[notacoward]

> Yeah, still doesn't give them legal claim to 'This Wifi SSID'

Nobody has a legal claim to any wifi SSID. They don't have an exclusive claim to the conference SSID, and you don't have a legal claim to your hotspot's SSID (the one that's actually at issue here). Conflicts can occur, and the law has nothing to say about them.

> Also, there are trespass statutes for people behaving as you don't wish within private property.

Yes, there are, but it's not the FCC's role to enforce those particular statutes (nor should it be). The real question is whether the FCC should be unilaterally setting policy regarding interference at the MAC level where things like de-auth packets come into play. That's being discussed in another sub-thread, so I won't repeat the points here.

> Within the bounds" - so their walls are RF shielded, then?

No more that the average corporate HQ, but there seems to be a consensus here that doing the same thing in that context would be A-OK. Why the different treatment for two situations that are equal under the law?

[FireBeyond]

Right. They don't. But they seem to think they can send de-auth packets that effectively say to third parties, "I am going to disconnect you from this network". That is at the least -implicitly- saying "I am claiming this SSID, and I am willing to use power/technology/tools to enforce this, whether you like it or not, whether I have the right to or not".

I never said the FCC was involved in enforcing trespass statutes. If there are people on your private property behaving in a way you deem unacceptable (even if legal), then the solution is to remove them from your property, not for you to illegally interfere with the use of the spectrum. That's vigilantism.

The Corp HQ example seems to work because there are clauses that surround intentional deception and the risk to security that could come there-from. When CorpHQSSID access points de-auth packets to an unauthorized access point using the same SSID.

That -wasn't- what was happening here. The convention center was saying "I don't care what your use of the wireless spectrum is, your hotspot, whatever, I'm going to interfere with it so that my SSID is the only one usable (oh, enter your credit card number here)".

Your contortion of logic, willful and disingenous ignorance of contradictions and interpretations don't change these facts. The issue was discussed many times, many lawyers were involved, and the outcome was decided - whether you think it should be or not (your perfect right), it -is- illegal.

[iopq]

You know if a private individual was disrupting a corporation's WiFi he'd be put in prison, right? People got sued for just using WiFis without permission, not even by the owners, but by the government.