Packing an Illegal Pringle Tube?

By budda on Tuesday, July 26th, 2005

If you're packing a Cantenna to boost your WiFi signal, then you're breaking the law, in California anyway, it's claimed.

It's been reported in a recent TechDirt article that...

Following the series of recent arrests of people for using open WiFi networks, the definition of illegal equipment is being stretched. In the UK arrest, the guy was arrested for "possessing equipment for fraudulent use of a communications service," which all of us who have WiFi in our laptops probably are guilty of. At least that's just in the UK. Over here in the US it's apparently still legal to have WiFi equipment -- but if you dare try to boost your signal with an antenna, watch out.

Lt. Bob Lozito of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department’s Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force, is claiming that cantennas (WiFi antennas made of Pringles cans or similar containers) are “unsophisticated but reliable, and it’s illegal to possess them.”

You can get your very own Super Cantenna from ThinkGeek.com for $49.99.