Illegal to hack hackers?

Ive been searching but seems like nobody has been stupid enough to ask this yet.

If i set up a WEP encrypted router with a pretty good range, when i know that my neighborhood is kinda full of wep hackers and such, let them surf the internet and monitor their moves, finding out who they are, is this illegal? Since its "my property"? Or does this apply inside the property which my house is built on? Same as i can install IP cameras on my property, as long as im not targeting sum1elses house.
Im not sure but i think you will have to put up signs about the cameras.

I know ive been attacked by someone before i changed to wpa2.

This will maybe be a long shot but if you act like a threat here in Sweden, and trespass on others property they who own the property has the right to defend theirself (its a very big chance im misstaking myself) but i interpet the law so that the "hackers" is a security risk. So i was thinking of what the law really is saying about WiFi networks?

Maybe you could forward them to a Disclaimer webpage that states that you could be exposed to hackerattempts if you surf/hack this router rofl :D

I would appreciate if you dont bite my head off, nothing wrong in asking.

Cheers, and looking forward for some hopefully insightsfull answers!
(Im sorry if i dont spell that good, doing my best tough)

As far as I can recall, here in Canada to retaliate is not legal. It boils down to the "two wrongs don't make a right" argument.

From what I remember of reading articles where people where hacked, retribution was not legal. Also, you would need to make certain your target was in fact the real target.

Imagine that I hack your neighbors PC. I then use their PC to discover your WEP network, and I begin cracking your WEP signal to increase my number of compromised targets. You are, in essence, running a honeypot or honeynet in this case. Now, I break your WEP, and you notice that I am in, so you begin counter hacking the PC that I used to compromise your network.

Thing is, the PC I am using belongs to your neighbor, and they never had the intent of attacking you - I did. You have just attacked an innocent victim's PC. It does not matter that I took control of it - we are now both equally guilty of hacking the neighbor in this scenario.

I think the OP didn't mention to counterhack.

It is more about if it is legal to monitor the traffic of his network and where people go through his connection even that he knows they gained illegal access to his AP.

Since you are living in Sweden it is hard to give you any advice, I wouldn't know even for my own country. But if in doubt you should not do it.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Flibble

As far as I can recall, here in Canada to retaliate is not legal. It boils down to the "two wrongs don't make a right" argument.

From what I remember of reading articles where people where hacked, retribution was not legal. Also, you would need to make certain your target was in fact the real target.

Imagine that I hack your neighbors PC. I then use their PC to discover your WEP network, and I begin cracking your WEP signal to increase my number of compromised targets. You are, in essence, running a honeypot or honeynet in this case. Now, I break your WEP, and you notice that I am in, so you begin counter hacking the PC that I used to compromise your network.

Thing is, the PC I am using belongs to your neighbor, and they never had the intent of attacking you - I did. You have just attacked an innocent victim's PC. It does not matter that I took control of it - we are now both equally guilty of hacking the neighbor in this scenario.

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aah...that was kinda intelligent >.< thanks for the answers, "two wrongs don't make a right" sounds very reasonable to me. Yes, now im looking at it in a different perspective.

Yes, there was an augment in the US about whether retaliation was legal, I want to say the government wanted to take action against people, don't quote me on it, it may have been in one of my CompSec books. In any case, they said due to the possibility of zombie attacks, it shouldn't be done.

Well I think the intention of the OP is still not to counterattack directly which could affect innocent machines as already stated.

It was more about sniffing the traffic on the own network when he knows that someone is using it illegally.

I mean yeah it is his property and he can monitor the traffic, the question is what he has in mind to do with the gained information.

First off IANAL (nor do I think anyone else around here is), so take this with a grain of salt and understand that this reply is "to the best of my knowledge".

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Illegal to hack hackers?

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Yes. They may be stealing from you but causing retaliatory damage would be illegal.

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Originally Posted by n00b_h4xx0r

Ive been searching but seems like nobody has been stupid enough to ask this yet.

If i set up a WEP encrypted router with a pretty good range, when i know that my neighborhood is kinda full of wep hackers and such, let them surf the internet and monitor their moves, finding out who they are, is this illegal?

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No this scenario is not illegal, you have the right to monitor and log activity on your own network. Anyone who connects to your network (with or without your permission) should assume that their actions might be monitored.

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Since its "my property"? Or does this apply inside the property which my house is built on? Same as i can install IP cameras on my property, as long as im not targeting sum1elses house.
Im not sure but i think you will have to put up signs about the cameras.

I know ive been attacked by someone before i changed to wpa2.

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Define "attacked".

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This will maybe be a long shot but if you act like a threat here in Sweden, and trespass on others property they who own the property has the right to defend theirself (its a very big chance im misstaking myself)

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Yes you can "defend" yourself by properly configuring the access point so that others are unlikely to be able to use it. You can further "defend" yourself by recording the actions of a trespasser and providing those details to the authorities (whether this is actual property [your yard] or logical property [your network]).

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but i interpet the law so that the "hackers" is a security risk. So i was thinking of what the law really is saying about WiFi networks?

Maybe you could forward them to a Disclaimer webpage that states that you could be exposed to hackerattempts if you surf/hack this router rofl :D

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If you cause damage to their computer/data you would be at fault. Just like your network isn't their's, they're computer is not yours.

Something like the "Upside-Down-Ternet" is always fun for people you find on your network that shouldn't be there:
http://www.ex-parrot.com/~pete/upside-down-ternet.html

I think this subject needs some serious legal information references. As I've been researching through simple google searches I've seen that most people believe you generally are not allowed to legally relatiate. You will need to check your local laws but here in the US it varies by state, my state (Texas) talks about self defense in this form
"Self defense.

(a) Except as provided in Subsection (b), a person is justified in using force against another when and to the degree he reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to protect himself against the other's use or attempted use of unlawful force.
" - http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...2120258AAuJ5f5

So I'm no attorney but that says to me that if you catch someone actually damaging your personal property then you can use force back in defense. Now I'm sure it wouldnt hold up in court if they hacked into your WIFI and you break into their machine establish a reverse shell and start deleting system files and say that was self defense. But if they have broken in and established a reverse shell in your system and are planting virus's, trojans, or possibly deleting files from your computer or i've heard some people will use your printer and print out random things, you can defend yourself by breaking into their machine and rendering them incapable of continuing with the destruction through whatever means necessary (since physical injury is not an option).

Now this is Texas Law so I was just stating it as an example.

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Originally Posted by Shavx

I think this subject needs some serious legal information references. As I've been researching through simple google searches I've seen that most people believe you generally are not allowed to legally relatiate. You will need to check your local laws but here in the US it varies by state, my state (Texas) talks about self defense in this form
"Self defense.

(a) Except as provided in Subsection (b), a person is justified in using force against another when and to the degree he reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to protect himself against the other's use or attempted use of unlawful force.
" - http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...2120258AAuJ5f5

So I'm no attorney but that says to me that if you catch someone actually damaging your personal property then you can use force back in defense. Now I'm sure it wouldnt hold up in court if they hacked into your WIFI and you break into their machine establish a reverse shell and start deleting system files and say that was self defense. But if they have broken in and established a reverse shell in your system and are planting virus's, trojans, or possibly deleting files from your computer or i've heard some people will use your printer and print out random things, you can defend yourself by breaking into their machine and rendering them incapable of continuing with the destruction through whatever means necessary (since physical injury is not an option).

Now this is Texas Law so I was just stating it as an example.

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Physical personal harm is different than computer abuse. The same laws against computer hacking apply to you as well as the criminal. You'd both probably end up sharing a cell if it went to court.

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Originally Posted by thorin

Yes. They may be stealing from you but causing retaliatory damage would be illegal.

Define "attacked".

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I had a WEP encrypted wifi for some time, and i could monitor the MAC adresses that connects to the network. I check the logs from time to time, and i did notice that 2 seperate ip adresses surfing my net when we were out of town for a couple of days. Later on i checked what mac adresses were attached to my network and hey! 1 mac adress that i didnt own. I used airodump and found out that it was a computer, without a spoofed mac(didnt look like it) that also probed for a network named "ANNA" wich i also can se from here (very low strength though)

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Originally Posted by KMDave

It was more about sniffing the traffic on the own network when he knows that someone is using it illegally.

I mean yeah it is his property and he can monitor the traffic, the question is what he has in mind to do with the gained information.

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Yes, i wanted to know if i could monitor thoose who attacked me, while they were on my Wifi. But i still wanted to know if it was ok to "hack back". Im sorry for the confusion. So it is OK to monitor their traffic as long as i dont do anything illegal with it?

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Originally Posted by Barry

Physical personal harm is different than computer abuse. The same laws against computer hacking apply to you as well as the criminal. You'd both probably end up sharing a cell if it went to court.

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Yea...best thing i can do is proabobly just to move on and try to secure my net. But it would be fun tough...