9 ms·
Marriott Hotels fined $600,000 by FCC for jamming Wi-Fi hotspots [pdf]
- Tarang 12y agoSmall/TLDR backstory: Marriott jammed Wifi hotspots and offered its own internet services instead, charging from $250 per device. Source: http://www.slashgear.com/marriott-fined-600000-for-jamming-guest-hotspots-03349010/ http://www.slashgear.com/marriott-fined-600000-for-jamming-g...
- geetee 12y agoIn addition to the $600,000 civil penalty, Marriott will have to cease blocking guests, hand over details of any access point containment features to the FCC across its entire portfolio of owned or managed properties, and finally file compliance and usage reports each quarter for the next three years. And how about refund everyone?
- smackfu 12y agoThat would probably require a class action suit.
- kirillzubovsky 12y agoSome lawyer somewhere is probably already calling up all and every Marriott guest on this planet.
- riazrizvi 12y agoFor the chance to make a couple of million in legal fees, do you blame them?
- toomuchtodo 12y agoI had to support the IT functions of a corporate event at the Gaylord Opryland convention center ~18 months ago. Wouldn't mind joining a class action even if I don't see a dime after attempting to mitigate their wifi interference for a week.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- snowwrestler 12y agoThe power of the class action suit is that you don't need to call everyone up. You just need a representative group of clients (which can be quite small) for standing, and evidence and justification to convince the judge to certify a class. Most folks are not aware they are in a class until they get a letter from the losing company with their $9 check or whatever is left over after lawyer's fees. Edit: forgot a word
- haspoken 12y agoThe FCC thanks you for your generous contribution.
- aeturnum 12y agoProbably not within the powers of the FCC?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- eli 12y agoIt was for exhibitors at the convention hall. That's actually very cheap so far as these things go. You should see what they charge for a trash can or a chair.
- DannyBee 12y agoFWIW: It appears as soon as marriot corporate discovered this, they ordered them not to do it again.
- coleca 12y agoFWIW I have seen this in practice at other convention centers (not owned by Marriott). We attended a convention (as an exhibitor) this year in MN and had to spend $10k for 3 days of Internet connectivity over WiFi. Your choices were to pay (this was the cheapest plan, others went much higher), or use your own. If they caught you using your own, they would block you and shut down your booth at the convention. Their rationale/justification was that because WiFi at scale (40k attendees, couple hundred exhibitors) the MiFis and other hotspots are using the bandwidth that the exhibitors have paid (a lot of money) for and caused issues with their demos (which the attendees paid entry fees to see). Convention centers operate in the world of unrealistically high pricing that is rarely seen outside of airport newsstands . For example, they wanted to charge us $3k for renting a 42" TV for 3 days. We ended up just buying a 27" Thunderbolt display and saved a ton (and had a nice monitor to give to one of our devs after the show).
- AndyNemmity 12y agoI work conferences, and this is totally true about unrealistically high pricing. Although I've never seen paid WiFi... there's usually 2 sets, a public Wifi, and a Wifi for internal for demos.
- nanidin 12y agoAt CES, the company I worked for actually piped wireless signals directly from antenna to antenna with coax cable (or whatever it is that carries the signals from wifi) in order to reduce/eliminate the interference from thousands of other nearby devices.
- ansible 12y agoTheir rationale/justification was that because WiFi at scale (40k attendees, couple hundred exhibitors) the MiFis and other hotspots are using the bandwidth that the exhibitors have paid (a lot of money) for and caused issues with their demos (which the attendees paid entry fees to see). These high-end WiFi systems are expensive to install and administer. But that those prices they were charging, they've paid for the system in, like, the first day. Maybe by lunch time. Conference stuff in general is crazy.
- Dylan16807 12y agoAnd that story is apparently wrong if it was $250 per access point rental, not per device connected.
- digikata 12y agoOn one hand, if it was jamming guest Wifi in hotel rooms it seems Marriott was acting badly. On the other hand, if this is in the context of trying to provision wifi for a conference, where there may be a lot of users packed into a dense space, I'm not so sure it's as bad. Wouldn't outside Wifi routers be fairly disruptive where you're maybe configuring individual conference service routers to lower their power -- to essentially get smaller than normal wifi range 'cells' and serve more users?
- wglb 12y agoI'm not so sure it's as bad. Completely illegal is not bad? Whatever the reason, this is bad.
- djloche 12y agoThere is a clear difference between the two.
- kstrauser 12y agoThe problem is that the FCC says that you can't interfere with legally-operating radio systems. Since conference-goers' Wi-Fi hotspots are operated and licensed under FCC regulation, the hotel had no legal right to block them.
- digikata 12y agoSo legally Marriott was wrong, but from a technical implementation standpoint does this policy lead to fewer users being able to connect to Wifi at a conference? Are the regulations in this case meeting the end goal of the FCC - that good use is being made of the RF space?
- kstrauser 12y agoYou might be right, technically, but I'd much rather have the situation where no parties are allowed to interfere and manufacturers have incentive to develop sharing-friendly systems (spread spectrum, etc.), than the situation where entities can block my Internet access for their own convenience. Were that not the case, I could enter an arms race with my neighbors where we all compete for the strongest Wi-Fi blockers so that our own signal is strongest, perhaps to the point that one of us might get a business-class connection and start allowing paid access to it. "Too bad our block can't use Wi-Fi. Say, neighbor, for $100 a month I bet I could let you share mine."
- Zweihander 12y agoAlmost seems a bit low - thought this was taken 8 figures seriously.
- jastanton 12y agoThis seems more like a slap on the wrist than anything. Especially since they were charging guests up to $1,000 per device to connect to the internet. Wow. Edit: That's the $/connection point not $/guest. That's a bit more reasonable then.
- cnlwsu 12y agoThey may of made more than that since they were charging $250-1000 per device at a convention center
- jxf 12y agoJust to be clear, it was $250 to $1,000 per hotspot/AP that they were charging, not per device. (That is, if your convention needs 3 hotspots, presumably you would pay $750 to $3,000, no matter how many people connected.)
- HeyLaughingBoy 12y agoI don't think it's a slap on the wrist at all. The $600k is probably not a big deal, but now they will have to figure out a process for verifying and reporting compliance across all their US properties. That's likely going to cost a hell of a lot more than the actual fine. Honestly, I figure that just the initial analysis of what they need to do will cost them that much before they actually start hiring personnel and putting the preventive actions in place. Then factor in all the bad press they will get from this and the final bill will be well into the millions.
- enraged_camel 12y agoThis makes me very happy. Even though the amount is fairly small, the ruling establishes a very clear precedent on what is and is not acceptable. I think it would definitely make hotels and convention centers think twice before trying to fleece event attendees with overly expensive Internet connections.
- dedward 12y agoYou can still fleece them, you can still demand they use yours, you can still try all kinds of stuff. You just can't actively jam their use of that spectrum.
- alimoeeny 12y agoWow, don't know why, but if feels good, to see FCC (or any part of government), punish someone who is messing with internet connectivity. I must be very naive in this regard but still feels very good.
- dale386 12y agoMarriot made $11.8 billion in 2012. $600,000 is not an actual punishment.
- pslam 12y ago$600,000 is enough to make the entire venture very much unprofitable. Whoever in the management chain was responsible for this will have trouble meeting their targets, not to mention keeping their job. The PR damage is massive. The FCC has no place setting fines based on the total size of a corporation. It seems rather proportionate to me, given that they were attempting to profit from willful interference, and that's in the ballpark of how much they probably made. I doubt Marriott, or any other major US hotel chain, will ever attempt this again. Seems to me the punishment worked, without having to get dragged into courts, appeals, and legislation if they had, for example, fined them $1 billion.
- delecti 12y agoThe document in question mentions them having over 4,000 managed properties, assuming an average of $1,000/month for each one of those, across the 2 years between October 2012 and now, that's $96,000,000. I seriously doubt $600,000 is enough to make the venture unprofitable. Even if I'm off by two full orders of magnitude it'd still be $960,000, and it's possible I'm undercutting the truth.
- kstrauser 12y agoI think $600,000 for this incident makes the net venture still profitable. I'd bet that $1,800,000 for each future incident (assuming treble damages because they'd already been penalized for this once) would make it very unprofitable very quickly.
- kens 12y agoWhat I find interesting is this isn't jamming of the radio signal, but protocol-level interference by sending deauthentication packets. I find it a little concerning that the law is interpreted this way since it could give the FCC a very broad jurisdiction. More on the law: http://www.fcc.gov/jammers http://www.fcc.gov/jammers More on deauthentication packet jamming: http://hackaday.com/2011/10/04/wifi-jamming-via-deauthentication-packets/ http://hackaday.com/2011/10/04/wifi-jamming-via-deauthentica...
- Retric 12y agoIt's still a broadcast designed to create interference.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- gizmo686 12y agoThe FCC is responsible for allocating what can be broadcast on any given frequency. It is well within their jurisdiction to say that such broadcasts must comply with standard protocol X plus additional restrictions.
- Dylan16807 12y agoIn my mind impersonation/forgery is worse than jamming.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- blhack 12y agoIf you look on the back of your wifi gear, you'll likely see a stamp that says something to the effect of: "This device complies with FCC part 15 and will not cause harmful interference". The argument could be made that by using the device to send lots of deauth packets, that Marriott had modified the device beyond it's original scope, and was now using it to cause harmful interference (to other wifi devices).
- 12y ago
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- minimax 12y agoThis kind of functionality is available in most commercial wirless controller hardware. See e.g. http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/wireless/4400-series-wireless-lan-controllers/112045-handling-rogue-cuwn-00.html#RM http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/wireless/4400-seri... So it's not clear whether Marriott was intentionally being nasty or some over-eager CCNA just turned on all the bells and whistles he could find.
- kens 12y agoGiven the FCC's argument against Marriott, wouldn't it be illegal for Cisco to sell this now? (I'm not a lawyer, but 47 U.S.C. § 302a(b) makes it illegal to manufacture, import, sell, offer for sale, or ship noncompliant devices, and that document describes a feature whose specific purpose is to interfere with WiFi.)
- Someone1234 12y agoIANAL but, it is kind of a grey area. That functionality is only designed to be used on a device which is attempting to spoof you (i.e. a device already disrupting WiFi). So is it a disruption feature if in effect it neutralises disruption when used correctly? As I said, it is a grey area.
- tjohns 12y agoInterestingly enough, Cisco's own docs mention that there are some legal issues, especially when used against neighboring networks: > "Containment can have legal implications when launched against neighboring networks. Ensure that the rogue device is within your network and poses a security risk before you launch the containment." The wording in the FCC Consent Decree in this case suggests that this feature would actually have been okay if it was being used against actively hostile networks: > "Specifically, such employees had used this capability to prevent users from connecting to the Internet via their own personal Wi-Fi networks when these users did not pose a threat to the security of the Gaylord Opryland network or its guests."
- dedward 12y ago
- joosters 12y agoI find it ironic that it's always the expensive hotels that charge for wifi while the cheaper places mostly give it away for free. I guess business customers are more happy to pay since they can expense it.
- WaxProlix 12y agoI read somewhere (HN, maybe?) that the high-end hotels were the first to adopt, before the market for these things was well fleshed out, and often ended up in absurd, long-term contracts with 3rd party services/providers. That, combined with the fact that, yes, businessfolk will just expense it, leads to the current situation.
- gonzo 12y agoI was the founding CTO and VP of Engineering at Wayport (now AT&T WiFi Services.) The answer is really, "because they are rapacious".
- stevenjohns 12y agoYou're more or less right. I used to work for a fairly large hotel chain that would charge ridiculous amounts for internet. Thinking back it wasn't too ridiculous (certainly not 10k for 3 days as someone said above) but it was still a high price. The only people to really use the service were business people, and they'd always charge it back to their companies. The WiFi itself was merely a luxury we offered to encourage business people to stay in the properties because "WiFi available" made for better advertisements.
- ubernostrum 12y agoThe "10k for 3 days" is not the type of charge for a guest using wifi in a room. It's the type of charge for a large event using wifi in the hotel's convention/conference center. And that number is not so far off what a lot of places charge for such things.
- 12y ago
- jawns 12y agoOne thing I'm curious about: If it's just actively jamming hotspots that got the hotel in trouble, couldn't hotels instead use physical materials to construct conference centers with limited signal? Like, I know whenever I go into my local supermarket, I'm lucky if I can get a signal once I venture past the front door. There's no active jamming going on; it's just the way the building is constructed (I assume). If hotels really want to force their own Wi-Fi on people, couldn't they do the same thing -- make use of physical impediments?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- csbrooks 12y agoI'm guessing, but that might be a few orders of magnitude more expensive than just using a jamming device.
- btouellette 12y agoIt isn't really in their interest to have cell phones not work in any of their conference rooms. I imagine a lot of people (and businesses) would very quickly start booking elsewhere if they did that.
- mikefivedeuce 12y agoMost hotels that host business meetings or have many business travelers will install small cell distributed antennae systems to boost cell and data coverage because business travelers who don't have service in the rooms won't come back to the hotel.
- Someone1234 12y agoThat would also block cellular signals. Which might be a detriment or an additional "feature" depending on your perspective. I personally wouldn't book a conference center which didn't allow the use of cellphones. Just too impractical as a lot of people use them as de facto 2 way radios (e.g. the people setting up booths, employees of the conference center, security, et al).
- qq66 12y agoIs it any surprise that companies act like this? They're rarely punished for malfeasance, and when they are the penalty is barely noticeable. It's like putting someone in front of a big trough of money and allowing them to take as much as they want, with the caveat that every few months they will get a mosquito bite.
- joesmo 12y agoI'm not surprised. Marriott hotels will do anything for a dollar, including turning off the air conditioning to both of their hotels (4 and 5 star) in Cancun, Mexico (a rather hot and humid location) while denying that they had done so.
- Istof 12y agohopefully they made less then $600,000 in profits from their access points...
- vaadu 12y agoMarriot should have been required to reimburse everyone that paid $250 for a hotspot.
- tvhiggins 12y agoGov't lets them pay via credit card? ridiculous govt waste
- mbreese 12y agoJust in case it's not clear from the link/comments, the "jamming" happened at one convention location (Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee). It seems that the convention center was blocking mobile hotspots in an effort to control the Wi-Fi traffic in the center, possibly so that they could charge for their in-house Wi-Fi. This doesn't seem to have been a widespread issue or an issue for hotel guests. However, I suspect that this is a common practice among convention centers and that the main point of this action by the FCC was to put everyone on notice that this is not acceptable behavior.
- xenophonf 12y agoInteresting that sending de-auth packets to shut down rogue (from Marriott's viewpoint) wireless access points resulted in this fine. I mean, this is a standard feature of your average wireless intrusion prevention system. We have something similar set up to control unauthorized or inappropriate network access, because end users attaching their own networking equipment (and breaking our network as a result) is a real problem for us.
- xenophonf 12y agoI just checked our Meraki configs, and we don't have containment enabled. If we were to enable it, the only option we'd have would be to disable rogue WAPs attached to our network. That's materially different from interfering with other people's hotspots in my mind.
- cesarb 12y agoWould 802.11w have protected the guest from this?
- gordon_freeman 12y agoso I did some calculation here: the fine seems way to small for the number of people the issue might have been affected. -- If Marriott charged minimum $250 for its own wifi then ($600,000/$250), it paid the fine equaling to 2400 guests. -- If Marriott charged maximum $1000 for its own wifi then ($600,000/$1000), it paid the fine equaling to only 600 guests. Seems to me that Marriott got away very cheaply.
- icebraining 12y agoThis was at a single convention center, so 2400 guests doesn't seem that little. Also, $250 is the price, not the profit margin.
- samim 12y agothey should of used a cyborg unplug hardware anti-surveillance device instead of a jammer: https://plugunplug.net/ https://plugunplug.net/ it uses FCC approved hardware and blocks devices based on mac-addresses
- TD-Linux 12y agoThis would still be illegal to use on customer APs.
- sauere 12y agoMight be a stupid question, but: how did they do this? I mean their own WiFi must have been operating on the same frequencies (2,4Ghz band as the personal hotspots ), wouldn't a jammer also disrupt their own signal? /edit: i see, deauthentication packets.
- FireBeyond 12y agoThe devices promiscuously listen for MAC addresses, and only send de-auth packets to those which aren't white-listed or already connected directly to it, so any packets they see flying around are targeted.
- Lord_Zero 12y agoIts crazy to me how this would even happen. I just imagine an upper manager/exec going "Man, if we could only just jam existing WiFi hotspots and force people into our own for absurd prices. Yeah that doesn't sound the least bit illegal whatsoever."
- ape4 12y agoThe decision says: "Wi-Fi is an essential on-ramp to the Internet" oh thanks for explaining it in electronic superhighway terms. Now I understand.
- transpy 12y agoI'm never sure how to understand fines like this one. I don't believe they actually pay that money. Why aren't there follow-up stories that explain how the payment process was like? Do the deposit the money? They write a check? How on Earth is this enforced? What about transparency? Where can citizens check that the money was indeed paid and how it is being used? With such large amounts of money, corruption must be an issue.