...Your local phone book lists the address from most of the phone listings they have. So, the phone company is saying at XX Anytown St. they have an active phone line. That info could be used by phone preakers to sneak up to your house and make free calls from the box outside...
<hypothetical>
Would you really win if you tried to sue the phone company if a criminal used their listing to commit crimes?...
</hypothetical>
Let's not get unreal here in the name of justifying wardriving maps. The phone company can justify the phone book as a reference for people to find how to call a listed person or business. That is why the book exists, period. WiGLE exists for no justifiable purpose
for the general public, in my book. I use it, other wardrivers use it, maybe some people analyzing wireless use use it, but just for wardriving and for tracking progress and the way the wireless world is, currently. This doesn't make the existence of it illegal or bad.
Try this analogy to back it: it's like Radio Shack's
Police Call series of books and others like them. They list all public domain radio freq's. I can look in it and see what freq my local PD uses, so I can listen to it on a scanner. Many can argue (and have) that the info there has no legally justifiable use, yet publishing it isn't illegal. Using it for illegal purposes
is illegal. Focus on the perp, not the info he uses. I can scan for and listen in on unlisted radio freq's (except a few, such as cell phone). I can publish those freq's on the web. Someone can use that info to use that repeater to talk to a friend. I'm not committing a crime, the person willingly transmitting on the freq is.
Another analogy: the local newspaper that prints a story telling of a local Quickie-Mart. The story tells that the business has a policy of not allowing the clerk to stop a robber, but just give him the money. A robbery is committed a week later. Would the newspaper be liable? As much as I don't agree with telling the public things that they may not need to know, the newspaper is not at fault. The robber is.
As was said, in the US, the info needed to commit a crime is usually easily available. It's the person actually choosing to commit the crime who is the criminal. WiGLE, etc. are offering a legal service to those of use who want to use it for legal purposes. If someone chooses to use it for illegal purposes, he is the criminal. Thus is the way in the US.
...And none of us worry too much about having our address w/ the phone listings.
I disagree. Check the phone book again. On a brief look I see about 4 out of 5 have chosen to not have their address listed. Not so much to avoid phone tapping, but to discourage other types of crime. As was also mentioned, WiGLE will remove AP's when requested. Far more responsive than your local phone book and pretty unlikely at all for
Police Call.
Apollyon