have come out forcefully against the request, while others are arguing for it -- mainly companies that make equipment that manages large Wi-Fi networks in buildings.

U.S. law forbids causing intentional interference to any radio communications, including Wi-Fi. It also forbids sending false and deceptive messages, which is what a fake de-authentication packet is. The proponents say that Wi-Fi is not protected under law and forcing guests' Wi-Fi devices to disconnect from their access points does not constitute "interference".

Obviously, this practice would force users to connect only to the hotel's own Wi-Fi, a service for which they usually charge. The growing field of offline wireless devices would not likely get any exemption. Any facility could remotely force LibraryBox and similar devices to drop connections. And because Wi-Fi signals can pass through walls and buildings, users in other nearby locations could also be disconnected.

If you are interested in this issue, I recommend that you visit the FCC web page that is collecting all of the public comments. There is even a RSS feed of the comments.

[Matthias Strubel]

Hi Bennett,
thanks for informing the newsgroup about that.  I saw an article in German newsmagazin a few days ago, but I wasn't able to find a good english article to spread the word about that stuff.

If there is a law change, which allows disturbing public open networks, that is the first step to encounter free networks and prohibit them :(

Matthias

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