Marriott wifi blocking

Tue Oct 7 13:21:11 UTC 2014

> On Oct 6, 2014, at 11:20 PM, Jay Hennigan <jay at west.net> wrote:
> 
>> On 10/6/14, 8:41 AM, Owen DeLong wrote:
>> 
>> Actually, in multiple situations, the FCC has stated that you are responsible
>> when deploying a new unlicensed transmitter to insure that it is deployed in
>> such a way that it will not cause harmful interference to existing operations.
>> 
>> Using the same SSID of someone else who is already present would, IMHO,
>> meet the test of “causing harmful interference”.
> 
> Really? From a radio perspective if it isn't on the same RF channel?

In fact, yes. Since clients bind based on SSID and return to whatever channel the AP tells them to as a result, it's still an issue and still fits within the purview of RF regulation. Further, most of the channels somewhat overlap as it's a spread-spectrum technology, so the traditional concepts of "channel" don't actually completely apply (this is a good thing, actually).

> I'm not so sure about that. It might cause interference to the revenue
> stream, it could be considered a trademark infringement especially if it
> leads to a fake "splash page" with the Marriott logo, and it could
> certainly be used for malicious MITM purposes, but it doesn't cause
> harmful interference to the existing user from the perspective of radio
> frequency use.

It does, actually, because the client may well rebind to the other AP thinking it's still part of the same ESS (since ESS are usually identified by sharing a common SSID).

Owen