NSW Privacy - Party Installed Remote Admin Program Without Permission?

[jacksonec]

Hey everyone,

So I have recently been "connected" to a wifi network of a place I visit regularly. All I was thinking was that they were going to put a wifi password into my laptop and I would be connected. The Internet worked fine and I was happy until I returned home this evening to then realise there had been an application downloaded which is a remote administration tool and is connected to allow at any time for these people to remotely control my laptop and everything on it.

I was not consulted or asked at all about this and I was wondering if this was allowed or should I be confronting these people about this?

Thank you everyone for your time.

 

[Rod]

Not legal and you should ask about it. Keep in mind they may not have installed it, it may have been any other user connected on the Wi-Fi that did it. Or maybe they explained what they were doing, you consented at the time, but didn't understand the implications.

Confrontation is not the way to start the conversation.

 

[Iamthelaw]

It may well be legal.

Are there/were there any terms and conditions present? Have you checked the terms and conditions? Terms would usually be displayed on the login/registration page.

 

[Rod]

Are shrink wrap terms for something serious like this allowed?

 

[Tim W]

I agree with @Iamthelaw.

1. Maybe it wasn't the provider.
   And even if it was...
   
   
2. Chances are, you agreed to it,
   even if it was in very small print, and
   buried deep in the sub-sub-sub paragraphs
   of the T&Cs that most people click right past
   without ever actually reading.
   
   
3. What you thought doesn't matter.
   
   
4. Don't confront people unless you are
   200% sure that you are 300% correct,
   and you have the skills to succeed at it
   (many people think they do, but they are usually mistaken).
   Being surprised, scared, and resentful,
   or suffering free-users aftershock
   doesn't make you correct.
   Nor does it change the law.
   
   

   Are shrink wrap terms for something serious like this allowed?

   This isn't that, even metaphorically.
   And even if it is, then so long as it does not amount to being misleading and deceptive,
   as opposed to merely inconvenient to the user, the format of T&Cs for this kind of service is not regulated.

 

[kimsland]

As a computer Administrator, I can tell you now that WINDOWS (or iMac I suppose) "Allow remote access" is not illegal. And the agreeable policy here is from Microsoft (or Apple or other) where they allow this as an option.

This is not against the law for 'me' to place on anyone's computer that wants to connect to my network.

As for downloading 3rd party stuff or deleting stuff or anything else like this. Then I'd say illegal, unless agreed under TOC. But ticking an OS box configuration settings window? No issue at all.

 

[Rod]

Criminal offense in NSW - Section 308H Computer hacking, includes unauthorised computer access. Goodluck convincing the police you did nothing illegal.

Cth Criminal Code 478.1 includes unauthorised computer access.

LIkely to also be misleading and deceptive conduct under the ACL, also potentially brings in contract law, though in this situation there may not be a contract as there is no consideration.

The fact that you have access does not make it legal when you use it. Just because someone accesses your network, it does not give you rights to then access their computer, or put software on it unless they explicitly agree. I doubt that a court would consider a clickwrap permission as reasonable to use their computer as you see fit. Though case law in this area is still evolving and we need a good test case.

 

[Timnuts]

I'll be your test case I've got;

GPS tracking
Assault
Recording of a phone divice and then passed onto a third party
Key logging and so called admin access
Privacy breach by 2 parties involved
One with the recording and tracking]

And the other gains personal info from Vodafone and is still proclaiming to be my wife still then passing on the info to the police for AVO charges.

And I've got all the evidence to back up literally everything

 

[kimsland]

I'll be your test case I've got;

GPS tracking
Assault
Recording of a phone divice and then passed onto a third party
Key logging and so called admin access
Privacy breach by 2 parties involved
One with the recording and tracking]

And the other gains personal info from Vodafone and is still proclaiming to be my wife still then passing on the info to the police for AVO charges.

And I've got all the evidence to back up literally everything

All that is illegal for even the police to do, without their judge's approval. That test case is over

Regarding a Windows option, agreed upon when accepting the license details on install. I very much doubt a judge would ever prosecute a computer company who has done that without the user's permission.

And let's not add, installing, deleting 3rd party apps, as I (and I believe the Op are not talking about that).