How to Avoid Ethical and Legal Issues In Wireless Network Discovery

A very important subject with any new technology is deciding how current laws deal with new issues that this new generation of products might raise. Several actions that we used to take for granted now could possibly be perceived as illegal. This paper deals with the legal gray area that is specific to wireless network analysis and discovery tools. These tools are very useful for security networking experts, wireless network enthusiasts and malicious hackers alike. This paper takes the position that wireless network discovery tools are similar in nature to port scanners. Therefore, the same criteria should be applied to both when deciding what is ethical or legal. Using both these types of tools in a completely legal manner usually requires a combination of honorable intentions, making sure not to adversely affect the networks we are probing and taking necessary configuration and procedural steps to stay on the good side of the law. This paper provides basic background information about wireless network security, explains the legal and ethical issues that might arise, categorizes the type of people that might use these discovery tools and attempts to give recommendations for each category