Legality of WEP Cracking

From: Richard Brinson (richard@kanoo-uk.com)
Date: Fri May 18 2007 - 05:32:20 EDT


During an internal business development meeting yesterday we were discussing
new ways of picking up pen testing clients. One of our junior engineers
suggested that we go war driving, crack some WEP keys and then approach each
company offering services to make them more secure. The idea was put down
straight away on the basis that without prior approval we would be breaking
the law. However, upon further discussion a case was made that (moral issues
aside) provided we only captured traffic passively, and as long as we did
not try to connect or send any packets to any devices - would the law be
broken?
 
Does the law state anywhere that we can not analyse air traffic that is
broadcast into the public domain? (if so surely we would all be breaking the
law every time we picked up a network other than our own) and is it against
the law to know someone else's WEP key when they have not made that
information available to you?
 
What are your thoughts on this?
 
Kind regards,
 
Richard Brinson
Kanoo Ltd
 
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